Prediction, Fulfillment.—This is the way the Christian Statesman of November 4 congratulates itself over the World's Fair Sunday muddle:—
By Editor
Roman Catholic Love of America.—There are many expressions of this; we will consider but one, that of Monsignor Satolli, the papal ablegate, at the Catholic Congress in Chicago. He thus points out the duty of Roman Catholics:— To-day it is the duty of Catholics to bring into the world the fullness of supernatural truth and supernatural life. This is especially the duty of a Catholic congress. There are nations who are never separated from the church, but which have neglected often to apply in full degree the lessons of the gospel. There are nations who have gone out from the church, bringing with them many of her treasures, and because of what they have brought yet show virgin light; but, cut off from the source, unless that source is brought into close contact with them, there is danger for them. Bring them in contact with those divine forces by your actions and by your teachings. Bring your fellow-countrymen back; bring your country into immediate connection with the great source of truth and light, and the blessed influence of Christ and Christ's church. And in this manner shall it come to pass that the words of the Psalmist shall be fulfilled, "Mercy and justice have you one with another; justice and peace prevail." The best picture of "the fullness of supernatural truth and supernatural life" which the Roman Catholic Church has furnished is the long drama of death and persecution of the Dark Ages. It is also well to note the progress of those nations which have never separated from Rome. Behold Austria and Italy and Spain. Compare them with Germany and England. Turn to the New World. Behold the loyal Roman Catholic South American States. Compare them with this country and nation. What has made the difference but the bondage to the Papacy and the rule of the priest? Yes, bring this country into "immediate connection with" the Church of Rome, and the Dark Ages are reproduced, and the peace will be the peace of the lamb within the lion, and the justice such as Rome has always meted out to "heretics." And to this end the steps of America are rapidly tending. Blind "Protestants" are being led to their own destruction, and they know it not. In closing Satolli said:— Go forward, in one hand bearing the book of Christian truth and in the other the Constitution of the United States. This means—well, let the history of Roman domination throughout her career show what it means. Rome must put down what she deems heresy, if she has the power, whatever constitutions may exist. Intolerance is a logical sequence of her principles.35 Prediction, Fulfillment.—This is the way the Christian Statesman of November 4 congratulates itself over the World's Fair Sunday muddle:—
Vexatious as are the serpentine twistings of the World's Fair management, we should not belittle our six great victories by forgetting that we have been defeated only in skirmishes on legal technicalities, which will be forgotten when, at the end of the nineteenth century, we recall as among its greatest moral triumphs that Congress passed the Sabbath-closing law by a three-fourths vote, and later killed the proposed repeal in committee; that the federal court, on the only occasion when the main question was before the courts, decided for the Sabbath; that "our friends, the enemy," gave us the greatest victory of all in the failure of Sunday opening through the covering of exhibits of the rich and the nonattendance of the poor; that the national commission and local directory at last were constrained by public sentiment to almost unanimous votes for the Sabbath. These six victories are vividly called up by the news that two of the five million half dollars are to go back to the mint to be recoined into common half dollars, because so few want any souvenir of the frauds associated with the government's gift to the Exposition. Of course, as regards the morality of the question, it has none. The very spirit of the mystery of iniquity is in the whole of this Sunday legislation. A victory, a great victory, has indeed been won by the Sunday-law people, if that can be called a victory which commits the government to religious legislation, and, what is sure to follow, religious tyranny and persecution. As to the exhibit of the American Sunday the whole thing was true to the letter. But what we were about to remark was that every "victory" that has been won for Sunday, we have predicted many times. And yet we take no credit to ourselves for farsightedness. God's word has predicted it, and Rome has demonstrated in her history the end of the repetition of that history down here. But why, oh, why will not the followers of Christ see this?