THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF CATHOLIC SOCIETIES.
IN this issue will be found the first instalment of one report on the above organization. In publishing this and the articles which may accompany it, we know we are risking the friendship of many of our readers who are in sympathy with Roman Catholics, or are Protestant Catholics. We ask all such to hear us patiently, considering what we have to say, and weigh well the evidence of history and Holy Scripture. LET us here say at the outset that we have naught against a single Roman Catholic in the world from Pope Pius X. to the last convert in New Guinea. WE believe that the Roman Catholic has as good a right to espouse his religion and teach it as any soul upon earth, and no more. He has the fullest rights to dissent from, protest against, and by proper arguments and methods oppose any other religion upon earth. And he claims this. BUT any other soul on earth has a wholly equal right to espouse his religion, of either positives or negatives, as has the Roman Catholic. Any other man, whatsoever his belief, or non-belief, has the fullest right to dissent from, protest against, and by proper arguments and methods to maintain his own views and to oppose the Roman Catholic or any other religion upon earth. In other words the Catholic and the non-Catholic are equal in this respect before God, and should be so before the law. These rights are natural and unalienable. No man can of right be deprived of them, nor has he power to barter them away. MORE than this: If a man truly believes in these rights, he holds them not for himself, but for his opponent. He believes in the other man's right to think and pray and preach for himself within the bounds of civility. IT is the crowning glory of the Christian religion, the religion of the Bible, that it does not compel, coerce, or seek in any way to bind or dethrone the conscience of men. That conscience may be all wrong, the majority may be all in the right, but the majority of either numbers or might have no right to bind or coerce a single soul. Listen to Him whose life alone has the right to condemn all unrighteousness: "If any man hear My words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." John 12:47. Listen to the great apostle to the Gentiles: "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." 2 Cor. 5:11. "Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand." 2 Cor. 1:24. Listen to the bold disciple Peter, in his instruction to those who have charge of the flock: "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock." 1 Peter 5:2, 3. THE only thing, therefore, that the civil law should jealously guard is not the religion or the religious dogmas and institutions held by any man as sacred, but the rights of the individual, be he Catholic or Protestant, Mohammedan or Jew. For when the rights of the individual are guarded, the rights of all are guarded and protected in him. For these rights for all we contend. A religion that has not within itself sufficient preservative power deserves to die. WHATEVER we may have to say as to Roman Catholic aims, objects, and principles is in harmony with the foregoing. We plead for the man Catholic, but we can not indorse his principles of the relationship between the church and the state, because we believe these principles to contravene the liberty which is consonant to the Gospel of Christ; because we believe them to be subversive of the best interests of the church and state. And our whole aim is to warn him and all others of the fearful outcome of such principles, and to persuade him, if possible, to accept in their stead the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ.