The Danger of Papal Favor
One of the characteristic tendencies of these days is expressed by a local religious paper when, in referring to the high price paid to the Catholic friars for their lands in the Philippines, it says: "But it is worth something to the government to have the matter settled and to retain the good-will of the pope." It is a well-established fact that governments do not have the good-will of the pope unless there is something in their policy that is decidedly favorable to the aims of the Catholic Church. There is something wrong in a government that bids for the favor of the Papacy, and there is something suspicious in the professed Protestantism that can imagine that there is anything to be gained by basking in the good-will of the "man of sin." The prophecy is clear that "all that dwell on the earth shall worship him [the papal "beast," or power], every one whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain." Rev. 13:8. This is to be the culmination of the matter, and the thought that the enjoyment of the good will of that power is a condition to be desired, is a long step toward the danger line.