Papal Blessing for the United States
CARDINAL FARLEY brings back to this country from Pope Benedict XV the following: "My most cordial benediction to America, whose citizens and institutions I have always admired. Tell them they shall always be close to my heart. Tell America and the whole world to pray for peace." The growing ascendancy of the papacy throughout the world, and particularly the strength that it is gaining in the United States, is a thing that all students of the Bible should carefully watch and closely study. The Bible, without any question, shows that a world-wide triumph of the papacy is one of the very last links in the great chain of prophetic utterances. The majority of Catholics are educated in that faith from babyhood, and their prejudices are such that it is only to be expected that at first they might feel hard toward the thought that great portions of the Bible prophecies pertain to their religious system. But these same prophecies utter a strong invitation from God Himself to "come out of her, My people." So God has many people that He recognizes as His in that great communion; and He invites them to study His word for themselves, to see if these things be not true. The individual may depend upon it that God's Holy Spirit will accompany His word as we personally study it. It will not do for us to leave these matters to the priest, the minister, or any one else. We must know God's truth for ourselves. Our prejudices, or our peculiar views, will not change God's truth nor God's prophecies. Hence our need of praying to be delivered from the chains of prejudice, and to make a personal study of the divine Book, whether we be Protestant or Catholic, or whatever may be our persuasion.