The American Sentinel and the Prohibition Party.
By A. T. J.
Not long since one of the editors of the SENTINEL made a speech in San Diego, Cal., on religious legislation in general, and Senator Blair’s proposed National Sunday Law, and religious amendment to the Constitution, in particular. We gave a sketch of the theocratical workings of the church, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Prohibition party, with the National Reform Association, and the aim of the National Reformers to hand over the whole thing to the Papacy as soon as the Papacy is ready. The San Diego Sun stated that in this we “assumed what every member of these organizations will promptly deny.” We do not think that the statement of facts can rightly be considered assumption. As to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, we gave our position in regard to that in our issue for September; we wish now to show that when we name the Prohibition party in the same category we assume nothing. It cannot be denied that the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the National Reform Association are pledged to the establishment of a theocracy in this country. Nor can it be denied that the Prohibition party is inseparably connected with both the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the National Reform Association. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union demands the ballot in the hands of women, in order to establish a theocracy; the Prohibition party is pledged to secure the ballot in the hands of women; therefore the Prohibition party is pledged to the establishment of this woman-made theocracy. In order to establish a theocracy, the National Reform Association demands a constitutional amendment empowering Congress to legislate in religious things; a leading Prohibitionist—Senator Blair—proposes in Congress just such an amendment, accompanied by a bill legislating upon things pertaining to God; and the Lever, in commending the “moral element” in the make-up of the Prohibition party, “the foundation” for which is laid in the recognition of “Almighty God as the source of all power in government,” says:— “At this point the Prohibition party stands out in bold contrast with the old parties. It recognizes the authority of God in human government, and proposes that all legislation shall be in harmony with Christian morality.” This is precisely what the National Reform party and the aim of the National Reform Association are identical. And besides this the National Reformers have pledged themselves to join hands with the Catholic Church as soon as she is ready. More than this, this is only that at which the Papacy itself is aiming in this country. Pope Leo XIII. commands that,— “All Catholics should do all in their power to cause the constitutions of States, and legislation, to be modeled on the principles of the true church.” Senator Blair’s constitutional amendment and religious legislation are modeled exactly “on the principles of the true church;” and the Prohibition party is pledged to such legislation; therefore the aim of the Prohibition party and the aim of the Catholic Church, so far as religious legislation is concerned, are identical. And they are working together to secure it. At the county Prohibition convention for Tulare County, Cal., held in Tulare City not long ago, a Catholic priest was introduced by a Methodist minister, and made a strong speech and offered the Catholic Church free to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, at any time, to hold their Prohibition unions in. About the same time a Catholic priest spoke in a Prohibition convention in Los Angeles, in which he made most prominent the necessity for religious legislation, particularly in regard to enforcing the observance of “the Lord’s day,” as Senator Blair’s Sunday Bill provides. These things greatly please the Prohibition party, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and the—Catholic Church. Now we would like for some Prohibitionist to tell just about how much any advocacy of Prohibition by the Catholic Church is worth, while everybody knows that there is not a saloon keeper in all the land who cannot keep a saloon and be a member of the Catholic Church as long as he lives, and (if he pays money enough) go straight through purgatory without even getting scorched, when he dies. We can tell what it is worth, and that is, just what influence and support the Catholic Church can get out of the Prohibitionists in accomplishing the Papal scheme of causing “the constitutions of States, and legislation, to be modeled on the principles of the true church.” That is what it is worth, and that is all it is worth. But if the Prohibitionists think that a safe investment, they have vastly more confidence in the wheedling charms of the Papacy than we have. For we never can74 “The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved that polity [of Rome] to such perfection that, among the contrivances for deceiving and oppressing mankind, it occupies the highest place.”—Essays Von Ranke. “Rev.” “Sam.” Small, the associate revivalist with “Sam” Jones, was Secretary of the National Prohibition Convention, held at Indianapolis. And what he wants to see, as stated in his own words at Kansas City, last winter, is this:— “I want to see the day come when the church shall be the arbiter of all legislation, State, National, and municipal; when the great churches of the country can come together harmoniously and issue their edict, and the legislative powers will respect it and enact it into laws.” Was ever the Papacy more than that? Did ever the Papacy ask more than that? Could it ask more? From these evidences it is plain that the Prohibition party, as it is, is set for the establishment of a religious despotism of which the Papacy shall be at least a part. And whoever works for, or votes, the Prohibition ticket, works and votes for the establishment of such a despotism. The following letter, from a prominent Prohibitionist in an Eastern State, but who does not work for the Prohibition party as at present constituted, is sound and to the point: “The church may adopt any form of government for itself that it chooses, but must keep hands off the civil Government. The worst despotism the world ever experienced was under a theocracy. The church party, misnamed Prohibition party, seeks to proselyte and carry on a religious crusade under the guise of a so-called political party. Put that party in power, and the priest and minister would supersede the judge, the jury would disappear, civil courts would give place to ecclesiastical courts, the public court room to the star chamber, the ordinary jail to the inquisition. “My vote, and my voice, shall ever be for a free, civil, enlightened, and progressive Government. “I am a dyed-in-the-wool Prohibitionist, and daily practice what I preach, but do not belong to the clerical party.” This letter exactly expresses the views of the SENTINEL. The AMERICAN SENTINEL is entirely and consistently in favor of Prohibition; but it is not in any sense in favor of religious legislation. What we here say is not against Prohibition, but against the religious legislation element, the Church and State element, in the Prohibition party and in the Prohibition platform. Opposition to Church and State was hissed and yelled down in the California State Prohibition Convention of 1888. And a consistent Prohibitionist told the Prohibition party in that same convention, that if they went into the campaign with the platform as it is, “they would have to pass half the time in convincing the people that it was not a religious movement.” The Prohibition party, both State and National, have gone into the campaign with that very platform, and that party may spend all the time in the endeavor, but it can never convince any thinking person that it is not a religious movement. The Prohibition movement as it is now manifested in the Prohibition party, and under its present platform, is nothing else than a religious movement; and that is only what the majority of the preachers, whether Protestant or Catholic, have in view who are making themselves so prominent in behalf of Prohibition—they are only making Prohibition the stepping-stone to religious legislation, and the establishment of their own power by it. And in view of the ecclesiastical engineering of the Prohibition party, Dean Milman’s weighty words are of living importance to every American citizen: “In proportion as ecclesiastics become co-legislators, heresies become civil crimes and liable to civil punishments.” The AMERICAN SENTINEL is in favor of prohibition everywhere and all the time; but it is not in favor of religious legislation anywhere at any time. We would shut the saloon everywhere and forever, not because it is irreligious nor because it is violative of the law of God, for with such reasons the civil power can have nothing to do, but because it is uncivil. If the saloon were only irreligious, or were only violative of the law of God, the State would have no right to interfere with it to any extent whatever. But as it is essentially uncivil, the State can and ought to abolish it entirely, yet never with any question as to whether or not it is irreligious or violative of the law of God. We would shut the saloon for the same reason that we prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons. We know there are many Prohibitionists who, like the correspondent whose words we have quoted, are as much opposed to religious legislation, or priests in politics, or churches in civil affairs, as we are; we know that in the California State Prohibition Convention there were powerful speeches made against the Church and State element in the Prohibition party; but that element carried the day, and that element rules in the so-called Prohibition party; and whoever would not help forward the union of Church and State, and the establishment of a religious despotism in this Nation, should be as far as the East is from the West from voting the present Prohibition ticket, or working in any way for the Prohibition party as it is. The Corruption of National Religion
By Jenyns
THE moment any religion becomes national, or established, its purity must certainly be lost, because it is then impossible to keep it unconnected with men's interests; and if connected, it must inevitably be perverted by them.—Jenyns. The National Reform Association held a National Conference at Philadelphia, April 24-26. In speaking of it, and the aims of the Association, the National Baptist, of May 3, says:— “In their specific aims and methods, we find it impossible to agree. Their great aim is ‘to make the Government conform to the principles of Christianity. This they propose to accomplish by putting into the Constitution a declaration of religious belief. They hold that this was founded as a Christian Government, that Christianity is a part of the common law, and some among them hold that this is not only a Christian but a Protestant Government. They hold further that the public schools, founded and sustained by the State, must teach with more or less fullness the principles and practice of religion. “From all these views, we dissent wholly. We believe that government is secular; it is designed for one express object, and it ceases to be beneficial and efficient for this object, just in proportion as it is used for some other end. The agency divinely designed for teaching religion is the Christian church, not the State nor the public school. “The dictum that the Christian religion is a part of the common law is expressly denied by not a few eminent jurists. If the dictum were granted, it would be harmless only by being nugatory. If it means anything it means that no one but a Christian can have any power, or in fact any standing, under the Government. In a Christian church, no one but a Christian has any standing room. Does not the same hold if the State be Christian? But if a Jew were elected president would anyone claim that he must not be inaugurated.” The Catholic Review on Sunday.
THE Catholic Church is ready with its advice on the Sunday issue. Some time ago the Catholic Review said to the workingmen:— “The time is near at hand when those who have so warmly advocated eight hours as a workman's day, will find it necessary to agitate for six days as a workman's week. If the labor organizations are really anxious for an issue on which they can have the help of the vast majority of the American people, let them take up this of Sunday labor. They will find enormous obstacles to contend with in the widespread avarice of the non-Catholic workingmen as well as of the capitalists. If the limit of a day's labor to eight hours is calculated to restrain the over-production to which they object, the cessation of Sunday labor, which is now carried on to an extent enormously in excess of what the general public is disposed to believe, would exercise a still further restraint in this direction. If the labor associations are sincere in their professions, they will find that temperance—if not total abstinence—on all days of the week, and the Christian observance of the Lord's day, will tend greatly to diminish many of the evils of which they justly complain.” Rome and the Public Schools.
By A. T. J.
One day in the late Convention of the National Educational Association, Professor Morgan, of Rhode Island, in replying to criticisms upon the public school, said that the opposition to the public schools comes from Roman Catholicism. The next day the following “open letter to the heads of the departments of the National Educational Association,” appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. The writer is chancellor of the archdiocese of San Francisco:— GENTLEMEN: When the National Educational Convention, now in session in this city, and over which you preside, began its work, we were told that the great object of the convention was in the assembled wisdom of numbers to compare methods, to interchange ideas, and unify the best methods of promoting the object of the public schools. We were naturally led to suppose that one other object would be carefully kept in view, namely, to maintain inviolate the boasted characteristic of the public-school system of this country, namely, its non-sectarian character. Now, gentlemen, while these expectations were most reasonable, I beg to express what I believe to be the feeling of the great Catholic body of this community, including, I feel assured, every Catholic teacher in that convention, whether living here or coming hither from elsewhere, namely, our utter amazement at seeing your sessions regularly opened with prayer by Protestant ministers, representing the various Protestant denominations of this city. This we might have tolerated to gratify those who delight to pray in public places, but we certainly cannot permit to go, without a respectful protest, such remarks as the following. I quote from this evening’s Bulletin. The report given of the gentlemen’s words is substantially the same in the Post and the Report. Prof. Thomas J. Morgan, of Rhode Island, said:— “This rising opposition to the public schools comes from Roman Catholicism, and this opposition means nothing but their destruction—with them a destruction of our civilization, of our liberties, a return to the horrors of the Middle Ages.” It is stated that these words were received with cheers and with hisses, but it is not said that these sentiments were repudiated by your presiding officer. Perhaps it was not his duty to do so. But if not, it is due the public to say that these sentiments are an insult to, and an outrage upon, the feelings of half the community in which this convention is sitting; an outrage upon the feelings of a large number of teachers composing that convention; an insult to the largest body of Christians in this great and free country, where, until now, it was supposed that no law, not even a school law, should operate or permit such insult. Since the Catholic body of this75country pays more taxes than any other body of Christians to support these schools, shall we then be insulted and outraged and have no means of redress? I ask the fair-minded of every shade of opinion if this is not true. It is not true that “this rising opposition to the public-school system comes from Roman Catholicism” alone. Some of the best and purest men and the ablest and profoundest thinkers outside of Roman Catholicism are as much opposed to it as Catholicism is. Gentlemen, is it fair, is it honest, to oblige teachers to attend that convention under pain of incurring the displeasure of the School Board, and thus insult them in this way? I ask the heads of this convention to answer. San Francisco, July 19, 1888. The following is Professor Morgan’s reply:— To the Editor of the Chronicle—SIR: Will you kindly allow me space for a very brief reply to Rev. Father Montgomery’s “protest” against my remarks yesterday, which you publish today? I assume all responsibility for my utterances and do not wish “the heads of departments” to be censured for what I have said. I wish, however, to disclaim any intention of “insulting” my Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. Some of the best friends I have in the world are Roman Catholics. If in the hurry of a three-minute utterance on a great theme I used any words that could be regarded as insulting, I greatly regret it. The point I wanted to make was this: I was asked, What answer can we give to the criticism made upon the public schools that they fail to cultivate the religious sentiment or to teach morality? My reply was that a part of this criticism comes from the Roman Catholics, and I asserted that the Catholics who make it would be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of the public schools and the substitution therefor of parochial schools. In other words, the charge that the public schools are “godless” means that they are not Roman Catholic, and should be destroyed. Not to multiply authorities, let me cite the words of Rev. F. T. McCarthy, S. J., used in a sermon reported in the Boston Journal, December 23, 1887. He says the public-school system “is a national fraud.” “It must cease to exist, and the day will come when it will cease to exist.” “There are some 8,000,000 Catholics in the United States, and they protest against this institution.” “It is subversive of the rights of the individual, subversive of the rights of the family, subversive of the rights of religion, and subversive of the divine rights of God himself.” The States “have no right to educate.” “God never gave a commission to the State to educate.” He asserts that if Catholics patronize the “godless” public schools, when they have other schools to send to, “they are guilty of mortal sin.” The priest, whose words I am quoting, declares that he is not “giving his opinion,” but laying down “the teachings of the church.” I respectfully submit that if Rev. Mr. McCarthy correctly represents the Catholics then they are in favor of the absolute overthrow of the American public-school system, and the criticism on the schools that they are godless is not made with a view of improving them, but is intended to undermine and destroy them. As a teacher, a member and an officer of the National Educational Association; as a friend of the public-school system; as one who believes that our free Government rests upon the virtue and intelligence of our people—I felt at liberty when called upon to answer the grave criticism made upon our schools, to point out the animus of the criticism, so that we may know for what we are contending. If Father Montgomery and the Catholics of the Pacific Coast agree with Father McCarthy, of Boston, I do not see that they have anything to complain of in what I have said. If, however, they do not accept his teachings, if they are the friends of the public schools, no one will rejoice over that fact more sincerely than I will. Thomas J. Morgan. San Francisco, July 19, 1888. We shall not attempt to add anything to Professor Morgan’s reply, as to the merits of the case; but there are two expressions used by the priest to which we would call attention for a moment. The first of these is that in which he speaks repeatedly of Professor Morgan’s words being an “insult and an outrage.” Priest Montgomery knows that the Professor states the fact. Priest Montgomery, and everybody else, knows that Roman Catholicism, everywhere and always, is opposed to our public-school system. Everybody knows that Professor Morgan stated the fact. And it is neither an insult nor an outrage publicly to state what is publicly known. The priest says there are some outside of Roman Catholicism who “are as much opposed to it [the public school] as Catholicism is.” Whoever outside of Roman Catholicism opposes the public-school system is but a Roman Catholic in disguise, for the principle of his opposition is essentially Roman Catholic. More than this, nine-tenths of those who oppose the public-school system, outside of the Catholic Church, do so expressly to please the Catholics and so secure their co-operation in carrying into operation certain religio-political schemes which both have in view, and which will end in that which Roman Catholicism has long desired—the destruction of the American public-school system. The other expression is that in which the priest says that “to gratify those who love to pray in public places,” the Roman Catholics “might have tolerated” the opening of the sessions of the convention “with prayer by Protestant ministers, representing the various Protestant denominations.” Mr. Montgomery should be told that the American people know no such word as “tolerate.” “What other nations call religious toleration we call religious rights.” That Educational Convention had the right to have its sessions opened with prayer by anybody whom it should choose, or opened without prayer at all, just as it should choose. And when Mr. Montgomery talks of “tolerating” it, he casts a slur upon every man who has any respect for himself. In 1827 Lord Stanhope said: “The time was when toleration was craved by dissenters as a boon; it is now demanded as a right; but a time will come when it will be spurned as an insult.” That time has now come. And every man who is acquainted with the true principle of liberty will consider it an insult when anybody, be he so-called Protestant or straight-out Catholic, proposes any such thing as religious “toleration.” The vocabulary of American ideas knows no such word as “toleration;” it asserts RIGHTS. A. T. J. POLITICAL courage is a quality which in the present day seems to be applied only to the heroes of the past. We revere the sterling bravery of Washington, the calm determination of Lincoln, and the dogged tenacity of Grant, but when we look about us to-day, to whom of our leading men can we apply the epithet “courageous”? In a democracy, of all forms of government, courage is the quality above all others which should command the respect of the people and lead to successful results. In a government of the people the man should rule who has the courage of his convictions, and will boldly outline a policy and defend his views to the end. Unfortunately, in the anomalous condition of the politics of this country, the man who is usually most successful is he who best understands the manipulation of the factions, and not he who throws down the gauntlet of his convictions and stands ready to champion his views without regard to personal expediency or consequence. This is an age of little men and tricksters; the great leaders of the past decade are fast disappearing, and those who survive have passed the time of political activity. . . . The political developments of late years tend to show that the less courage a man possesses the more sure he is of political preferment. The man who stands for his convictions is respected for his bravery by the honorable, thinking members of the community; but the party managers will have none of him, as he is sure to be offensive to this faction, or cannot be manipulated by that clique. The man with a record must of necessity have made enemies, and for that reason is considered an impossible political candidate. By the time a man has been found who is unobjectionable to the Fiji element—who is sure of the Hottentot vote, and can command the support of the Hindoo influence—all that remains is a mediocral negation as much resembling the ideal statesman as the fabled ass in the lion’s skin is like to the monarch of the forest. Pure partisanship is always the most circumspect of courses, and the only road to greatness is to strike out a bold and independent line of conduct. Parties are the exponents of principles, and leaders must be the inaugurators of progression, else party and leaders will sink into negative inaction. . . . This lack of courage amongst politicians does not signify that the American nation is without courageous men; it merely means that under the influence of our heterogeneous democracy the politicians have constructed a monstrous bugbear, in the form of what they are pleased to term public opinion, and which, to their view, possesses as many eyes as Argus, each ready to scrutinize every act which may be considered offensive to the multifold interests of the community. So accustomed are politicians to cower before this self-constructed terror of public opinion—which, in reality, is but the divisional interests of the machine managers—that they dare not risk initiating a new policy, which they believe to be essential to the nation’s safety, and progressive76enough to depart from the stereotyped traditions of their partisan organization. Democracy itself is not responsible for this state of affairs, as the real public opinion—and by this is meant the view of the nation at large—is quick to praise any aggressive action tending toward needed reform; but the political oligarchy which stands between the people and the would-be reformer has so surrounded itself with demagogical power that it unhesitatingly slaughters any would-be reformer before he can appear before the people and demand their suffrage.—America. The Papistic Element in the National Reform Movement.
The Christian Statesman, organ of the National Reform Association, puts forth a full-fledged Papistic theory, in an editorial upon “The Sabbath and Its Legal Safeguards.” It asserts that all “intelligent and earnest friends” of Sunday should unite to accomplish the following points:— “1. To the maintenance of every right and wise safeguard of the Sabbath rest which is now to be found on the statute-books of the nation. The fundamental principles in view of which we must judge of the wisdom and righteousness of these statutes are these: The supreme authority of Almighty God as the Creator and Lawgiver of the world; the fact that he has, from the beginning, and through all dispensations, reserved one-seventh of man’s time as his portion, to be employed, not according to our judgment or inclination, but according to his direction. “2. These defenses must be restored where they have been overthrown. “3. To meet the altered conditions of our modern society, the laws must be enlarged and strengthened. The fine of four dollars and some cents, which sufficed to detain a Conestoga wagon until Monday in the days when all freight was carried across the Alleghanies in such conveyances, is ludicrously inadequate as a means of regulating the vast railroad system of to-day. The same is true of other lucrative and gainful occupations. To adjust penalties wisely, so as to meet the changed conditions of society, and to preserve the efficacy of the law, is one of the delicate, but imperative, tasks of statesmanship, and one for which our modern statesmen have shown little aptitude or inclination. They must be admonished and instructed by the aroused conscience of the Christian public, and if they refuse to heed they must be replaced by men who will. “4. The action of the general government must be brought into accordance with the requirements of the Sabbath. Among the most needless, most extensive, and most injurious forms of Sabbath desecration in the land to-day is the transportation and distribution of the mails on the Lord’s day. It is needless, because our telegraph system, wisely employed, obviates the necessity for any mail service on that day. In the face of the fact that London, with its five millions of inhabitants, the commercial center of the world, has neither collection nor delivery nor dispatch of letters on the Sabbath, the plea of business necessity for this form of labor on the day of rest is inadmissible. Yet none save those who have carefully informed themselves have any idea of the amount of labor performed on the Sabbath by our postal employees, of the rapidity with which this service on that day is extending itself over the land, or of the inevitable consequences which it is drawing in its train. On this and on other points the reformation we seek must extend to the general Government. “5. The law of the Sabbath must, by the intelligent and deliberate decision of the people, be embodied in our Constitutions, State and National. The American people are learning great lessons in these days touching the nature and purpose of written constitutions of government. They are discovering that by means of constitutional provisions they can lift great subjects, on which they have reached conclusions, out of the realm of political chicane and party strife and set them on high as the declared policy of the State or of the Nation, which parties will vie with one another in extolling, and which all public officers are sworn to execute. So sacred and important an interest as the Sabbath deserves a place among the high provisions of fundamental law. The temperance reformation is carrying the enlightened verdict of public opinion to its legitimate expression in these great instruments of the Nation’s will. The rising controversy regarding the authority of the divine law of the Sabbath over communities and Nations, will seek and will find its final settlement in the same way. “All these considerations justify and illustrate the work of the National Reform Association, whose object, as declared in its constitutions, is ‘to maintain existing Christian features in the American Government, to secure needed reforms in the action of Government touching the Sabbath [and other kindred matters], . . . and to secure such an amendment [or amendments] to the Constitution of the United States as will indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all the Christian laws, institutions, and usages of the Government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land. What Christian citizen, and what friend of the Sabbath, can hesitate to lend his co-operation to the work of such a society?’” Summarized, the above says: Sunday laws must be maintained, enlarged, and strengthened by heavier penalties. The officers who will not execute such laws, must be removed to make room for those who will. The mail service and similar National institutions must be compelled to conform to the Sunday laws. That all this may be the better and more securely attained, the Sunday laws must be made a part of the constitutional law of the States and of the Nation. These ends justify the existence and the purposes of the National Reform Association. All this should be done on religious grounds, and in conformity to the law of God. And yet the Statesman insists that it does not aim at a union of Church and State, but only at a union of Christianity and the State. This is a distinction without a difference, and the plea is an evasion. When the Christians of the United States, acting in concert through a Christian political party, have thus subordinated the National Constitution to a common creed, there will be set in operation the machinery of a spiritual despotism, un-Christlike, and destructive of liberty of conscience. It would be a State church, composed of united denominations, whose common creed would find expression in constitutional law, State and National. This creed would be the political platform of the Christian party, which the Statesman hopes to form through a union of the National Reformists and the Third Party Prohibitionists. A President of the United States, elected on such a platform, or a dictator after the model of Oliver Cromwell, would be bound to enforce the creed of those placing him in power. Even revolution, in the name of religion, would be a legitimate part of such a program. No amount of evasive statements and smooth rhetoric can disguise the logical results which are involved in this movement. Religious intolerance and civil proscription of all who could not yield submission to such a civil authority, would be the unavoidable result. Such a conception of the functions of the State in religious matters is a compound of Jewish theocracy and the State church of pagan Rome. It is Romanism in disguise. The Roman Catholic Church of the world might well join in such a movement, as being a most effectual one against her lost children, the Protestant churches. Rome must have an especial interest in the application of this principle to our Sunday laws. Sunday legislation is Rome’s first-born and well-beloved child. It is the only point of common union left between her and Protestants. Let the National Reform movement concerning our Sunday laws reach a point where the Roman Catholic power in the United States, thrown into the balance, would turn the scales, and Rome could dominate the National Government far sooner than she can hope to do in any other way. Holding thus the balance of power, the way to the gradual suppression of Protestantism would be plain. Neither is it improbable that by some “bold stroke,” which Rome knows so well how to make, this humiliation of Protestantism would not be gradual. Rome could thus make Protestants their own executioners.—The Outlook. Not to go outside of the Roman Catholic Church, the doctrine on which the Inquisition was founded is by no means abandoned by that church, nor even less tenaciously held, than it was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The object of the Inquisition was not to punish crime, but to suppress error. It recognized no distinction between crime and sin, between offenses against man, of which man may take cognizance, and offenses against God, of which God alone can take cognizance. It was an organized revolt against the law, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” It made inquisition into the secret thoughts and interior life of the people, and judged them, not merely for acts perpetrated, but for opinions entertained. “The duty of the Inquisition, moreover, was distinguished from that of the ordinary judge by the fact that the task assigned to him was the impossible one of ascertaining the secret thoughts and opinions of the prisoner. External acts were to him only of value as indications of belief, to be accepted or rejected as he might deem them conclusive or illusory. The crime he sought to suppress by punishment was a purely mental one—acts, however criminal, were beyond his jurisdiction.” Hence it was that disavowal of the heresy charged was of no avail; if persisted in, it was often77regarded only as evidence of contumacy. Hence, too, arose the use of torture, to compel the heretic to confess that he entertained the heretical opinions charged upon him; for only by confession and penance could he be redeemed from the sin; and we must give the inquisitors credit for laboring often for the salvation of the soul, though by means that were full of cruelty to the body. One of the lessons which this history has for us is that no faculty is more cruel than that of conscience, when it is directed by self-will, not by faith and love. Now, the Roman Catholic Church has by no means abandoned its claim to judge of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It has by no means accepted the modern distinction between crimes and sins, nor agreed that to man is given alone the right to judge of and punish crime, and that God has reserved to himself the exclusive jurisdiction of sins that are not crimes. Still less does it accept the Protestant doctrine—which we believe also to be clearly New Testament doctrine—that the function of the church is a teaching, not a ruling, function, and that the State and Church should be forever kept separate. “In no age of Christianity,” says the “Catholic Dictionary,” “has the church had any doubt that in her hands, and only in hers, was the deposit of the true faith and religion placed by Jesus Christ, and that, as it is her duty to teach this to all nations, so she is bound by all practical and lawful means to restrain the malice or madness of those who would corrupt the message or resist the teacher.” And it specifies the act of Paul in striking the sorcerer, Sergius Paulus, with blindness, as an evidence of the right of the church to punish false doctrine. Similarly the late Pope, Pius IX., explicitly reckons among the errors of our times the doctrine that “the church has not power to use force,” and anathematizes those who deny that it possesses the authority by which it “pronounces upon what is lawful and what is not lawful,” even in public and social actions, or who assert that its laws “have no binding force until they have been confirmed by the sanction of the civil power.” Indeed, the very existence of the confessional is a continuous claim by that church of a right and a duty to inquire into the secret thoughts and inner life of at least all its communicants; while its writers frankly concede that, if it no longer uses force to compel obedience to its laws, this is due, not to the want of will, but to the want of power. Nor is this disregard of the distinction between crimes and sins, and this notion that the State could be redeemed if only the church and the ministry, or at least professedly Christian people, could get the control of politics, and the prayer-meetings become primaries, by any means confined to Roman Catholic circles. But this hint must suffice; to follow it out would take us too far from our immediate and legitimate purpose. There is no room here to write or even to suggest the history of the Inquisition. . . . It is a history of despotism, inaugurated by conscience, but carried on by greed and by ambition. It is a history of the awful results which flow from lodging despotic power in the hands of any man or class of men—results more awful the more conscientious the men are to whom it is at first intrusted. It is a history which illustrates and enforces the truth that it is not safe to lift any set of men above the laws, or to give to any set of men irresponsible power over their fellows. It is a history, not merely of the Roman Catholic Church, but of humanity, and one which in a different form might easily be repeated if ever a like power were lodged in any class, civil or ecclesiastical, Papal or Protestant.—Christian Union, in notice of Lea’s History of the Inquisition.