CATHOLICISM AND HEATHENISM.
By George
IN coupling these two ideas for comparison, we do so on the authority of a leading Catholic journal, the "official organ of the archdiocese of Baltimore." In support of the claim that the Catholic religion must take a firmer hold of the Japanese than any other form of Christianity, a contributor to the Catholic Mirror says: Of all forms and expressions of Christianity, Catholicism is the only one which would be likely to meet with permanent acceptance by the people so mentally constituted as the Japanese. The experience of a recent English writer, who enjoyed exceptional advantages of studying the country and the people, and whose book is an admirable impressionist description of Japan and the Japanese, endorses this view. The religion, such as it is, of the Japanese has far more points of contact with Catholic belief than it has with Protestantism. Prayer for the dead, which with us is a link that unites the Church Militant with the Church Suffering, has, to a certain extent, its counterpart in Buddhist requiem services. This Buddhist and spiritist doctrine is further indorsed as follows: The loving recollection of the dead is deeply rooted in the hearts of the Japanese, and has often smoothed the way for Catholic teaching. . . . The Japanese believe that those who die beloved, and for whom remembrance is constantly made, do not suffer in the shadowy place of Meido, that home of departed spirits, which is not a prison, and from which they constantly come to visit the living, to protect and comfort the bereaved. The pure Shinto form of religion forbids funeral pomp, but enjoins the use of white robes, white woods, quantities of flowers, everything simple and cheering; just as white, instead of mourning black, is customary at a Catholic child's obsequies in the West. The boast over Protestants, in the advantage the Catholics have in appealing to heathen forms already in vogue in Japan, is evidence of a feeling of security because of a fundamental kinship to Buddhism. Here it is in brief, altho the author elaborates it to quite an extent: Protestantism, compared with Catholicity, must strike the Japanese, imbued with mystical beliefs expressed in a ritual that appeals to the imagination and the heart, as cold, unemotional, and repellant. We do not refer to these admissions as anything new. It is the principle through which Catholicism evolved from the gradual apostasy of the church in the second to the fourth centuries. Compromising with Paganism, many of the festivals and ceremonies of the heathen were engrafted into the church in order to "smooth the way" for the heathen to become nominal Christians. In this way came Sunday observance, Easter, Christmas, etc., together with image worship, the mass, and almost every feature of Roman Catholic worship. But this is not all; Protestants are adopting the same principle with regard to Catholic festivals and dogmas. And for this same reason Spiritism—which has its root in the immortal-soul doctrine—and the principle of church and state union are permeating nearly all the professedly-Protestant churches of our land. This is apparently the back-slidden Protestant manner of competing with Rome among the "heathen," but it will finally result in the absorption by Rome of all who adopt her dogmas and festivals and methods. God has revealed it that "all the world" will "wonder after" that power, and "worship" it, excepting those whose names are written in the book of life. Rev. 13: 1-8; 17:8. And they that have right to the tree of life are accredited with keeping "the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12; 22:14.