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tcb~ 1Jtingbom (tome 

1LU1nuam Stephens ltrcoo 
"neat of tbe ®bto Bpoatclate 

CATHOLIC INFORMATlON BUREAU 
SANTA CL.ARA, CAL.... 





THY KINGDOM COME 

By 

WILLIAM STEPHENS KRESS 
PRIEST OF THE OHIO APOSTOLATE 

CATHOLlC INFO~MATION BUREAU 
SANTA CLARA. CAL. 

TWENTIETH THOUSAND 

THE OHIO APOSTOLATE 

6914 Woodland Avenue. S. E. 

Cleveland, Ohio 



Nihil Obstat. 

EDWARD C. KRAMER, D. D .• 

Censor. 

Imprimatur. 

~ J. P. FARRELLY, 

Bishop 0/ Cleveland. 

Clewland. March 26, J 9 J 2 

__ ad 

Copyright. 1912. by 

WILLIAM STEPHENS KRI!SS 



FOREWORD. 

The plain, frank talks of this booklet are addressed 

to lovers, of the Lord, Jesus Christ, whose supreme earthly 

desire it is to be enrolled among the loyal citizens of His 

Kingdom. This Kingdom is none other than His Church 

-a spiritual Kingdom, wherein the followers of the 

Master are to find the security of divine faith and the 

joy of participation in the divine life. Of the abundant 

spiritual helps that, by direction of its highest Ruler, 

are bestowed upon the citizens of the Kingdom, through 

the sacraments and other means of grace, and by which 

the reign of the Spirit is inaugurated and adv~nced within 

the souls of the faithful, no mention will be made in these 

pages; since our sole aim is to meet the questioning of the 

mind and to' point out the way that leads to the 

secure possession of the truth. That this booklet, with 

the grace of the Holy Spirit, may fulfil its mission and 

bring many precious souls into the Kingdom, is the one 

hope and desire of the author. 



( 



CONTENTS. 
PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 

Why have more than One Church? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Is it Possible to bring Catholics and Protes tants into 

One Body ? . ............ . . ..... ....... ....... . . 4 

CHAPTER III. 

The Untenable Rule of Protestants .............. . ... 9 

CHAPTER IV. 

Insufficiency of the Bible ................ ... ........ 14 

CHAPTER V. 

Christ's Church ............ . ............. ...... .. . 18 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Authoritative Teacher ................. . ....... 24 

CHAPTER VII. 

How can I be Saved 1 ........................ ..... .. 28 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The School of God .... ......... . .. .. ............... 32 

CHAPTER IX. 

Identity of the Catholic Church with the Gospel Church. 37 

CHAPTER X. 

Doctrinal Development ..... . .. . .................... 41 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Deposit of Faith ......... .. ................. . .. 44 

CHAPTER XII. 

Did the Church founded by Christ grow Corrupt ? ... .47 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Is Persecution an Article of the Catholic Creed 1 ....... 52 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Catholic and Protestant Countries Compared .. . ..... 55 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Catholic Church and Intflllectual ProgreSl! ........ 59 



I) 



CHAPTER I. 

WHY HAVE MORE THAN ONE CHURCH? 

(( And He sent them to preach the Kingdom of God." 
Luke 9, 2. 

The remark is often made that a kindlier feeling has 

arisen of late years between Catholics and Protestants. 

All well-disposed people hail the disappearance of bitter-

ness from the domain of religion. Today men are willing, 

not only to acknowledge the honesty of those who differ 

with them, but we love to believe that they have come 

to that farther stage where they are able to discuss, 

calmly and dispassionately, the reasons that keep them 

apart. This is a big advance over the olden times, when 

prejudice was so violent that reason and charity alike 

were affected by it. It is a good thing to be able to 

reason clearly; for when you have fully allowed for all 

tpat is praiseworthy in particular doctrines, or the good ' 

faith of individuals, the ugly fact still remains that we, 

who ought to be one in belief and organization, are woe-

fully divided. Christ prayed for unity: that we be one 

as He and the heavenly Father are one. All who would 

be true disciples of the Lord should strive to bring about 

this unity. 

Passing of 
Bitterness-
Manly 
Inquiry 

The most religious and thoughtful of men see much' Errors 
to deplore in the multiplicity of sects; for mUltiplicity ' of Separate 

sects means multiplicity of beliefs, and multiplicity of 

beliefs implies error. Everyone, we trust, realizes the 

truth of this, When, for instance, the Baptist pronounces 

the invalidity of the baptism that does not include total 

immersion, and sets up a wall of separation between him-

self and other Christian bodies, who maintain the validity 

of pouring and sprinkling, it is errol' that sets up that 

wall. If the truth were known to all about the require-

ments for the validity of baptism, there would be no cause 

1 



Error a 
Revol t 

Against the 
Kingdom 

Believe 
All Things 

2 WHY HAVE MORE THAN ONE CHURCH? 

for dispu~e ; both sides to the controversy would then be-

lieve alike and there woyld be, at least, one sect less in 

the world. All the other differences among the hundreds 

of Christian denominations arise from the same cause ; 

error. 

Unity follows truth as closely as li ght does the sun. 

Truth and unity are a wedded couple; the marriage was 

made in heaven and is indissoluble. Error may be m? iJ -

ifold; but truth is and must remain one. Add 5 and 4; 

the true answer is 9; t he incorrect answers may be many, 

but the true answer must be one. St. Paul speaks of per-

severing in the unity of faith. God, who is truth, cannot 

but wish to be worshipped in truth. He cannot be pleased 

with error; sin ce, if He is truth, error is a denial, in part, 

of God Himself. Error cannot be made to fit into the 

divine plan. God cannot, then, be pleased with a multi-

plicity of sects and cannot be worshipped rightfully 

through error, whi ch, in the last analysis, means attempt-

ing to serve God through the instrumentality of unbelief. 

Christ's Church is the Kingdom of Truth. Sectarianism 

is a revolt against the Kin gdom, even though the seceders 

have no intention of setting up a system of their own, 

contrary to Christ's. We say in the prayer taught us by 

the Lord Himself: "Thy Kingdom come ! " It is Christ's 

will that truth, and not error, shall r eign triumphant and 

that men shall prove their allegiance to Him through 

absolute loyalty to the truth . 

It will not do to close one's eyes to the real differ-

ences that exist in the beliefs of riyal sects. It has beeT:!. 

offered in ext enuation by sectaries that these difference& 

are not impor tant; that they do not touch essential mat-

ters. In answer to this we need only r emind the apolo-

gists of sectarianism that where the Scriptures do not 

distinguish between essential and non-essential beliefs, 

neither should we . . Christ demands that we believe all 

that He has r evealed under penalty of damnation. H e does 

not excuse or condone disbelief in what some are pleased 



WHY HA VE MORE THAN ONE CHURCH? 3 

to call non-essentials. Moreover, the differences to be 

found among thc various Christian bodies include what 

any intelligent person will admit to be very important 

divergences. ,Vhat folly it would be to set up rival 

churches, if the differences were unimportant. It is surely 

un essential point whether Christ is God, or mere man; 

whether the Holy Ghost is a divine person, or only a divine 

operation; whether baptism is necessary to salvation, or is 

a mere consecration; whether, or not, there is original sin ; 

whether the Eucharist is Christ's body, or only a piece 

of blessed bread; whether the Bible is the sole fount of 

r evcaled truth, or shares this d istinction with the Spoken 

,Vord of the Apostles; wh other Christ is a real sav ior and 

redeemer, or only an example and model for man's imi-

tation; etc. If these divergences do not reach to the very 

core of r eligion, reli gion must bc without any solid body 

of truth. These divergences, and many others besides, 

exist today among those who style themselves followers 

of Christ. 

l\fay they continue thus, without honest and un-

ceasing effort to cxtinguish the differences and establish 

th e truth ? No. It is certainly not in accord with God '8 

will that error flourish side by side with truth, or that it 

r eceive the same honor from His followers. One meets 

with not a few people who, while admitting the wrongful-

ness of contradictory beliefs, yet never think it necessary 

on their part to make a r eal effort to set matters aright. 

Th ey seem content to drift along, although forced to 

acknowledge that Protestantism-as a "cluster of rival 

r eligions," to use a phrase of llewman's-is living out a 

conscious falsehood. Are they not partners in guilt 1 

Are they not dcceiving others by their example and lull-

ing their own consci ence into a false security 1 

They think it sufficient excuse that they were started 

wrong through no fault of their own, affecting to believc 

that the mistakes of one period need not be corrected by 

the fuller knowledge of maturer years. But we were 

Find 
the 
Truth 

Change to 
the Right 
Road 



Not Federation 
but Unity 

4 BRING ALL INTO ONE BODY. 

started wrong in many other things, and none of us but 

would agree to call ourselves very stupid had we not cor-

rected our errors as soon as they were noticed. It is 

humiliating, no doubt, to confess now that what was one's 

belief for years was false; hard to break with associations, 

dear as life itself, that lined and lighted the whole long 

journey; perhaps to have the door of the parental home 

closed upon one; to be charged with instability and even 

apostasy by esteemed friends; but what supreme folly it 

would be to continue on in the wrong direction, when it 

is question of the road to heaven. We correct mistakes 

everywhere else, in history, the sciences, in business, in the 

daily affairs of life. Weare ever ready to learn in sec-

ular matters; we should be still more eager for spiritual 

truth; eager to realize the Master's prayer: "that they 

may know Thee, the onLy true God, and Jesus Christ, whom 

Thou hast sent (John 17, 3). 

CHAPTER II. 

IS IT POSSIBLE TO BRING OATHOLIOS AND PROT. 

ESTANTS INTO ONE BODY? 

" That you may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of 

God, for which also you suffer." 2 Thess. 1, 5. 

Among the many present-day religious leaders, who 

admit the wrongfulness of sectarianism, there is a move-

ment for federation; a desire to formulate some basis upon 

which the divergent sects may act as one body. They 

have agreed beforehand that anything closer than a mere 

federation is impractiGable; that the prospect of elim-

inating contradictory doctrines is absolutely hopeless. 

They desire to create a show of unity where unity is not. 

But to cover belief and unbelief with the same mantle and 

call it Christianity is a poor substitute for Christ's King. 

dom of Truth. 



BRING ALL INTO ONE BODY. 5 

Could you picture to yourself a body of scientific 

workers coming together and agreeing to let truth and 

error lie side by side, without a real effort on their part 

to sift the one from the other 1 They would be unworthy 

the name of scientists, if they were content to give error 

the same right as truth, or if they admitted the hopeless-

ness of discovering the true one among conflicting views. 

The real scientist will make any sacrifice, however great, 

in the interest of truth; he does not consider it humiliat-

ing, but rather ennobling, to give up his erroneous no-

tions; he desires to progress, to advance in knowledge, not 

to remain stationary, much less to be a reactionary. He 

is loyal to truth. He puts us to shame if we are less loyal 

to spiritual truth; if we are content to be reactionaries in 

religious research. 

If any maintain that it is not desirable to get into one 

fold, they should b~ honest enough to lay aside their 

name of Christian. Christ's religion is one. If they de-

sire to exploit their own views, or propagate a new relig-

ious system, let them candidly put them forward as their 

own, and not present them as Christ's. With the proper 

counterfeit brand upon them no one will be in danger of 

being misled. 

Our souls have been created for truth. Why should 

we not all become priests of truth? A minister once 

said to us: "If I knew the Catholic Church to be Christ '8 

Church, I would have none of it." Strange language 

from one who professed himself a minister and follower. 

of Christ! It was an unblushing admission that he would 

follow the divine teacher only so long as he was not re-

quired to give up his own opinions, however false. It is 

evident from his words that it was not truth that he was 

seeking. If we knew his communion were Christ '8 

Church, we, for our part, would wish to join it, no matter 

what our preconceived notions about it. We do not desire 

our own, but God's will. We trust that minister has no 

dis<:iples among the readers of this booklet. Weare di-

Science 
Intolerant 
of Enor 

Label 
Counterfeits 

Priests of 
Truth 



Salvation 
through the 
True Faith 

Divir.e Road 
01 Duty 

A Grave 
Responsibility 

6 BRING ALL INTO ONE BODY. 

recting our remarks to lovers of truth, to those who ar~ 

honestly repeating the petition in the Lord's Prayer: 

(( Thy Kingdom Come." 

There is all the more reason for welcoming God '!\ 

truth, inasmuch as our future happiness depends upon its 

acquisition. (( Without fa ith it is impossible to please 

God. " This does not mean any .sort of faith, but divine 

faith alone. Ho,v much of our faith is human ? how 

much divine 1 Divine faith requires, not only the accept-

ance of Christ as our Savior; but that we believe all that 

He has r evealed. Less than this will forfeit heaven and 

lead to damnation: "teaching them to observe all thi1tg. ~ 
w/zatsover J hm)e commanded you" (Mt. 28, 20); (( he 

that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that 

believeth not shall be condemned" (Mk 16, 16). There 

is an imperative need to correct differences and acquire 

th e oneness of the true faith. Nothing less important than 

our own salvation is at stake. 

Let us see if we cannot settle the differences that ex-

ist among yonrselves, and that li e between you and us. I 

believe that we can do it. Absolute honesty will be re-

quired, it is true, and a great singleness of purpose. 

Allow no obstacle of any sort to stay your progress, or 

divert you from the divine road of duty. If required, 

do something heroic for once. The words that our Lord 

addressed to St. Peter may apply to you as well: (( Thou 

shalt stretch forth thy hal/ds, and another shall gird thee 

al/d lead thee whither thou 'Wouldst not" (In 21, 18). 

It was a martyrdom that Christ foretold. No matter; a 

martyrdom £01' Christ 's truth will make you worthy of 

heavenly reward: (( he that talleth not up his cross and 

followeth Me, is not 'Worthy of Me" (Mt. 10, 38). Make 

the prayer of it Kempis (1. 3) your own: "0 truth, my 

God, make me one with Thee in everlasting love!" 

Do you perhaps think that the r eform we propose 

is too great for your strength, or that the evi l of a divided 

Christendom is too firmly established to yield to any so-



BRING ALL INTO ONE BODY. 7 

lution 1 You may not be able to weld the Christian de-

nominations into one j but you can, at least, remedy the 

evil there where you are responsible for it-in your own 

church affiliation. You may not even delay investigation, 

or defer putting your findings into effect, in the hope that 

the organization, to which you belong, may be induced 

some day to take action as a corporate body. Fidelity to 

conscience will brook no delay. We are not responsible 

for others j but we are responsible to ' God for our 

own steps. It is a real reform that we propose to you. 

The evil of sectarianism exists, and exists in self sat-

isfied complacency. It is an evil, nevertheless, and 

calls for correction. Various Protestant churchmen 

and theologians have attempted its solution, but each 

time have failed of accomplishment. You have not 

as yet considered the solution proposed by the Mother 

Church. Turn to her for an earnest hour or two j consider 

carefully her plan of unification, and if the plan com-

mends itself to your intellect and your conscience, be 

brave enough to accept it. 

We may be charged by Protestants with an unwill-

ingness, on our part, to make any compromise in the 

interest of an united Christendom. They may say: "You, 

Catholics, are quite willing that there be unity j but it 

must be on your terms: you are ready to join with Prot-

estants just as soon as the Protestants agree to be Cath-

olics. " We can say in answer that, if unity confessedly 

cannot be found in Protestantism, why then become, or 

remain, Protestants 1 The project of any genuine union 

on that side is an utter impossibility, according to their 

own admission j on our side it is not only possible, but a 

necessity. Weare governed by different principles. If 

oneness of faith is a divine requisite, seek it where alone it 

can be found. Some dream of bringing about Christian 

unity by dropping out all the doctrines and religious 

features that are rejected by any of the denominations. 

If you attempt to do this, your religious program 

Close up 
the Rank. 



Eliot's Religion 
of the Future 

8 BRING ALL INTO ONE BODY. 

would become as empty as a beggar's purse. There 

would not be a single doctrine or religious practice 

left. No; the road of compromise is the road of ne-

gation, and cannot lead to the Kingdom of Truth. Not 

one of Christ's revealed truths shall be sacrificed in our 

holy quest. It is spiritual gain we are looking for; not 

spiritual loss. 

A fairly good idea of where the road of compromise 

would lead to is given in the forecast of the "Religion of 

the Future" by Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of 

Harvard College. Dr. Eliot offers as a basis for union the 

two simple points: "Acceptance of the doctrine of an 

imminent and loving God, and the precept, Be serviceable 

to fellowmen." t will be necessary, he maintains, to give 

'up many of our present beliefs; so he rejects the Savior, 

'revelation, the Bible, faith, prayer, the sacraments and 

. even the future life. He speaks of a "burnt heaven 

and quenched hell." His God is not a being distinct 

from the universe: all things are God; man is God. 

He appears to hold that God must be considered the 

direct author of all our acts, good and bad. We will 

not desire our own salvation, according to Dr. Eliot, so 

much as the good of our fellows . He denies to repent-

. ance any value Whatever, and rejects every sort of medi-

ation, even that of Christ. Religion he describes as "a 

fluent thing " and as "completely natural in all its doc-

trine and all its practice." His religion will not be 

based on authority, nor "bound to any dogma, creed 

book or institution. " A religion without a creed is about 

as conceivable as a language without words. The trouble 

with the Eliot religion is that it is just one more of the 

man-made, counterfeit brands. The people of the future 

will be satisfied with nothing less, let us hope, than 8 

divine faith, wholly supernatural, based on the absolute 

authority of God; and their love for their fellows will 

follow their love for God; and their love for God will not 

be so tenuous as not to desire the possession of the 



THE UNTENABLE RULE OF PROTESTANTS. 9 

Beatific Vision with all the ardor of their spiritual nature. 

The people of the future will not reject, let us also hope, 

the Redeemer, who purchased their salvation with His 

blood. 

The Catholic Church has something better to offer 

you: all of God's truths. She can, moreover, restore the 

solidarity of Christendom. She holds her own large body, 

larger than all the Protestant bodies combined, and com-

posed of every existing race, in the unity of faith and in 

oneness of organization. What principle does she employ 

to encompass this marvellous result 1 Would the exten-

sion of that same principle cement the Protestant bodies 

into one, and bring Protestant and Catholic alike into 

one and the same fold? Yes. We will make that the topic 

of a special chapter. We hope to show, at the same time, 

how all religious doubts and anxieties can be swept away. 

at one stroke and how a wonderful peace of mind can be 

secured. Before taking that up let us examine the Prot-

estant rule of faith. 

CHAPTER TIl. 

THE UNTENABLE RULE OF PROTESTANTS. 

it Jesus Christ hath made us a Kingdom, and priests to 

God and His Father." 'Apoc. 1, 6. 

Builders are a long time preparing the foundation 

of a modern structure. It may be years before the 

walls have gained the street level; then the steel frame 

of the superstructure rises with marvellous rapidity, 

almost over night, like the web of the spider. You under-

stand the reason for the slow progress of the foundation. 

If the building did not rest upon a solid base, it would 

be shortlived and an unsafe habitation from the first year 

of its completion. We dare not be less careful than ~hese 

Christian 
Solidarity 

Lay ~ Solid 

Foundation 



God's Word 
as the Base 

Holy Writ 
Sacred to 
Catholics 

10 THE UNTENABLE RULE OF PROTESTANTS. 

workers in cement and steel, when we lay the foundation 

of the mighty edifice of r eligious truth. Our knowledge 

must rest upon a solid and immovable rock; not upon the 

shifting sands of mere human opinion. That will be ad-

mitted by all. We invite the closest scrutiny of the 

Catholic foundation, and we trust that our Protestant 

readers will extend the same invitation to a careful ex-

amination of their intellectual basis, and will help us 
make it. . 

However much Protestant denominations may differ 

in particular doctrines, they (with the Quakers, or 

Friends, a possible exception) present a united front on 

their intellectual basis, or rule of faith. By rule of faith 

we mean that test by which we know religious truths. 

They agree that the Bible, subject to the interpretation of 

individual readers, is the sole fount of religious knowl-

edge. The Bible, they say in effect, is God's Word: now 

what could form a more solid foundation than it 1 What 

be~ter fount from which to drink wisdom? All else shall 

pass away, but God's Word shall remain forever. 

This sounds well, and let us assure our Protestant 

r eaders that we are in hearty accord with any praise they 

choose to bestow upon the Holy Scriptures. To us they 

are even more sacred than to Protestants; for among us 

there is no body of men tearing them to tatters under the 

guise of a higher criticism. When Leo XIII created the 

Biblical Commission some years ago the New York Sun 

said: "It is not the Pope, but the great churches of Prot-

estantism, which need to appoint a commission, or commis-

sions, 'for the consideration of all questions connected 

with Biblical studies.' The time is coming, if, indeed, it 

has not already, when these churches must take .their 

stand definitely and decidedly on the question whether 

~he Bible is of God, or only of man. As it is now, the Pope 
is the sole bold, positive and uncompromising champion 

of the Bible as the Word of God." And the Protestant, 

Dr. Lorimer, added his testimony: "Only the Pope, only 



THE UNTENABLE RULE OF PROTESTANTS. 11 

the Church of Rome, comes to the front as the champion of 

the Bible against the destructive critics." Should anyone 

attempt such destructive criticism among us, even though 

he were the foremost scholar in the Church, he would be 

silenced, or forced out of the Catholic communion; for 

the Church will tolerate no lowering of God's Word. 

Very few Protestant Biblical scholars r egard the 

Scriptures in the same light as the ordinary Protestant 

layman. There are different stages of unbelief among 

them; but about all have given up the notion that the 

Scriptures are inerrant, or that they are inspired in the 

sense that inspiration was accepted a hundred, or only 

fifty years ago. To some Protestant scholars the Bible is 

Dot even a unique book-the only one of its kind-for 

they speak of it as one merely of many similar sacred lit-

eratures. The unbelief of the leaders of today will, it is to 

be feared, be the unbelief of the rank and file of the next 

genera~ion. What then will determine the faith of the 

Protestant 1" How can the superstructure stand when the 

foundation begins to crumble 1 If the Bible is not error-

less, if one must distinguish between the gold and waste 

that its ore carries, between what is human in it and what 

divine, what error and what truth: who is going to tell 

you which is the one, which the other, ~less there be 

some authority outside of the Bible; for the Bible itself 

makes no such distinctions in its contents. 

Once you maintain that the Bible is not a r evelation 

of supernatural truths, that it is not an inspired book, 

you upset the Protestant rule of faith. Chillingworth 

says: "The Bible is Protestantism and Protestantism is 

the Bible." But if the Bible is merely a human produc-

tion, containing truths and errors interspersed, will you 

characterize your own Protestantism as the same-a 

mere human production, teaching errors as well as truths 1 

If the Bible is not inspired, how can any doctrine be estab-

lished from the Protestant point of view 1 However, I 

would not have my Protestant readers follow the lead of 

U nreatrained 
Biblical 
Criticism 

Destroys 
Foundation 



Bible not 
Sole Fount 

Inconclusive 
Proo!s 

12 THE UNTENABLE RULE OF PROTESTANTS. 

their seminary professors; nor to yield one tittle of their 

belief in God's Word to these rationalistic critics. Do not 

let friend or foe take the Bible from you; it is a treasure of 

priceless worth. Believe in its divine inspiration, and 

believe in its inerrancy. Refuse to admit that less than 

the whole is God 's Word. 

When we have said all this in acknowledgment of 

the divine character of the Scriptures, we must be on our 

guard, nevertheless, not to give the Bible a place it was 

not designed to hold by its divine Author. The Lord 

never claimed for the Scriptures that they contain all of 

divine revelation; or that they can be interpreted se-

curely by each individual r eader. We controvert the 

Protestant position on their rule of faith. What reasons 

do Protestants bring to establish the sufficiency of the 

Scriptures? Will they, do you think, be found con-

vincing? 

You have, perhaps, grown familiar with the quota-

tion, « Search the Scriptures." I have seen these words 

sculptured over the main portal of a stately Pro~estant 

church. Many who passed through that door, we venture 

to say, found in that one line proof sufficient for their be-

lief that they were to look to the Bible, and nowhere else, 

for r eligious truths. The Greek word for "search" may 

be rendered either by the imperative or the indicative 

mood. The Revised Version has accepted the latter read-

ing: « Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in 

them ye have eternal life; and these are they that bear 

witness of Me" (In 5, 39). Whether we accept the one 

reading or the other, the text proves nothing more than 

that Christ commended the searching of the Old Testa-

ment to find corroboration of His divine mission. In like 

manner were the Bereans praised for going to the Scrip-

tures, to deduce from them the messiahship of Christ. 

They sought, not what God had revealed, but Whom He 

had commissioned to lead them. You may have heard 

another text, that is often quoted, namely, If All Scripture 



THE UNTENABLE RULE OF PROTEST~TS. 13 

is given by inspiration and is profitable for instruction." 

This is a mistaken reading, which was corrected by the 

Revised Version, and in its corrected form is quite similar 

to ours: U All Scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to 

teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, etc." 

(2 Tim. 3, 16). Reference in the three passages quoted is 

to the Old Testament. If the contention of the Protestant 

were true and these t exts did prove the all-sufficiency of 

the Bible, they would prove entirely too much; for then 

he would be obliged to accept only the Old Testament as 

his fount of religious knowledge. 

As a rule no attempt of any sort is made by better-

informed Protestants to prove the sufficiency of the 

Scriptures, or the right of Privattl Judgment. The matter 

is simply taken for granted, as :f it were a self-evident 

fact, which, of course, it is not. The milk of this pre-

judgmput was drawn in at the mother's breast; it has long 

since passed into flesh and bone; it is not easily gotten rid 

of now. Protestant scholars are fearless critics of every 

other doctrine of Protestantism; but this one they seem 

afraid to touch. And their timidity in this instance is 

hardly to, be wondered at; for when they ever do subject 

it to serious examination, it will crumble to pieces. like a 

long buried bone at the first breath of air. Then they 

will have to admit too, that Protestantism, as such, has 

no moral right to exist, because founded upon a false 

assumption. 

We have asked tens of thousands of Protestants in 

public gatherings, where intelligence was not wanting and 

where ministers were frequently present, to give us one 

sound argument for the Protestant rule of faith, promis-

ing, if they did so, to give up our own religion, and to ad-

vise our Catholic hearers to do the same. The challenge 

remains unaccepted. No argument can be offered. 

An Unwarranted 
Assumption 

An Unaccepted 
Challenge 



Lost Truths 

The Spoken 
Word 

CHAPTER IV. 

INSUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLE. 

II And it came to pass afterwards that He ' travelled 

through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing 

the Kingdom of God; and the Twelve with Him." Luke 8, 1. 

Holy Scripture is an impregnable rock of truth; but 

it does not contain God's entire revelation; neither is its 

meaning always open to the reader, so that he can safely 

follow in all instances his own private judgment. There 

are many truths that are excluded from the faith of Prot-

estants, because of their faulty rule. Then, again, there 

are other truths that they hold in very contradiction of 

their rule, like the rule itself, Sunday observance, etc. 

The doctrines of Protestantism are constantly shifting, 

and the house of Protestantism has split up into many 

parts, each new sect labeling itself a purer form of Chris-

tianity. There are grotesque aberrations, like that of the 

"Gift of Tongues" people; but you cannot convict the 

holders of them of error on the Protestant principle; for 

according to that principle they have the same right to 

their absurdities that others have to their sensible doc-

trines. What is sensible to the one may be folly to hiG 

neighbor. 

That the Bible does not contain all of divine revela-

tion nor all that we need to know for our spiritual guid-

ance, is taught by the Bible itself. We read in 2 Thess. 2, 

14, (15th verse in the Protestant version): tt Therefore, 

brethren, stand fast,· and hold the traditions which YOtt 

have learned, whether by word or by our epistle." St. Paul 

spoke as a Catholic; not as a Protestant. The Protestant 

would say: "Hold to the Written Word only;" the 

Catholic says with St. Paul: "Hold both the Spoken and 

14 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLE. 15 

the Written Word." The Apostles were not told to write; 

their commission was to preach: tt Going therefore, teach 

ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, 

and ot the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to 

observe all things 'Whatsoever I have commanded you: 

and behold I am with you all days, even to the consumma-

tion of the world" (Mt. 28, 19 and 20). When Christ an-

nounced His departure He spoke of the Holy Ghost, who 

would descend upon the Apostles and teach them all 

things: tt He will teach you all things, altd bring aU things 

to your mind, 'Whatsoever I shall have said to you" (J n 

14, 26). He descended upon them on Pentecost Sunday, 

and strengthened in Him, and enlightened by Him, they 

went forth upon their great mission of evangelizing the 

,vorld. Success attended their efforts everywhere: con-

gregations were formed, at the head of which were placed 

God-fearing men, upon whom the Apostles had laid hands 

in ordination. These congregations, which together 

formed but one Church, received their faith through the 

preaching of the Apostles and those ordained for this 

work by the Apostles and their successors. 

As yet no part of the Gospel had been committed to 

writing. It was years after Christ's ascension before the 

first book of the New Testament appeared. Other books 

and epistles followed. These were written, especially the 

epistles, when some special need demanded a message 

from the Apostles. There were abuses to correct, dan-

gers to be pointed out, works of charity to be inaugurated, 

groups of the faithful to be encouraged, etc. None of the 

sacred writers of the New Testament gives us a method-

ical and complete exposition of Christian doctrine. If 

there is one safe statement it is that these writers did not 

intend the New Testament to be a simple and complete 

catechism of the Christian religion. Furthermore, the 

various writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were not 

gathered into the officially approved New Testament until 

late in the fourth century. Upon what authority did the 

What did 
Christ 
Teach? 



16 INSUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLE. 

early Christians receive their religious truths? What 

truths were the object of their faith 1 They believed aU 

that was proposed to them by that body of men commis-

sioned by Christ Himself to perform this work. They 

considered as belonging to divine revelation aU that 

. was proposed to them, whether taught by word of mouth, 

or by letter. With them the test of truth was, not" Is it 

written 1" but" Did Christ teach it 1" 

Rule of Their answer is ours, or to speak more accurately, 
Early 

Christians the answer we gave then is the ·answer we give now. The 

Self-
Contradictory 

sources from which we obtain the truths of divine revela-

tion are two: Scripture and Divine Tradition, and we place 

both on an equality. The Church proposes these truths 

to our belief, and we know from the promises Christ made 

to her, that she cannot lead us into error. No one will 

deny that our position today is the same as that of the 

early Church; yet, strangely enough, there are a great 

many who say that this position is a false one. One of the 

foremost Biblical scholars among American Protestants 

is Charles Augustus Briggs. In an address made be-

fore the Church Club of New York City he said: "If we 

had the entire apostolic inher~tance as given in Holy 

Scripture, clearly defined and agreed to by Christian 

scholars, we would not then have the entire apostolic in-

heritance. Many of the Reformers were here mistaken. 

They thought that they could reform the Church by re-

jecting everything not to be found in Holy Scripture ... 

Biblical criticism has made it certain that you cannot 

build Christianity on the Holy Scriptures alone. It is 

necessary also to determine the Christian inheritance in 

unrecorded apostolic tradition. " 

The principle that we must accept nothing but what 

is in the Bible implies a contradiction. By adopting that 

principle you violate it; for the most careful search of 

the Scriptures fails to find that principle itself in the 

Bible. The principle dies by its own hand. Furthermore, a 

rule must be within easy reach of all who are to ue!e it. If 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLE. 17 

only one in 5,000 carpenters possessed a foot rule the craft 

would find itself rather helpless in its building operations. 

Up to the invention of printing in 1438, for a period of 

almost 1,500 years, it is a safe conjecture, not more than 

one in 5,000 of the earth's inhabitants, could have read the 

Bible; owing either to their inability to read at all; or to 

the lack of versions in their own tongue, as in the case 

of those dwelling far distant from the heart of civiliza-

tion; or to the scarcity and costliness of copies, which had 

to be written laboriously by hand. 

Let us go to the second part of the proposition we are 

'to prove, namely, the fa.llacy of Private Judgment. That 

the Bible, or the Holy Ghost through the Bible, does not 

enlighten every reader, enabling him to walk securely in 

the path of divine faith, scarcely needs further proof than 

the dissensions among these same readers. The Holy 

Ghost is not the author of contradictions. The Bible is 

not, as has 'been stated, a simple document that any child, 

can understand. It is plain from its style and mode of 

composition that it was not intended as a text-book. It 

is no exaggeration to say that its meanings have been sub-

jec~ed to more discussion than all the other books in the 
world put together. Hosts of scholars have spent a life-

time in elucidating its obscure passages, and they are 

farther from agreement than the common folk. The 

earnest searcher after truth is dismayed at the array of 

contradictory opinions held on every vital point by these 

experts, who have presumably called to their aid every 

subsidiary study: the original and related languages, 

comparison of old manuscripts, archreological researches, 

contemporaneous secular history, etc. And when the 

learned doctors disagree how can the humble patient hope 

to grow strong in his faith ~ 

Can you really believe that the merciful Savior would 

surround the acquisition of HilS religion with insurmount-

able obstacles, so that the best disposed among His fol-

lower!! might never really know whether he is a believer 

Fallacy of 
Private 
Judgment 

Out of 
the Dark 



I 18 CHRIST'S CHURCH. 

or unbeliever? It sUl'ely cannot be that He who declared 

that without faith it is impossible to please God, would 

so befog our mind that we can never tell at anyone mo-

ment whether we are pleasing or displeasing Him. Do not 

say in excuse that God looks to our intelltion; that He 

will be pleased in any event with our good will. Believ-

ing in a falsehood is not divine faith. It is divine faith 

that is required of us. We desire that divine faith, of 

course. No one wishes to hold error for truth. The very 

multiplication of sects, with the additional sacrifices that 

this mUltiplication calls for, is proof that men are willing 

to put themselves about for the triumph of truth. The 

differences will never disappear so long as each man be-

lieves that it is both his right and duty to adhere to his 

own interpretation. There is a better way, a way that can 

assure us of the possession of truth, upon which we can 

walk without fear or misgiving, the way on which Christ 

Himself will meet us and take us by the hand and lead us 

to our everlasting home. 

CHAPTER V. 

CHRIST'S CHURCH. 

it Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 

and hath translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of His 

love." Col. 1, 13. 

Disintegration The experiment of searching for the truths of divine 

revelation in the pages of Holy Writ, without the guid-

ance or corrective of a competent Court of Appeal, the 

experiment of well-nigh 400 years, has demonstrated be-

yond the shadow of a doubt the fallacy of Private Judg-

ment. The result of Private Judgment has been sectar-

ianism run wild. The divisions into which the Christian 

body has been split are almost innumerable, and the pro. 



CHRIST'S CHURCH. 19 

cess of farther disintegration cannot be halted. Efforts 

at reunion, attempts to patch up differences and bind to-

ge~her discordant groups, have all been shattered upon 

the same rock of Private Judgment. Private Judgment 

has visited its baneful effects upon individual beliefs, as 

well as upon denominational professions of faith. New 

and strange views are constantly spt"inging up, and their 

suppor~ers continually quote Scripture in their defense; 

opponents are combating them with an equal array of 

Biblical passages; on the other hand cherished old doc-

trines, from the most important down, are attacked in the 

name of the selfsame Scripture. The contradictions are 

disconcerting. Who has the truth 1 All? No. Is there 

no voice to put a stop to the unseemly wrangling? Are 

the sacred words of the Savior to be dragged hither and 

thither by angry combatants 1 Are the texts of Scrip-

ture to be turned into clubs and snares 1 Is the honest 

believer to be left in his perplexing doubts? Are the 

earnest seekers to grope in the dark forever, and never 

really to know when they have found the truth 1 If you 

say" no" to any of these questions, you will have to sur-

render the principle of Private Judgment. 

- Is it not a sensible thing, then, in face of these dire-

ful consequences, to pause and ask whether Private Judg-

ment was not an unfortunate substitution for Christ's way 

by the so-called reformers of the sixteenth century? If 

it turns out to be a substitution, set up in direct disobe-

dience to Christ's commands, it ought to be rejected, and 

that promptly. Something more authoritative than our 

own opinion is needed to satisfy us that we have under-

stood a difficult, or disputed point, correctly. After all, 

we do not want our religion, but Christ's. 

Private Judgment was invoked by Martin Luther to 

justify his own opinions, when these were branded as 

false by the Catholic Church, one of whose priests he was. 

Before his time, and by all Catholics since his time, the 

Catholic Church, as being the church founded by Christ, 

Pause and 
Examine 

Luther'. 
Substitute 



20 CHRIST'S CHURCH. 

was looked upon as the authoritative interpreter, as well 

as official expounder of divine revelation. Is this view 

correct 1 Let us see. 

Th. Kingdom One fact that stands out very plainly in the teachings 

of the New Testament is the establishment of His Church 

by our Blessed Lord. His faithful were gathered together 

into a religious brotherhood. They were His Kingdom, 

His fold , His brethren, His disciples, His saints, His mys-

tical body, His church. They were to be one in every 

respect. St. Paul (Eph. 4, 3-6) spoke of them as U careful 

to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One 

body and one Spirit,' as you are called in one hope of your 

calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God 

and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and 

in us all." Says Professor Briggs, in his address before 

the Church Club of New York City: "The New Testament 

knows of but one Christian Church. It is impossible to 

find anywhere in the New Testament . . . or in 

primitive Christianity, the idea of a national church, dis-

tinct and independent of the Universal Church. How can 

anyone doubt that Jesus and His Apostles instituted one, 

and one only church, which was to be in organic unity, 

notwithstanding its worldwide diffusion, among all na-

tions." Dr. Briggs, very illogically, yet characteristically, 

subjoins the remark that this unity was "not a unity of 

identity or uniformity, but a unity in variety." There was, 

it is true, a variety in practices indifferent in themselves, 

neither morally good nor morally evil, like that of ab-

staining from certain meats; but had the variety extended 

to doctrines there would have been an end to unity. The 

Professor was probably influenced by the status of the 

denomination to which he belonged and of which the men 

he addressed were members: the Episcopal church shel-

ters members of the most widely divergent beliefs. The 

unity of such is only nominal; for truth and error are not 

one. The Church .that Christ founded was far different; 



CHRIST'S CHURCH. 21 

in it error was not permitted to lie down quietly beside 

truth. You need not be a Biblical scholar to have learned 

that much from the New Testament. -

It is extremely important that you hold a correct no-

tion of .the word" Church." From the Biblical World of 

November, 1905, we take this definition: "As most of us 

are coming to see, a church is not intended to be a theolog-

ical class, where everybody believes exactly alike, but an 

organization in which the faith and good impulses of the 

individual may be strengthened and enlarged by co-oper-

ation. We join the church, not to be saved, but to save." 

This is the definition of a church, as the writer inadvert-

ently admits; but not of the Church. Another definition 

was sent us by an anonymous correspondent presumably 

a minister: "The Church of Scripture means a religious 

assembly, or congregation, selected or called out of the 

world by the doctrine of the Gospel, to worship the true 

God in Christ, according to His Word. All the elect of 

God, of what nation soever, from the beginning to the 

end of the world, make but one body, of which Jesus Christ 

is the head. The Protestant Church, it is true, is made up 

of several denominations, but they all stand on the one 

rock, Christ Jesus." The definitions of most Protestants 

seem to be made to order; they are so arranged as to in-

clude. in some fashion or other, the conglomerate of diver-

gent sects tl?-at pass under the general name Protestant-

ism. Let us get our notion of the Church from the New 

Testament. The Church of Scripture is not the nonde-

script thing made up of a thousand different beliefs, 

called Christendom today; it is the pillar and ground of 

truth, one in belief and organization. It is a visible or-

ganization, founded by Christ, in which men are trained 

for heaven; it is the congregation of all those who pro-

fess the faith of Christ, who partake of the means of sanc-

tificatior 'vided by Him, and :who are governed by 

Church 
and churches 



Tnterlor 

22 CHRIST'S CHURCH. 

their lawful pastors, under a supreme earthly head, the 

successor of St. Peter, to whom Christ committed the chief 

care of His flock, both lambs and sheep (In 21, 15-17). 

Not a few Protestants love to think of the Christi&n 

ond Exg:J~~ religion as purely and exclusively interior. If they can be 

Pastors and Flock 

induced to affiliate with a denomination it i8 for mutual en-

couragement, or for socia'! features only; not from any 

feeling of necessity or duty. While it is true that Christian-

ity is primarily a spiritual force, it is in essential connec-

tion with an exterior order: the latter as divine as the for-

mer. Christianity stands to the Church much in the same 

relation as the soul to the body. The soul can exist without 

the body, but so long as it is in this world it is essentially 

bound up with the body. When Christ founded His King-

dom it was with obligation of citizenship upon His fol-

lowers. The Church is the Kingdom of the Son. The 

Apostles assuredly belonged to an external order; their 

disciples not less so. St. Paul writes to the Ephesians (2, 

19-22): (( Now, therefore, you a1'e no more strangers and 

fo ·reigners; but you are fellow-citizens with the saints, 

and the domestics of God. Built upon the foundation of 

the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the 

chief corner stone; in whom all the building, being framed 

together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord. In 

'whom you also are built together into an habitation of 

God in the Spirit." The sacraments, prayer, worship, 

ministry, brotherhood are all associated WIth an exterior 

order. It must be evident, then, that Christianity is not 

purely and exclusively interior. 

In Christ's Church a distinction is to be noted be-

tween pastors and flock, ministers and them that are min-

istered to. In many Protestant churches the ministry is 

made little of, and frequently enough, ministers them-

selves will lend a hand in marking out every essential 

distinction between clergy and laity. . This may not be 

far wrong in a ministry that lacks priestly ordination and 

valid succession from the Apostles. St. Paul's estimate 



CHRIST'S CHURCH. 23 

of real priests was vastly different ; he speaks of them as 

"dispensers of the mysteries of God " (1 Cor. 4, 1); t o 

whom is given the (( ministry at the reconciliation" (2 Cor. 
5, 18) ; (( ambassadors for Clm:st" (2 Cor. 5, 20) ; (( God's 

ca-adjutors" (1 Cor. 3,9) . (( vVe are God's ca-adjutors"; 

he says, II JOt4 are God's husbandry; you are God's build-

ing." He writei to the Romans (10, 14 and 15) : (( How 

shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they 

preach unless they be sent? " ADd to Titus (1, 5) he 

wrote: (( I left thee in Crete that thou shauldest set in 

order the things that are 'wanting and shouldest ordain 

priests in every city, as I also appointed thee." We read in 

Acts 13, 2: (( And as they were ministering to the L ord, 

and fasting, the Holy Ghost said to them: S eparate Me, 

Saul and Barnabas, for the work w hereunto I have taken 

them. Then they, fasting and praying, and imposing their 

hands upon thern, sent them away." 

'1'0 avoid confusion it is well to keep in mind that 

distinction in Christ 's Church between pastors and flock. 

As to the former was given, among other things, the com· 

mission to teach, we may designate them by the short t erm 

of Teaching Church. The Teaching Church, according to 

i~s conciliar pronouncements, is the official, or infallible, 

teacher then, and then only, when her bishops are gath. 

ered together in a general council, with the Pope at their 

head, either in person or through his legates, and define 

doctrines regarding faith and morals, binding the faith-

ful; or when her chief pastor does the same, acting in his 

capacity of supreme pontiff; or, finally, when the voice of 

her bishops, dispersed throughout the universe, but united 

with the Pope, is unanimous. Bear this in mind and you 

will understand clearly what is meant when we speak of 

the church as an official teacher, or of her pronouncements 

as official, or infallible, t eachings. It was the Lord 's 

prayer that His Church be and remain one : (( H oly Father, 

keep them in Thy name, whom T hou hast given Me; that 

they may be one, as ~(Je also are" (In 17, 11). The Church 

T he Teaching 
Church 



24 THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHER. 

could not possibly remain one, unless Christ made some 

provision for an authoritative teacher and supreme exec-

utive head. Anything less than that would necessarily 

lead to uncertainty and divisions. It was within His . 

power to provide both. His Teaching Church was sent 

forth with the solemn guarantee that it should represent 

Him and speak with His voice. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHER 

It And hast made us to our God a Kingdom and Priests, 

and we shall reign on the earth." Apoc. 5, 10. 

The Teacher To the Teaching Church were given certain specific 

duties, together with corresponding powers. Among these 

was the command to instruct : tt And Jesus com.ing, spoke 

to them, saying: All power is given to Me in heaven and 

in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing 

them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of tht 

Holy Ghost, teaching then'£ to observe all things whatso-

ever I have commanded you, : and behold, I am with you 

all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Mt. 

28, 18-20). Again: tty mt shall be 'witnesses unto Me in J e-

rusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the 

uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1, 8) . This Commission 

to carry the Gospel to the farthest ends of the earth and 

through the countless successions of generations down to 

the close of time was not, of course, a personal charge re-

stricted to the eleven Apostles; but was given to the office 

of Christ's ministry, as is apparent from the nature of the 

commission itself. Note well the power He grants: « As the 

Father hath sent me, I also send you" (In 20, 21). The 

Father sent Him to reconcile the sinner with the offended 

deity and "to have all men come to the knowledge of the 



THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHER. 25 

fruth" (1 Tim. 2,4). As empowered Himself by the Father, 

so He now empowers his priesthood, that the work for 

which He came may go on apd all men may be reached 

with the saving gospel; that the ignorant may be enlight-

ened and every inquiring mind set at r est. 

We have an adage "many heads many minds." In 

the Kingdom there is to be one mind alone, the Divine 

Mind. There are to be no disputes, no anxious perplex-

ities, no separation into antagonistic bands in Christ's 

Church. There is a standard of right and wrong, of 

truth and error, in that spiritual kingdom, and this stand-

ard is proclaimed to great and small, high and low, by the 

divine Church: If It he will not hear the Church . 
let him be to thee as the heathen and publican" (Mt. 18, 

17). If the Church were not an infallible arbiter, a divine 

teacher in questions of conduct and belief, it would be 

manifestly improper to excommunicate members and pub-

licly brand them as heretics, or unbelieving Gentiles, and 

as sinners or outlaws. Being what it is St. Paul (1 Tim. 3 

15) could speak of it as " the House of God, which is the 

Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the 

truth." 

All shall know that these teachers sent by Him, so 

long as they voice the teachings of His Church, are not 

mere human and frail instruments, liable to error, but are 

divinely protected; are, in fact, His authorized personal 

representatives, as we learn from Luke 10, 16: " He that 

heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you de-

spiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that 

sent Me." After this will you judge it a light thing to 

accept or reject at will what is taught you by the priests 

of Christ's Church ? Will you continue to maintain that 

it IS within your right to construct your own belief or 

moral code out of the conflicting interpretations of' Holy 
Writ? 

One Mind 

Ambassadors 
of Christ 



One 
Sbeepfold 

The Peace 
gf Cbrist 

~6 THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHER. 

The support of sectarianism, helping to scatter 

Chrilit's sheep into alien folds, is reprobated by the divine 

Pastor. No individual is free to separate himself from the 

fold, or to remain outside of it; in other words to hold 

aloof from Christ's Church, or to affiliate with another. 

Says the Lord (In 10, 16): (( Other sheep I have that are 

not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall 

hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shep-

herd. " We are far from realizing that at the present 

moment; but who is to blame for the disruption of 

Christendom into a thousand' dissenting bodies? Are you 

going to contribute your part to the healing of the divi-

sions? St. Paul's exhortation is addressed to us as well 

as to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1, 10): (( I beseech you, 

brethren, by the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you 

all spea/~ {he same thing, and that there be no schisms 
among '),ou." St. Paul insists upon the putting away of 

all that could bring disunion among Christians (Rom. 15, 

5 and 6): (( The God of patience and of comfort grant 

yOl~ to be of one mind one towards another, according to 

Jesus Chrtst: that with one mind and with one mouth, you 

may glonfy God and the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ." 

Thtl embracing of the truth must result in unity; for 

it is only through the creeping in of errors that doctrinal 

divisions arise. This is an ugly admission, but true. 

Christ points out the remedy; He has endowed His Church 

with the precious heritage of the truth, (In 14, 16 ff): 

U And I wtll ask the Father, and He shall give you another 

Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever. The 

Spirit of truth. . He will teach you all things." The 

Holy Ghost was not promised to every individual reader 

of the Scriptures; for in that event there could be no doc-

trinal differences among them. He was promised to the 

Teaching Church-the official and infallible guide. What 

a boon it is to be assured of the possession of truth, to be 

able to rest in absolute security! This'is what the early 

Christians enjoyed; this is what Christ willed His follow-



THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHER. 27 

ers to have in every age: in the Words of St. Paul (Phil. 

4, 7) "the peace of God, which surpasseth all understand-

ing. " We, as well as the Phi!ippians, are to enjoy that 

peace of God, through membership with that selfsame 

Church that gave them such security of mind and com-

fort of heart. The Lord said (Mt. 16, 18): (( Thou art 

Peter (Rock) and upon this rock I will build My Church, 

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 

Neither the violence of her external enemies, nor the 

secret machinations of internal foes, were ever to force or 

lead this Church into apostasy. She was to be Christ's 

faithful witness before every generation until time is no 

more. This is the one Church that cannot go astray, to 

go out from which is spiritual suicide. 

Which is that Church? The one among the many that 

reaches back to Pentecost. None of the Protestant 

churches was in existence before Martin Luther. 

"Yours," they tell us, "is the Mother Church; yours was 

the true Church at one time." A valuable admission; for 

if it was true at one time, it was true always: Christ's 

Church once, Christ's Church for ever. That is the true 

Church which is conscious of its mission as an authorita-

tive teacher and infallible guide. The fact that any 

church disclaims infallibility, and by so doing character-

izes itself as liable to error, that" of itself rules it out of 

court. What value does it possess 1 It is not the Church tl) 

which Christ promised His divine protection. As there 

is only one church that reaches back to Pentecost, that is 

built Upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, 

Christ Jesus being the chief corner stone· so there is too , " 
one only church that claims infallibility and authority in 

teaching; and this, it hardly needs to be added, is the ' 

Catholic Church. When you have, joined this Church you 

have entered the fold of the divine Pastor: here you will 

hear His voice and be taught by the divine Spirit i here the 

The Mother 
Church 



A Sharp 
Questioner 

28 HOW CAN I BE SAVED? 

citadel of your faith will not be conquered by the" gates 

of hell"; and the promise of the Prophet will include 

you: (( They shall be My people, and I 'Will be their God 

in truth and in justice" (Zach. 8, 8). 

CHAPTER VII. 

HOW CAN I BE SAVED? 

« Walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His 

Kingdom and glory." 1 Thess. 2, 12. 

Our final blessedness is a matter of too much import-

ance to be dismissed lightly. Study your way carefully. 

An earnest inquirer once put the question: "What must I 

do to save my soul ?" You would agree, we are confident, 

with our answer: First of all have faith in the Lord, 

J esus Christ; believe in Him and believe all that He has 

revealed to man: then keep all of His commandments. 

"But how am I to know what Christ has revealed and 

what He wishes me to do?" persisted the questioner. 

"His followers," he said, "are not at all agreed upon 

what He taught, or what He requires of us in the matter 

of conduct; they are split up into hundreds of sects that 

give each other the lie. Each sect claims to give His 

teachings in their original purity; if they are telling the 

truth, then Christ contradicted Himself, teaching one 

thing to be true and not true, another necessary to sal va-

tion and not necessary. Was Christ uncertain in His 

teachings ? did He really contradicted Himself? or are 

the churches misrepresenting Him ? If they misrepresent 

Him, are they not false guides? " Christ, being God, pos-

sessed infinite knowledge: He could not be uncertain in 

His teachings, nor could He ever contradict Himself. The 

fault does not lie with Him; but with the erroneous teach-

ings that are given out as His. 



HOW CAN I BE SAVED7 29 

We learned in a previous chapter that Christ organ- Did Christ 
Keep His 

ized His followers into a society, which He called His Word? 

Church. This Church was to continue His work after 

His departure. To this Church" as we have seen, He made 

certain promises, like that of divine guidance in its teach-

ing office and of His continued protection to the end of 

time. W ere these promises fulfilled 1 Undoubtedly. 

Christ was not one to make a promise and break it. The 

future stood revealed to His eyes, and He possessed the 

power to guard and protect, to curb and guide. To say 

that He could not keep His Church from apostasy, though 

He willed it and promised it, is to charge Him with weak-

ness and is equivalent to denying His divinity. We know, 

then, that there is one Church existing today that is the 

true mouthpiece of Christ, the bearer of His glad tidings 

of truth and grace; since it is His very Church, by Him 

established and by Him divinely protected. Find that 

Church and you have found the r eligion of Christ: then 

you will know both what to beLieve and what to do, in 

order to save your soul. 

When searching fo~ the true Church make sure that 
no unworthy or insufficient motive shall influence you. 

Seeking, in a friendly discussion with a society woman, 

to reach a common basis for argument, I was surprised 

to hear her disclaim belief in the Bible, in the divinity 

of Christ and finally in the personality of God. Know-

ing that she was a member of a Protestant church, I 

asked her why she joined that church. She admitted 

unblushingly that she joined it for the sake of getting 

into society. "I believed I would meet some of the nicest 

people of the city there," was the sum total of her creed. 

There are not many church people with the utter lack 

of faith of this woman; but there are many, very many, 

who choose their church for a like reason. Others are led 

to a church by companions, by the prospect of enter-

tainment. They select a church in lieu of a social club. 

Some. churches have been dubbed "ladies' clubs." The 

Strange 
Avowal. 



30 ' HOW CAN I BE SA VED 7 

l'emark that "our clergyman is a very entertaining 

speaker and we have many sociable gatherings," may 

remove the last obstacle to a decision. Another argues 

the matter out at his desk: "1 could improve my busi-

ness by throwing in my lot with the most popular church 

of the town; a large congregation worships there, and 1 

may gain new customers." Some join a church because 

it is easy and makes no exacting demands. "No confes-

sion, nor fasting, nor early masses in our church," may 

be the inducement held out to a Catholic. Others pick a 

church because there is little to believe. Perhaps it 

boasts of having no creed, as if such a thing were possi-

ble. It may be inviting accessions from other denomin-

ations on the plea of "roominess": "With us you can , 

believe about anything you please; there are no heresy 

trials in our church." Merely to mention these motives 

is sufficient to condemn them. No sensible person will 

maintain seriously that the way to find Christ's Church 

is to learn where the fashionable people worship, where 

one can be amused, where there is little to do and less to 

believe, or where one can improve his business out-

look. ,And yet are there not many who are actuated by 

one or other of these motives in seeking church-member-

ship? 

TM Sword A less unworthy, yet wholly insufficient motive is 

that of the man or woman who says "1 belong to this 

particular church because my parents belonged to it be-

for& me. " That reason for one's faith would be a very 

good one, indeed, if, upon investigation, the religion of 

one's parents was found to be the true religion. If it 

were found not to be that, son and daughter must for-

sake the ~hurch of their parents, no matter what the cost. 
Christ Jesus says: (( I came to set a man at variance 

against his father, and the daughter against her mother, 

and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, And 

a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He 

that loveth father or mother more ,thaH Me is not UJorthy 



HOW CAN I BE SAVED 1 31 

of Me,' and he that loveth son or daughter more tha1~ Me, 

is not worthy of Me. And he that talleth not up his 

cross, and followeth Me is not worthy of Men (Mt. 10, 

35-38). At other times the Savior was called the prince 

of peace; but on this occasion He says: (( I came, not to 

send peace, but the sword n (Mt. 10, 34). 

Still another -motive might be mentioned. Some un-

fortunate people are induced to unite with a church by 

gifts of clothes, or food, or money, or special schooling, 

or assistance of one kind or another. This is a favorite 

method for gaining recruits from the ranks of the poor, 

practiced among certain wealthy proselytizing bodies. 

Deeds of charity are commendable, except when they are 

made to ensnare souls; then they are damnable. That 

c:onsciences are violated is proved by the fact that the 

victims of the proselytizers return to their old faith as 

soon as the gifts cease, or when they are brought face to 

face with death. We despise the man who shows him-

self so weak as to sell his birthright for a mess of pot-

tage; but more despicable and more guilty by far are the 

men and women who contribute to his temptation. 

We have been discussing counterfeit motives; a 

word or two will suffice to point out the genuine motive 

for church affiliation. We know that among the rival de-

nominations there is one true Church-the one divinely 

founded and divinely protected. That Church is in ex-

istence this very year, as it has existed during every 

year since the first Christian Pentecost. Become a member 

of that Church and do so for no other r eason than that you 

are called to the Kingdom of the Son. Though you know 

that you are wrong, will you say: "I will stay, never-

theless, just where I am. I know we are in error, but we 

do not choose to get out of it." To do that is to refuse 

to be honest with yourself and honest with your God. 

The local environment of that Church may not be at-

.. .soupers " 
and Soul-
Snatchers 

Be Honest 
with Yourself 



32 THE SCHOOL OF GOD. 

tractive to you, whose acquaintances and associations 

have been elsewhere and different; but you join the 

Church, not for social comfort, but to be close to Christ, 

and through that communion to gain the salvation of 

your soul. 

CHAPTER VITI. 

THE SCHOOL OF GOD. 

(( To you it is given to know the mystery of ,the King-

dom of God." Luke 8, 10. 

America's Boast The European visitor is struck by the grandeur and 

almost countless number of our school buildings. The 

American people are fond of knowledge. No other 

nation approaches us in the amount of money expended 

year by year for the support and development of our 

halls of learning. It is our ambition to give every child 

in the country an education. We can boast, not only of 

our extensive primary education, but also of our superior 

secondary schools, which are scattered generously over 

every part of the country. Our rich men are eager to 

surpass each other in munificent donations to equip libra· 

ries and endow universities and technical schools. We 

have come to look upon illiteracy, not merely as a misfor-

tune, but as a veritable disgrace. The daughters and 

sons of our best families deem it an honor to teach the 

young. We would have the best teachers that can be 

found. If we chose a motto for our children it would be, 

"Nothing too good for them!" Knowledge is power; 

they shall dominate the world by their intellect, if we 

can bring it about. Weare not going to count the cost, 

either, in working out that purpose. We want strong 

men physically, but we want them still stronger men· 

tally. Let us add another .requisite: we want them 



THE SCHOOL OF GOD. 

strongest of all morally. Is it not true 1 The Scripture 

says: " Justice exalteth a nation." Amid a world-wide 

weakening of moral restraint we would become a God-

fearing, high-minded, pure and just people. 

Without religion there can be no advance in moral-

ity. All churches are laboring, each in its own way, for 

the advancement of morality; but, unfortunately, they 

weaken their preaching of Christian morals by present-

ing a divided front. Weare all agreed that the child 

shall be taught the truth in everyone of its school 

branches; there is not a parent who would not grow in-

dignant, if his boy or girl were taught to spell or figure 

incorrectly, or do anything else erroneously. Is it not 

strange, then, that the same persons who find error in 

secular matters quite intolerable, find error in religion a 

matter of little moment and doubt in religion a matter 

of course? Where there are differences, as was re-

marked before, there is error, and error should be made 

to yield to truth. Why are Americans so wide awake 

and courageous in the one pursuit and hesitating and 

timid in the other 1 

The Catholic system bears a striking resemblance to 

the management of the secular school. Enter a building 

devoted to secular knowledge. You may find a dozen 

rooms, which for convenience of reference, are numbered 

from 1 to 12. You may pass through all of them; you 

canJ?ot help noticing the uniformity of teaching. The 

teacher of Room 2 does not tell her children that Seat-

tle is in Wyoming, nor that 5 is contained 6 times in 25; 

Room 5 has not placed Seattle in Oregon, nor found only 

four fives in 25. If you were to express satisfaction at 

the pupils learning the same answers, you would be told 

that truth is catholic, or universal. Now enter the big 

school of American Christianity. There are many rooms; 

but they are designated by names instead of numbers. 

Qne room, the largest, is labeled Catholic, another Luth-

eran, another Protestant Episcopal, another Methodist, an-

Divided 
W. Fall 

A ComparilOQ 



Value of a 
Good Teacher 

34 'rItE SCHOOL OF GOD. 

other Presbyterian, and so on. Pass from one to the other, 

and you will surely be struck by the diversity of answers 

given to the same questions in the different rooms. Try 

them on the question of baptism, for example. When 

you have collected the divergent answers you may ask in 

amazement: Is truth single or multiplex 1 Is there a 

Baptist truth and a Lutheran truth and a Methodist 

truth, or is not truth in religious matters as catholic as 

in secular matters ~ To be sure all truth is one and uni-
versal. What if two or ten persons say they are honest 

in their differences 1 Without impeaching their honesty 

you would have to answer: the fact still remains that one 

or nine of you are in error and you are not permitted to 

remain in error. How long would you put up with a 

teacher who would say to your children: "You have 

given me five different answers to my question as to how 

many times 5 is contained in 25; but because I see that 

you are in good faith you may each of you keep your own 

answer." 

You have an objection in your mind, and we will 

state it for you: "The two things are quite dissimilar; 

the one set of truths can be demonstrated quite easily; 

so easily, in fact, that there can be no excuse for igno-

ranee; the other set of truths, on the contrary, cannot be 

demonstrated like a mathematical problem or geograph-

ical statement; hence we cannot acquire certitude." 

Now, that would be very true, if we had to arrive at our 

answers unaided, or if the t eachers were no more compe-

tent than ourselves; for it is certain (your differences 

are the . proof) that religious truths are so difficult of 

- demonstration that we cannot learn them without a 

teacher. Freely admitting that the study of religion has 

its perplexing difficulties, if only the teacher is complete 

master of it, the pupil walks with secure step. Christ 

left us a teacher of superlative worth in His Church. 



THE SCHOOL OF GOD. 35 

The school teacher, looking for an appointment, pre- Her Credentials 

sents her certificate to prove her competency to t each; 

the Catholic Church presents the New Testament as one 

of her certificates, to'" prove both her competency ana 

authority. You do not wish, probably, to search out all 

that the gospels and epistles say of the Church; so let us 

recall a few of the texts already quoted. We wiil put 

them into a convenient form: "This is to certify that 

the Church has authority to continue My mission, both 

as to instructing mankind in the truths of faith and as 

to the forgiveness of sins (Mt. 28, 18-20; Jn 20, 21). He 

that will hear this teacher will hear Me (Lk. 10, 16) ; he ' 

that will not hear the bearer of this certificate shall have 

no part with Me and shall be no follower of Mine (Mt. 

18, 17) . I pledge My word that this teacher shall be pro-

tected against error now and forever (In 14, 26; Mt. 

16,18). Signed, Jesus Christ." 

Can you ask for a better certificate than this? Was Gain Security 

ever a school teacher so well dowered as the Church, 

so competent as she to teach Y If pupils will place the 

most implicit reliance upon a good teacher, why should 

we not yield a still greater obedience to Christ's Church 1 

The best teacher may err; but Christ's Church, our re-

ligious teacher, is infallible. To a woman in far away 

Iceland, who complained that it perplexed her to know 

just what to believe, we answered: "That matter is 

very simple, just listen to the Teacher." "That seems 

too easy," was her response. But why should Christ 

wish to make it impossible for His children to learn His 

religion 1 Would not His goodness purposely make it 

easy 1 He surely cannot wish us to spend a lifetime in a 

vain and unsatisfactory attempt to find out what He re-

quires us under penalty of damnation to know and be-

lieve from childhood on. Too easy! In our secular 

schools we are striving by all kinds of devices to make 

learning constantly less difficult. Why are you non-

Catholics so timid about adopting the only effective me-



Priest-ridden? 

Pr-oclaim 
the School 

of God 

36 THE SCHOOL OF GOD. 

dium for gaining Christian truth 1 You know that the 

medium introduced in the sixteenth century has failed 

completely to establish unity of faith, or to give you any 

r easonable assurance that the doctrines you hold are 

true. You would not dream of giving your child a dozen 

text-books and telling him to stay at home from school 

and master their contents, without the aid of a teacher. 

If you attempted to do this, the state would interfere 

and would tell you that you are neglecting your child 

criminally. Yet you would learn a much more difficult 

matter, a supernatural religion, without a teacher; and 

learn it from a book that was never meant to be a text-

book, despite the fact that what you treat as your text-

book tells you plainly that a divinely equipped teacher 

has been appointed to lead you securely into the truth. 

Why will you not place yourselves under this teacher, 

when your real aim in religion is to require the fullness 

of Christian truth 1 

Some persons criticise this religious teacher, the 

Catholic Church, when she proscribes certain books and 

expels from her communion those who persist in teach-

ing doctrines contrary to hers. The school teacher will 

not tolerate two tables of arithmetic, nor two or three 

kinds of spelling. No one would think of calling the 

teacher a tyrant for doing so, nor say she is too narrow, 

or that she is depriving her pupils of free thought. No 

one would dub these pupils teacher-ridden, as certain 

grown-ups are styled priest-ridden. 

The School of God has an advantage over the sec-

ular school. If some modern Crcesus could find an in-

fallible teacher for his favorite university, he would un-

doubtedly offer a king's ransom for his services. Any 

Board of Education would be charged with inexcusable 

neglect, if it could secure a teacher with the certificate 

of the Catholic Church, and failed to do so. But a 

teacher of that sort is not available for secular schools. 

No earthly authority is competent to bestow a certificate 



IDENTITY WITH GOSPEL CHURCH. 37 

guaranteeing absolute inerrancy. God, on the contrary, 

can give inerrancy; and as immeasurably more depends 

upon the acquisition of religious than of secular knowl-

edge, we can reasonably expect Him to use Hi~ power for 

our benefit. He promised to give it, and He has given it-. 

America is ambitious. We would like to lead the world 

in secular education; why not lead it in what is better 

still-in religious truth? Proclaim the School of God. 

Help us spread it to the uttermost parts of the earth, and 

bring back unity to a divided Christendom. The solu-

tion of our differences lies alone in the School of God. 

God's way is not man's way. God's way leads to the 

unity of the truth. 

CHAPTER IX. 

IDENTITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WITH THE 

GOSPEL CHURCH. 

(( Whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all 

kings shall serve Him, a1~d shall obey Him." Dan. 7, 27. 

So far we have seen that the Blessed Savior Him- Attitude of the 
Church toward 

self, foreseeing the danger of schisms and divisions the Sects 

among His followers, created a magistral chair, from 

which all might learn religious truths. This was His 

Teaching Church, which He endowed with infallibility_ 

Of this there can be no doubt; for the Scripture passagefJ 

are too plain to admit of dispute. No one would think of 

denying that the test of orthodoxy among the early 

Christians was obedience to the Teaching Church. When-

ever a dispute arose among them on any point of doc· 

trine, the dispute was referred to a councilor to the suc-

cessor of St. Peter at Rome, for settlement. If the de-

feated disputants continued to hold their condemned 

opinions, they were cut off from the body of the faithful 



The Charge 
of Innovations 

38 IDENTITY WITH GOSPEL CHURCH. 

and were no longer considered as belonging to Christ's 

Church, or the Catholic-meaning universal-Church, as 

they put it. No well-informed Protestant would think 

of asserting that his principle of private interpretation 

was recognized by the early Christians. They did not 

call those who were cut off fellow-Christians, but here-

tics; their ministers were not invited to joint pastoral 

ubions; there were no union services for the members of 

the Church and the sects; the former strove for no fed-

eration with the latter, and they were never guilty of the 

faithless remark that one religion is as good as anothel:. 

They believed their own religion true and their Church 

divine; because they accepted both as they came from the 

hand of the God-man. 

While the Protestant, we believe, will agree with all 

that has been said so far regarding the early Church, he 

begins to see things quite differently, when it is question 

of the Church of today. The Church was pure then, he 

will say; but in the lapse of time it became corrupt both 

as to its members and its teachings. New doctrines and 

strange practices crept in, until it could no longer be 

called the same church. In proof of his assertion he may 

instance the gradual extension of papal power, the exag-

gerated cult of Mary and the saints, the celibacy of the 

clergy, the introduction of auricular confession, of pur-

gatory, indulgences, the mass, of five new sacraments; of 

candles, incense, ashes, palms, holy water, rosaries, nove-

nas and the other practices that the Catholics of today 

set much store by. He will say that upon the simplicity of 

the Gospel teaching and Gospel worship have been grafted 

foreign dogmas and pagan ceremonies, so that the evan-

gelical organization is not at all recognizable in the pres-

ent-day Catholic Church. At a period, he will continue, 

when the people began to study the Bible, they saw how 

far the Catholic Church had got away from its primitive 

constitution, and under the leadership of Luther they 



\ IDENTITY WITH GOSPEL CHURCH. 39 undertook to restore it to its original state. As a conse-
quence, he declares, that he comes nearer to the Church, 

as it left Christ's hands, in Protestantism than we do in 

Catholicism. 

But against this assumption-for assumption it 

surely must be-we have the divine assurance that the 

Church, founded by the Savior, should never fail; that not 

even the powers of hell should accomplish its downfall. 

The continued assistance of the Holy Ghost was promised, 

and by the same divine authority, everyone is declared 

anathema who will not hear the Church. Whom. shall we 

trust, Christ or the Protestant apologist 1 For more than 

half the period from the foundation of the Church down to 

the present time, we are informed by the latter, it wasnon7 

existent on earth; it had failed lamentably in the mission 

for the fulfillment of which it had been expressly founded; 

the gates of hell, despite Christ's solemn assurance to the 

contrary, had prevailed against it; the Holy Ghost was 

powerless to save it, and it was turned by corrupt and de-

signing men into the Synagogue of Satan. Then, we are 

told, great and God-fearing men and women, like Martin 

Luther, Calvin and Wesley, rose up and accomplished 

what the Savior and the Divine Spirit had failed in: they 

purified the Church from the doctrinal corruptions that 

the Godhead was powerless to keep out and which Christ 

had so distinctly promised to keep out. Can you believe 

that 1 We Catholics cling to Christ; we prefer His Word 

to that of Luther, or Calvin, or Henry VIII, or Wesley, or 

Campbell, or Dowie, or Mother Eddy, or Pastor Russell, 

or any other self-constituted founder of a new sect. 

We once heard a minister answer the question, 

"Where was Protestantism before the sixteenth century 1" 

with the counter question, "Where was your face before 

it was washed." The ancient repartee met with ap-

plause from a portion of his listeners; yet the answer is 

more smart than satisfactory. The faces of Protestantism 

-for every denomination in Protestantism has a face of its 
I 

Christ 
versus 
Luther 

A Smart 
Answer 



Was the 
Identity Lost? 

Identity 
of Babe 

and Man 

40 IDENTITY WITH GOSPEL CHURCH. 

own-are not ~he face of Catholicism, clean or dirty. Fancy 

the surprise of a mother if a hundred boys rushed into her 

presence and sought to convince her that they were all her 

own little boy after he got his face washed. Cardinal 

Newman, who had been a prominent Anglican divine and 

was noted for his superior learning and his unflinching 

devotion to truth, while still an Anglican minister 

wrote: "Whatever history teaches, whatever it admits, 

whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says 

or unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Prot-

estantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this. And 

Protestantism has ever felt it so. Hence it tries to dis-

pense wi~h historical Christianity altogether and to form 

a Christianity from the Bible alone." (Development of 

Christian Doctrines, p. 7.) "To be deep in history," he 

adds, "is to cease to be a Protestant." 

"But is it not true, af~er all is said," asks a puzzled 

inquirer, "that there have been many and great changes, 

not only in your disciplinary rules and modes of devo-

tions, which might be passed over, but even in your doc-

trinal definitions?" Our inquirer makes a wise distinc-

tion between discipline and ritualistic ceremonial, on the 

one hand, and the doctrinal content on the other. The 

former are but the garments of religion, which may 

change with the seasons, or vary in different localities, 

without hurt to the body; or we might properly say, to 

the better health and better setting off of the body: while 

the latter, the doctrines, constitute the body itself of re-

ligion, and must remain identical with themselves, if re-

ligion is to suffer no change. There have been apparent 

changes, we will admit and in some instances these varia-

tions seem considerable; but in each case a fair inquiry, 

we are confident, will reveal not doctrinal change, but 

doctrinal development. 

Identity is acknowledged between the babe and the 

grown up man; yet they are farther apart than the Cath-

olic Church of today is from the Apostolic Church. If 



, DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT. 41 

you have not seen a young man since his childhood days, 

you will not recognize him now by anything you can 

remember of the babe of twenty years before. Yet his 

identity can be established to your entire satisfaction; and 

then you begin to realize how all that the young man 

now possesses: strength, agility, skill, understanding, 

etc., were all contained in the child in an undeveloped 

state. The identity is complete and was preserved de-

spite the fact that the addition to the child's bulk came 

from without, through the assimilation of food, whereas 

the growth of doctrine in the Catholic Church was 

wholly from within, by the process of a progressive un-

folding of the original deposit of faith. 

CHAPTER X. 

DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT, 

(( So is the Kingdom of God, as if a man should cast 

seed into the earth." Mk 4, 26. 

To some Protestants the idea of any development 

whatsoever, in matters of doctrine, is abhorrent, yet prog-

ress, not only in the subjective penetration of religious 

truths, but in the unfolding of the doctrines themselves, 

was inevitable. They argue that all should have re-

mained in its original simplicity. They forget that, 

though most things may have their simple side, 

they have their complex side as well, and that, when 

the simplest fact is examined in its relation to other ob-

jects, at once a wide field is opened to our investigation. 

It seems a simple process to a child to take down the re-

ceiver of a telephone and converse with some person a 

mile or two distant. The child believes that the sound of 

its voice is carried through, or along the wire to its des-

tination; but to explain that seemingly simple process to its 

Simplicity 
as a Test 



Implied 
Doctrines 

Given 
Express 

Definition 

42 DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT. 

maturer mind, in after years, will necessitate a knowledge 

of the nature of sound, of the transmissions of its waves, 

of the properties of electricity, of the intricacies of the 

switchboard, of the manufacture of copper wire, of the 

conversion of the latent heat of coal into a current of 

electricity, and a dozen other related subjects. William 

H. Mallock, in "Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption," pp. 

244 and 245, makes this very truthful reflection: "The 

adoption of simplicity as a test of r eligious truth is a r e-

sult of the grossest ignorance. Those who argue thus, 

argue in effect that, because religion undoubtedly has a 

simple side, ther efore it has no side that is not simple . 

. . . It ceases to be simple the moment we begin ex-

plaining it; it is infinitely complex in its relation to other 

things." Mallock's t estimony is that of a non-Catholic. 

The body of r evealed truth was given once for all 

and came to a close with the death of the Apostles. How-

ever, as time went on the terms of Christian belief were 

expressed more and more clearly and definitions finally 

reached that scientific accuracy that left no farther room 

for misunderstanding. Bound up in the doctrines ex-

plicitly believed were others, hidden at first to the casual 

observer, but soon drawn out one by one and proclaimed 

in their own right. With the increase of knowledge dis. 

tinctions could be drawn more sharply, clearing ~he at-

mosphere of r eligion still further from any remaining 

mistiness. Philosophy became the handmaid of theology 

and enriched the latter with a fund of explanations, il-

lustrations and proofs; placing within its grasp effective 

tools of argument for use against opponents. The r est-

less human mind was active in searching for information 

in every field of the knowable: the rocks were made to 

t ell an interes~ing story, surpassed only by that of the 

stars and planets; the beginnings of history were pushed 

far beyond the r ecords of the earliest scribes; newly for-

mulated laws of nature; the facts and fancies of evolu-

tion; a countless array of discoveries and theories clam-



DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT. 43 

ored for recognition. The Christian Church needed to 

meet the new sciences and examine their conclusions-

to accept the true and reject the false; at times, to con-

fess their help in overthrowing some faulty interpreta-

tion of theologians, and at all times grateful for the addi-

tional light thrown upon the sacred truths. It needed to 

speak to the scientific world in its own tongue and make 

its doctrines intelligible to the thought of the day. The 

same restatement ' of Christian doctrine has become neces-

sary again and again in the face of the accumulated find-

ings, true and false, of the prolific family of Biblical 

sciences. In the executive department of the Church's 

activity we find what we must have expected to see: that 

the powers intrusted to its officers came gradually to as- · 

sume a fixed mode of procedure-the mode that proved 

itself in practice the best adapted to the purpose of these 

powers. In all this there is development, but not change. 

It has been charged, too, that the Catholic Church ceased 

to be the true Church when she borrowed terms and 

modes of thought from Greek philosophy and many of 

the details of law and government from the jurispru-

dence of pagan Rome. Some Protestant writers, in con-

sequence, speak of the Catholic Church as a paganized 

Christianity. They overlook the fact that whatever was 

taken from pagan sources added nothing substantial to 

revealed truth. 

The unprejudiced investigator will be able to ac-

count for all apparent doctrinal changes in the Catholic 

Church. A new dogma does not mean a new doctrine; it 

means nothing more than that the official seal has been 

placed by competent authority upon an old doctrine. 

Thus the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, promul-

gated by papal decree in 1854, and that of Papal Infalli-

bility, defined in the Vatican Council in 1870, add noth-

ing new to our Christian belief, except that in future no 

one may deny either article without forfeiting member-

ship in the Catholic Church. Once we admit the divine 

, 

A New Dogma 
Not a New 
Doctrine 



Neither Add 
nor Take 

Away 

44 THE CHARGE OF INNOVATIONS. 

character of the Church, the official pronouncements of 

this Church itself will be the surest guarantee that there 

has been no deviation from the primitive faith. Says 

Mallock, in the book mentioned abbve, pp. 161 and 162: 

"It is only now, when the rains and floods of criticism 

descend and beat on the whole doctrinal edifice, washing 

away the sands on which Protestant thought rested it, 

that the true functions of an articulate and infallible 

Church, pf a Church always the same and yet always de-

veloping, pecome apparent. It is only now, when men 

find themselves planted by modern knowledge in a world 

unknown to the theologians and apologists of the past, 

that, desiring still to retain the heritage of their ancient 

faith, they realize the full necessity for the guidance of a 

living teacher, whose authority is not indeed opposed to 

that of science, but is independent of it, and though not 

contradicting anything which science demonstrates, is 

able to assure us of the truth of events and things which 

scientific evidence alone could not even render proba-

ble. " There has been no deviation from the doctrinal 

deposit delivered to the Church by the Apostles. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE DEPOSIT OF FAITH. 

(( My Kingdom is not of this world." In 18, 36. 

The contention that nothing must be added to the 

deposit of faith, made complete before the death of the 

last Apostle, is most true: (( All things whatsoever I 

have heard of My Father, I have made known to you" 

(In 15, 15) , are the words of the Savior Himself. Hence 

St. Paul (Gal. 1, 8), could say: (( Though we, or an angel 

from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which 

we have preached to you, let him be anathema." On thi 



THE CHARGE OF INNOVATIONS. 45 

other hand, nothing must be taken away from the re-

ceived truths, for the reason that they are divine and, 

therefore, absolute and eternal. In one of the earliest 

Christian wri~ings, that called the Epistle of Barnabas, 

dating from the second century, we r ead: "This is the 

rule of true enlightenment: Keep what thou hast received, 

neither adding thereunto, nor taking anything away." 

It is the fashion among a certain class of "advanced .Rationalista 

thinkers" to take a stand just the opposite to that men-

tioned two chapters back. They blame the Catholic 

Church for its unyielding conservatism ; for clinging ob-

stinately to what they are pleased to call outgrown 

views; for its lack of progress and accommodation to the 

spirit of the age. Their favorite characterization of the 

Church is "obscurantist" and "reactionary." A sermon 

title, like that of "The Outgrown Christ," is fully in line 

with the teaching of these innovators. When they speak 

of progress in religious doctrine they understand some-

thing quite di:fferen~ from us. With them it i~ not prog-

ress at all, but alteration; not development, but retro-

gression from truth to error. "Therefore, " says St. Vin-

cent of Lerins (in his famous Commonitory, n. 23 ) , 

"whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers 

in this husbandry of God's Church, the same ought to be 

cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their 

children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same 

ough~ to advance and go forward to perfection. For it 
is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philos-

ophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, 

polished; but not that they should be changed, not that 

they should be maimed, not that they should be muti-

lated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness '; 

but they must retain withal their completeness, their in-

tegrity, their characteristic properties." 
St. Vincent recognized the great danger to true faith Stem the 

Flood 
in the quest after novelties ; for he continues: "For if 

once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I dread to 



The Real 
Innovators 

46 THE CHARGE OF INNOVATIONS. 

say in how great danger religion will be of being utterly 

destroyed and annihilated. For if anyone part of Cath-

olic truth be given up, another, and another, and another 

will thenceforward be given up as a matter of course, and 

the several individual portions having been rejected, what 

will follow in the end but the rejection of the whole 7" 

Though most, or all Protestants, charge the Catholic 

Church with having gotten away from primitive Chris-

tian teaching, a little self-examination must reveal to 

them that in contrast with the old historic Church they 

are the innovators. It is they who reject the primacy of 

Peter and his successors, so clearly taught in the Scrip-

tures; it is they who refuse to go ·for pardon to Christ's 

ministers, as appointed by Christ Himself; it is they who 

have degraded marriage from a sacred union to a mere 

civil contract; it is they who have introduced that pro-

lific fountain of discord, Private Judgment, and set at 

nought the authority of Christ's Church; it is they who 

are tearing out chapters and entire books from Holy 

Writ; it is they who have banished the Real Presence 

from their 'churches; it is they who have broken with the 

Apostolic succession; it is they who talk lightly of orig-

inal sin, of eternal punishment, of divine faith; who are 

bending ever more deeply before the storm of modern 

rationalism, which threatens to r~b them of the last 
vestige of supernatural r eligion. Not in the Catholic 

Church, but in the non-Catholic sects, are to be found 

deviations from the faith built upon Christ and His 

Apostles. 



CHAPTER XII. 

DID THE CHURCH FOUNDED BY CHRIST GROW 

CORRUPT? 

(( The God of Heaven will set up a Kingdom that shall 

never be destroyed, and His Kingdom shall not be delivered 

up to another people, and it shall break in pieces, and shall 

consume all these kingdoms, and itself shall stand forever." 

Dan. 2, 44. 

There has been no deviation from the doctrinal de-

posit; but has there been no lapse from the moral stand-

ards? The Church, in its official capacity as an auth<>r-

itative teacher, has never proclaimed, nor ever counte-

nanced, immoral principles, or immoral practices. There 

is one thing upon which all Protestants are agreed, that 

before Protestantism arose, the Christian world was 

sunk in hopeless degradation, and that the Reformation 

effected a wonderful advance in morality, enlightenment 

and general well-being. They are so certain of this that 

they are surprised that anyone can be found simple 

enough to call it in question. When they see the qualify-

ing "so-called" added to "Reformation," they ascribe 

the addition to gross ignorance, or downright bigotry. 

It never occurs to them that an unprejudiced inquiry on 

their part might reveal a story different altogether from 

that they had been made familiar with from childhood. 

It is good advice to hear both sides befo~e rendering 
judgment. Have you read anything on the Catholic 

side? 

That the nations of Europe were far below our pres-

ent civilization in the :fifteenth century cannot be 

doubted. But then I the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies were still worse, and the eighteenth little better. 

47 

Hear Both 
Sides 

Ebb and 
Tide 



~8 THE CHARGE OF DECADENCE. 

It was the nineteenth century that witnessed a marked 

advance. Will the twentieth century continue the im-

provement 1 We hope so. The/thirteenth was better than 

the two centuries that succeeded it; it has been called, in 

fact, by one well-known writer, the greatest of all the 

centuries. The twelfth and eleventh were far superior 

to the tenth century. In truth, every century in the his-

tory of Christendom was better than the tenth. There 

has been a fluctuation forward and backward, and, it 

may be only a coincidence, but the advance always oc-

curred when the papacy was strongest. The papacy was 

weakest in the tenth century. Churchmen, as well as 

laymen, were carried up and down in this play of the 

centuries. But through it all the Church, as the Ap-

pointed Teacher, pursued her even course, warning 

against errors and condemning the evil lives, whether of 

Popes or princes, of priests or soldiers, of rich or poor. 

The passions of her kings, or the greed of many of her 

priests, or the unholy ambitions of some of her bishops, 

or the threats of unruly mobs could never coerce her into 

declaring wrong right, or falsehood truth. That is mat-

ter of r ecord to him that takes the pains to read. That 

alone should be sufficient to establish her divine char-

acter. A human institution would necessarily be af-

fected by its surroundings. Notice how Protestantism 

yielded to the pressure of the men and women, who tired 

of their wedded spouses and desired to marry others and, 

for their benefit, introduced the un-Christian practice of 

divorce. Some of us may live long enough to see most 

Protestant churches abandon eternal punishment and 

other like unpopular doctrines. The Catholic Church, on 

the other hand, has been unyielding, standing firmly for 

the faith that was delivered to the Apostles. Nations 

flourished and individuals became saints, when they fol-

lowed the Church's teachings, and both retrograded and 

civilization was' lowered, when they got away from her 

authority. 



THE CHARGE OF D~CADENCE. 49 

There are evil persons in every communion; but The Wheat 
and the 

there is a difference of policy among Catholics and Prot- Cockle 

est ants in dealing with them. Protestants try to keep at 

least certain sinners out of their churches altogether; 

Catholics try to keep them in and convert them. The 

former is the easier, but the latter the more Christian 

way. While the Catholic way conforms to the Gospel, 

there is no denying the fact that it has its disadvantages, 

from a worldly point of view; for the vicious bring a cer-

tain amount 'of odium upon the Church that carries them, 

in the eyes of the many, who do not discriminate. 

Protestants generally, we believe, would make no ' Not Moved 
by Popular 

objection to our poli cy, if they were convinced that we Clamor 

are making an honest effort to convert sinners. They 

have a notion that we connive at certain failings, and se-

cretly encourage others. Some few among the most un in-

fo'l"med have a notion, for example, that the confessor 

condones wrong-doing by pronouncing forgiveness with-

out due repentance. This, of course, is a mistake, and an 

inexcusable one, in these days of easy enlightenment. We 

are not influenced, it is true, by popular clamor; nor do 

we permit ourselves to be carried away by some fad of 

_the hour, like that which pronounces all drinking, or the 

guarded sale of drink, deadly sin. Neither will we de-

nounce card playing and dancing as intrinsically wrong; 

for that would be untrue and cr eate false consciences. 

On the other hand we cannot be cajoled into the admis-

sion that certain sins of married folks are ever permis-

sible; or that the state can sever the nuptial bond in any 

real and valid Christian marriage; or that the same state 

can absolve some rich bankrupt from the duty of resti-

tution; or that the same state can absolve parents from 

the duty of bringing up their children in the fear, knowl-

edge and love of the Lord. Sin, that is sin, is never per-

mitted or condoned in the Catholic Church. More, un-

doubtedly, might be done than we are doing for the sal-

vation of souls; for the opportunities of a wise and self-



Indulgences 
not a License 

to Commit Sin 

Luther on 
the Reformation 

50 THE CHARGE OF DECADENCE. 

sacrificingl zeal are simply limitless. Yet we can declare 

confidently that the average priest accomplishes much 

more in this respect than any Protestant minister. We say 

this, not in a boastful vein, but as voicing our belief in 

the greater efficacy of the means at the priest's disposal. 

When the Protestant speaks of the Church being 

hopelessly corrupt at Luther's time, he includes in that 

phrase something more than the corruption of individual 

members. He has a notion that the Church itself, in an 

authoritative way, taught evil and officially fostered im-

moral practices: so that it might truthfully be said ·that 

the Church made her members corrupt. This is a serious 

charge: cl!n it be proved ~ We have not the least hesi ta-

tion in answering, No. Some persons, whose knowledge 

is less t)1an their assurance, loudly inform us that the 

Church sold indulgences; that for the payment of money 

one could secure the pardon of past sins and permission 

to commit futul'e ones. This would be a damning indict-

ment, if true; but it is not true. An indulgence is not 

a license to do wrong; neither is it a pardon for past sins. 

It has nothing to do with sin except to extinguish tem-

poral punishment, an effect of sin, and that only after 

the sins have otherwise been pardoned. The granting of 

indulgences is as old as the Church itself. Were indul-

gences ever sold? Not with the sanction of the Church. 

Pope Leo X authorized the Dominican friar, Tetzel, to 

grant an indulgence under the usual conditions of pen-

ance and contrition, to which was added that of a con-

tribution according to the means of the donor, towards the 

building of the world cathedral of new St. Peter 's at 

Rome-a commendable charity. The indulgence was 

neither bought nor sold. 

Did not the Reformers r eform Christendom in the 

sixteenth century, and restore the purity of the Apostolic 

Church ? We will let the leaders in the revolt against the 

Kingdom of Christ tell their own story. They, assuredly, 

are unbiased witnesses. Luther deolared: "1 hold that 



THE CHARGE OF DECADENCE. 51 

those who have become Evangelicals have become worse 

than they were before they received the Gospel. Unfor-

tunately, it is our daily experience that those, who live 

under the Gospel, are more spiteful, more passionate, more 

greedy, avaricious and quarrelsome, than ever they were 

under the papacy" (Hauspostill, Walch's ed. of Luther's 

works, v. 13, pp. 2193, 2195). Many Protestants cherish 

the notion that what they are pleased to call the Refor-

mation was really a change for the better. The ones most 

intimately concerned with that movement tell a different 

story. To quote Luther again: "Now our Evangelicals 

are becoming seven times worse than they were before; 

for after we have learned the Gospel we steal, lie, cheat, 

eat and drink and give way to every vice. Verily, if we 

have cast out one evil spirit, seven others, worse than the 

first, have now entered in and taken possession of us, as is 

to be seen in princes, nobles, gentry, citizens and peasants, 

who behave without shame, disregarding God and His 

threats" (Ausleg. des V Buches Moses, Walch, v. 3, p. 

2727 ) . 

I might quote Melanchthon, Calvin, Henry VIII, 

Bishop Barlow and others among the so-called reformers, 

who wrote in the same strain. Martin Bucer said of his 

followers : "A good number of them only received the 

preaching of the Gospel, in order that they might be able 

to plunder the goods of the churches." Erasmus, an eye-

witness and accounted by some the most learned man of 

the time, writes: "The triumph of the Lutherans is the 

death of good learning. Wealth and wives are their real 

object. For the rest, their Gospel supplies them with all 

they want-that is, permission to live as they like" (Ep. 

506, quoted by W. S. Lily in Christianity and Modern 

Civilization, p. 163). 

It is far from our purpose to cover up, or excuse the 

shortcomings of Catholics of whatever age or place; but we 

contend that if reformation of morals was the purpose of 

Luther and his associates, they should have remained 

Other 
Witnesses 

Reform 
from 
Within 



Let us b. Fair 

52 THE CHARGE OF PERSECUTION. 

within the Church, since it was Christ's own Church; 

should have used her means of grace; and should have be-

gun the reform upon themselves. To set up a church and 

a religion counter to that of Christ's was the wrong way, 

assuredly, to undertake a reformation. It is true that in-

dividuals, and even entire nations, became corrupt at dif-

ferent times, and that there was much corruption in 

Luther's day; but allow us to add to this confession the 

significant fact that Catholics never became morally cor-

rupt, except when they disobeyed their spiritual Mother . 

They needed reformation : to be reformed from disobedient 

to obedient children. The Mother needed no reformation, 

for she remains ever -the Bride of Christ. To induce her 

children to leave her was a wrong start toward reform. 

St. Paul, when he wished to correct the morals of the Cor-

inthians, did not set up a church of his own. What is usu-

-ally spoken of as the Counter-reformation, that effected 

toward the middle of the sixteenth century by the Coun-

cil of Trent, by the Popes of that period, St. Charles Bor-

romeo, Loyola, Teresa, and many other good men and 

women, was a real reformation, because undertaken from 

within. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

IS PERSECUTION AN ARTICLE OF THE CATHOLIC 

CREED? 

" And Jesus went about . .. preaching the Gospel 

of the Kingdom." Mt. 4, 23. 

Not a few dismiss the claims of the Catholic Church 

upon their spiritual allegiance with the remark that the 

church that could countenance a war of destruction upon 

the unoffending Cathari of southern France and the 

Waldenses of northern Italy, that could use the terrible 

weapon of the Inquisition to enforce religious uniformity 



THE CHARGE OF PERSECUTION. 53 

dnd view with approval the burning of heretics and the 

casting of their families, through confiscations, into help-

less poverty, can not possibly be the Church of the gentle 

Nazarine. They turn from it with abhorrence. We have 

no desire to champion persecution; yet let us be as just 

in our condemnations as yre are in our praises. The 

Cathari of southern France and the Waldenses of northern 

Italy were not unoffending sectaries and the Spanish In-

quisition was more a state than a religious tribnnal, aim-

ing rather to save the monarchy from destruction than to 

benefit the Church. It is only fair, too, to judge events by 

their own age. Life was held cheap in medireval days, and 

the penalties of the law were savagely inhuman in all of 

its departments. In England life was forfeited for steal-

ing a sheep and men were maimed for trivial offenses. 

The spirit of the times was that of a rude, warlike people, 

accustomed to bloodshed and not yet fully reclaimed from 

barbarism. Moreover, the cruelties, that we complain of, 

mark but a passing phase in the history of Christendom. 

Whatever part medireval churchmen had in punishing 

heretics their aims were remedial, and not vindictive; we 

may disagree sharply with the methods employed, yet it 

would not be logical on that account to turn away from 

the Church and reject her legitimate claims. A return to 

penal laws as the guardian of religious uniformity is at 

present impossible. 

Protestants should not reject the claims of the Catholic 

Church on the grounds that some of her churchmen and 

princes have persecuted; for their co-religionists, from the 

sixteenth century down to the present, have been far more 

intolerant than Catholics. It is a mistaken notion, held by 

many, that religious tolerance was born of the Reforma-

tion. W. S. Lilly tells us in "Renaissance Types," p. 302: 

"Nothing can be farther from the truth than to regard 

Luther, personally, as a champion of liberty, a prophet of 

toleration, an apostle ot freedom of conscience. 

The immediate effect of his revolution was as disastrous 

Protestant 
Intolerance 



54 THE CHARGE OF PERSECUTION. 

to spiritual freedom as to intellectual cultivation." Be-

fore the sixteenth century religious tolerance was un-

known to European statecraft, except in papal Rome, 

where' Judaism was permitted to exist, from the fall of the 

Roman Empire down to the present. And after that the 

first sincere attempt to establish ,religious liberty was 

made, and voluntarily made, by the Catholic founders of 

the colony of Maryland. Not only did the early Refor-

mers persecute, but they urged others, particularly 

princes, to persecute, and to pursue dissenting Prot-

estants, as well as Catholics and Jews. The Huguenot 

minister, Jurieu, says that Geneva, Switzerland, the va-

rious principalities of Germany, England, Scotland, Swe-

den and Denmark had all employed the power of the state 

to abolish popery and establish the Reformation. Many 

Protestant synods and assemblies declare tolerance a sin. 

In England, to make no mention of the atrocities com~ 

mitted upon the Irish, Catholics were hunted like wild 

beasts, and for 200 years the punishment of death was in-

flicted on priests for saying mass. It was not until 

1910 that English sovereigns were released from an 

extremely offensive declaration against the faith of 

their Catholic subjects. "By no artifice of ingenuity," 

says Macaulay, "can the stigma of persecution, the 

worst Qlemish of the English church, be effaced or 

patched over." "Persecution," says Hallam, "is the 

deadly original sin of the Reformed churches, which 

cools every man's honest zeal for their cause in pro-

portion as his reading becomes more extensive" (Constitu-

tional History of England, ch. II.). Protestant persecutions 

were not confined to the sixteenth century, nor to Europe. 

The history of nearly every Protestant American colony 

is stained with the blot of intolerance. To this very day 

we Catholics are victims of Protestant persecution, which 

manifests itself chiefly in endless misrepresentations 

from p~lpit and press, as also, to a considerable extent, in 

political proscript1on. 



CHAPTER XlV. 

OATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES OOM-

PARED. 

(( H earkel1, My dearest brethren, hath not God chosen 

the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of tlte 

Kingdom, which God hath promised to them that love 

Him!" Jas. 2, 5. 

To many persons a serious obstacle to the acceptance 

of the Catholic faith is the belief that the Church frowns 

upon intellectual culture and is opposed to vigorous men-

tal activity; the belief that Catholics must let their priests 

do all the thinking for them; the belief that their religion 

is not so much the result of conviction as mere outward 

form-superstition rather than faith; the belief that 

Catholicism stands for decadence: political, commercial 

and social; while Protestantism suggests purity of doc-

trine, conscience, enlightenment, progress and liberty; the 

belief that Protestant countries everywhere are in the fore-

front of civilization. Is it really true that the Catholic 

Church favors ignorance, and that Catholic countries are 

less moral and less progressive than those whose people 

and government are of the Protestant faith? Will facts 

bear out that ~ssertion, or have we here but another base-
less assumption? 

W~en instituting a comparison between countries, 

see that the comparison is fair: take countries of the same 

race, where possible, of approximately the same latitude, 

the same size, the same wealth. Compare, for instance, the 

Protestant and Catholic German states, Prussia with the 

Archduchy of Austria, Moravia with Bohemia, Holland 

with Belgium, Scotland with Ireland, England with 

France, the Protestant and Catholic cantons of Switzer-

55 

A Baseless 
Assumption 

A Fair 
Comparison 



56 THE CHARGE OF INFERIORITY. 

land, Delaware with Rhode Island, Protestant Ontario 

with Catholic Quebec, Java with Luzon, etc. A compari-

son between England and Portugal, the United States and 

Mexico, would be manifestly unfair; as unfair as to cam-

pare Liberia with Spain, or India with Bavaria. Have you 

any idea that when the camparison is fairly and honestly 

made the Catholic nations are the losers 1 If there are in-

equalities, it is the Catholics that have a shade the better 

of the argument. Statistics could be quoted in proof. 

l11egitimacy Comparisons are odious, and it is only reluctantly we 

take up the charge that Catholic countries are less moral 

than those where Protestantism predominates. We will be 

brief. Examine the figures bearing on illegitimacy. 

During the ten years ending with 1905 the averages of 

births out of wedlock were 3.80% in the Catholic Rhein 

provinces and 2.64% in Catholic Westphalia, against 

10.17% in Protestant Pomerania and 10.44% in Protestant 

Saxony. The rate for the Empire was 8.77% ; in the Cath-

olic cities of Treves, however, it was only 3%, Coblentz 

2.9%, Aachen 2.5%, Muenster, the lowest of all, 2.2%; 

against Protestant Berlin with 15.61 %. In all comparisons 

of statistics the rate of such births is lowest in Ireland, in 

spite of the handicap of its Northern Protestant section, 

which is ten times that of the Southern. Scotland had three 

times as many illegitimate births as Ireland some years 

ago. It may be remarked, in connection with this dis-

tasteful subject, that the crime of infanticide is rare in 

Catholic countries. It is not at all uncommon even among 

the married non-Catholic women of the United States. 

The per centum of jllegitimacy was highest several dec-

ades ago in Austria and Bavaria, where legal marriage 

was made difficult, in fact impossible, to many citizens, 

because of the requirement of a certain amount of wealth 

altogether out of their reach, together with other r estric-

tions. Many were married secretly, and though their 

marriages were valid in their own eyes and in the eyes 

of the Church, before the law their children were branded 



\ THE CHARGE OF INFERIORITY. 57 
8S illegitimate. A large proportion of the so-called ille-

gitimate children of Mexico are the offspring of parents 

validly married by the priest, but who failed to present 

themselves before the civil officials for legal registration. 

Examine the figures for suicides. Few countries 

gather denominational statistics, as does Prussia and none 

strives harder for accuracy. Between 1891 and 1900 there 

were in Prussia 93 suicides for every million of Catholics; 

2.47 for every million of Protestants. In Bavaria there 

were 93 to 210; in Alsace Lorraine 98 to 234. Examine 

the figures for divorce and the contrast will be still more 

glaring. In Prussia there were 9.6 divorces for every 

1,000 Catholic marriages; to 26.7 for every 1,000 Prot-

estant marriages. For every 1,000 mixed marriages the 

proportion ran up to 40 divorces. We gather no de-

nominational statistics in the United States; but we know 

that it is a very rare thing for a Catholic to apply for a di-

vorce; when he does, it is nearly always for its legal ef-

fects, not for the purpose of contracting a new marriage 

relation. The record of our country on the divorce ques-

tion is extremely bad. In the census period of 1900, ac-

cording to a r eport published by The Cleveland Leader, 

Jan. 2, 1910, there was one divorce to each 100,000 of 

population in Austria, 2 in England, 3 in Italy, 4 in Wales, 

6 in Norway, 8 in Sweden and Bavaria, 10 in Holland, 11 

in Bulgaria, Belgium and Hungary, 12 in New Zealand, 

13 in Servia, 15 in Germany, 17 in Denmark, 20 in Rou-

mania, 23 in France, 32 in Switzerland, 73 in the United 

States. There were only two nations that surpassed us: 

heathen Japan with 215 and Mohammedan Algeria with 

288. In 1906 the proportion for the United States had 

risen to 86. In Ireland there was one divorce to 4,438 

marriages. John Barrett, of Pan-American fame, declar ed 

in 1910 that more divorces are granted in one week in 

Chicago than in all the Latin American cities put together 

in a year. If you will compare the relative fecundity of 

Catholic and Protestant marriages, the balance of hon-

Suicides 
and 
Divorces 



CUler Vices 

The Test 
of Wealth 

58 THE CHARGE OF INFERIORITY . 

. 
esty will be on the Catholic side. In Prussia, from 1876 

to 1895 there were 4.1 children for every Protestant to 5.0 

for every Catholic family; in Bavaria 4.0 to 4.9-a dif-

ference of almost 20%. The contrast is far more marked 

in the United States, where Protestantism is powerless to 

check the sins that lie back of "race-suicide. " The record 

for France may be fully as bad as that for our native 

American population; but France has ceased to be a Cath-

olic nation. The average number of babies for American 

mothers in 1909 was said to be 21 to 1,000; for Spanish 

mothers 123 to 1,000; for Italian mothers 175 to 1,000. 

Drunkenness seems to be the vice of Northern peoples 

generally, irrespective of their religious affiliations. Yet 

no one would say that the Protestant Scots, English, Scan-

dinavians, Germans, Canadians and Americans are less ad-

dicted to alcoholic excess than their Catholic neighbors. A 

comparison, by no means injurious to Catholics, might be 

instituted between them and Protestants on the score of 

private and commercial honesty, respect for law and 

works of benevolence; but enough has been said to show 

that Catholics need fear no investigation, if only the in-

quiry be conducted with fairness and impartiality . . Faults 

will be found, no doubt, which exist, however, not be-

cause of, but in spite of, their Catholic faith. 

In the judgmen.t of some persons material prosperity 

marks the possession of the true faith . Protestant 

countries, they contend, lead all others in material well-

being, and hence Protestantism must be true and all other 

religions false. We might dismiss the matter with the sim-

ple remark that the Church of Christ was not founded for 

the purpose of making its adherents wealthy: " My King-

dom is not of this world." St. Paul wrote to the Romans 

(14, 17): "For the Kingdom of God is not meat 

and drink; but justice and peace, and joy in the Holy 

Ghost." A people may have plenty of gold and silver, and 

yet be far from God. It was the Savior who said: « a rich 

man s.hall hardly enter into the Kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 

I 

I 



THE CHARGE OF OBSCURANTISM. 59· 

19, 23) . It is not at all true that Protestant countries are 

blessed with greater prosperity than Catholic countries. 

There are rich and poor among both, and the same na-

tions have had alternate periods of prosperity and depres-

sion. Belgium is commonly said to be the most pros-

perous country in Europe ; the Catholic states of Germany 

are on a par with those of the Protestant faith; Quebec 

is not behind Ontario, nor Cuba behind Jamaica, nor Ar-

gentina behind New Zealand, nor the Philippines behind 

India, nor Mexico behind Egypt. Industrial enterprise, 

commercial activity, intelligent agriculture, the possession 

of advantageous sea-ports, of a fertile soil, the preva!ence 

of coal and iron, bear an intimate relation to material 

prosperity; but have no connection whatever with the 

truth or falsity of a faith. 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND INTELLECTUAL 

PROGRESS, 

(( The desire of wisdom bringeth to the everlasting 

Kingdom," Wis. 6, 21. 

You have heard the phrase" ignorant Irish. " Among 

the earlier Irish immigrants were many, who, if not ig-

norant, were indeed unable to r ead and write. But who 

was to blame for that, the Catholic Church or the Prot-

estant English government 1 Up to less than a hundred 

years ago the Catholics in Ireland were not permitted to 

endow, conduct or t each schools, or even to send their 

children abroad to be educated. It was a criminal offense, 

punished with transportation, in any Catholic to act as 

schoolmaster, or even as tutor in a private family; if he 

dared return bis offense was high tl'eason. Not for many 

years after 1829, the date of Catholic emancipation, were 

British 
Brutality 



Patron 
of 

Learning 

60 THE CHARGE OF OBSCURANTISM. 

the Irish allowed to use their taxes for schools. There is 

a different story to tell in Ireland now; no illiterates come 

from that country to the United States at present. The 

Irish are more fond of letters than most other peoples and, 

given an equal opportunity, they will be passed by none. 

Many people talk glibly of ignorant and illiterate 

Catholics, and it is their own lack of knowledge that closes 

their eyes to the fact that not all the churches in Chris-

tendom combined have contributed in the past, or are 

contributing today, one-half as much toward mental cul-

ture as the Catholic Church. We say "mental culture"; 

for we wish to lay claim to much more than mere reading 

and writing. American Catholics saved to the people of 

the United States some $42,000,000 in tuition, through 

their own support of their Christian schools, in 1911. 

The figures are growing larger year by year. That, over 

and above their payments to the public schools, is an indi-

cation of the value they place upon the souls of their 

children. They have taken to heart the pleading of the 

Savior: (I suffer the little children, and forbid them not 

to come to Me ,' for the Kingdom of heaven is for such" 

(Mt. 19, 14). The Catholic Church reaches back to the 

day of Pentecost. Among her earliest teachers were a St. 

Paul, St. Justin Martyr, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius, the 

Christian philosopher, Athenagoras, St. Clement, founder 

of the famous Alexandrian school, his pupil Origen, St. 

Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Lactantius, 

St. Athanasius, St. Hilary. You have heard, probably, of 

the golden age of Catholic scholarship, comprising such 

doctors and saints as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazian-

zen, Basil the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome-the 

greatest of Biblical masters, Ambrose, Chrysostum, and-

greatest of all-Augustine. To these succeeded other dis-

tinguished scholars: St. Leo the Great, St. Cyril of Alex-

andria, St. Gregory the Great, Venerable Bede, Alcuin, 

St. Bernard, etc. There was a second ,golden age, com-

prising such masters as Albertus Magnus1 Alexander Qf 



THE CHARGE OF OBSCURANTISM. 61 

Hales, St. Raymond of Penafort, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. 

Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully; 

and their precursors William of Champeaux, Abelard, 

Robert Pulleyne, Peter Lombard, John of Salisbury, Hugh 

and Richard of St. Victor. 

Monastic and cathedral schools rose early in the cen-

turies, and from them evolved most of the great halls of 

learning, that are still in these modern days carrying out 

the courses of their Catholic founders. The thirteenth 

century saw the foundation of the universities of Paris, 

Salerno, Bologna, Salamanca, Oxford, Toulouse, Seville, 

Cambridge and others. The fourteenth century wit-

nessed the beginnings of the universities of Rome, Coim-

bra, Dublin, Prague, Valladolid, Cracow, Erfurt, Heidel-

berg, Cologne and Ferrara. In the fifteenth century 

other famous schools took their rise, among them: In-

golstadt, Wuerzburg, Leipzic, Rostock, Freiburg, Greifs-

walde, Basel, Mainz, Tuebingen in Germany; Turin in 

Italy ; Valencia, Caen, Alcala in Spain; Andrews, Glas-

gow, Aberdeen in Scotland; Louvain in the Netherlands, 

Bordeaux in France, Presburg in Hungary, Upsala in 

Sweden, Copenhagen in Denmark. Most of these are still 

in existence; but it will be well to remember that in their 

early Catholic days students were not asked to pay fees; 

for churchmen were forbidden to exact contributions for 

imparting knowledge. The schools were generously pa-

tronized in consequence; Bologna, Paris and Oxford 

could boast many thousands of pupils. Now, if the Cath-

olic Church really loved darkness, why did she found these 

great schools? 

The Catholic faith proved not only an incentive to 

the foundation of schools, but also inspired the highest 

achievements in art. The American visitor to Europe gazes 

in wonder upon the magnificent cathedrals of Notre Dame 

in Paris, Canterbury, Durham, Rouen, Salisbury-the 

most beautiful church in England, York, Amiens, Toledo, 

Burgos, Rheims, Ely; the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, that 

Catholic 
Universities 

Lofty 
Cathedral. 



62 THE CHARGE OF OBSCURANTISM. 

Gothie gem, built by King St. Louis, after his return from 

the crusade; Westminster Abbey; the cathedrals of Beau-

vais, Chartres, Granada, Seville, Tours, Brussels, Trond-

jem, Strassburg, Freiburg, Cologne-all of them begun in 

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; of ancient St. 

Mungo's in Glasgow and St. Giles' in Edinburgh, and in-

numerable lesser churches; of Rome, Milan, Venice, 

Florence, Pisa, Orvieto and other Italian cities. 

Painters Painters vied with sculptors and other artists in 

Poets 

giving expression to the loftiest ideals of r eligion. 

To combine in one the tenderness of the mother 

with the purity of the virgin called forth the match-

less madonnas of the masters. The scenes of the 

Bible were transferred to the walls and windows of church 

and chapel, and the Bibles themselves and missals were 

illuminated with inimitable skill. In the history of cul-

ture you cannot pass by without mention such builders as 

Brunelleschi, Giotto and Bramante; such sculptors as 

Michelangelo and Canova; such painters as Cimabue, Fra 

Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, da Vin-

ci, Raffaele, Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, Guido Reni , 

Domenichino, del Sarto, Ribera, Morales, Murillo, Velas-

quez, Cano, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyke, Duerer, the 

Holbeins, Overbeck, Munkaczy, Millais. Remove the 

Catholic masters from the treasured collections, and will 

there be an art gallery left? 

In the history of culture you cannot ignore the 

Catholic poets, like Dante, Petrarca, Tasso, Chaucer, Dry-

den, Pope, Calderon, de Vega, Camoens, Corneille, Racine 

and countless others, including the authors of the Eddas, 

the Niebelungen Circle and the Icelandic scalds of the 

early and late Middle Ages; or Catholic litterateurs of the 

present generation, like Brunetiere, Coppee, Huysmans, 

- Bourget, Rette, De Luque, Leal, Jorgensen, Brentano, F. 

M. Weber, Baumgartner, von Hahn-Hahn, Cardinals Wise-

man, Newman and Manning, Father Faber, Coventry Pat-

more, Aubrey de Vere, Wilfrid Ward, Francis Thompson, 



THE CHARGE OF OBSCURANTISM. 63 

John Oliver Hobbs, Lucas Malet, Robert Hugh Benson, 

Hilaire Belloc, Justin McCarthy, Canon Sheehan, Sir F. 

C. Bernand, Orestes A. Brownson, Bishop England, the 

two Spaldings, Father Ryan, Richard Malcolm Johnston, 

Father John B. Tabb, F . Marion Crawford, Henry Har-

land, Joel Chandler Harris, Charles Warren Stoddard ; or 

historians, from Eusebius, the father of Church history, to 

the Lingards, Hurters, Gfroerers, Knopps, Sheas, Cantus, 

Jannsens, Pastors and Denifles of the present generation. 

In the history of culture you cannot ignore the princes 

of music, whose highest art was usually devoted to the 

Catholic choir: Guido of Arezzo-father of Plain Chant, 

Orlando di Lasso, Palestrina, Allegri, Peri-father of the 

modern opera, Lully-creator of the overture, Picini, 

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Cherubini, :?,aganini, von 

Weber, Rossini, Mercadante, Donizetti, Bellini, Berlioz, 

Liszt, Verdi, Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, Dvorak, Perosi, 

Mascagni, Puccini and the unknown authors of the chants 

of the mass and the liturgy. 

In the history of culture it would be a blunder to ig-

nore the achievements of Catholic scientists: of Galileo, 

Leverrier, the priests Copernicus, Gassendi, Piazzi, Orioli, 

Picard, de Vico, Grimaldi, Perry and Sec chi in astronomy; 

of Galvani, Volta, Ampere, Coulomb, Gramme, Lalande, 

Marconi, Branly in electricity; of Roger Bacon, Albertus 

Magnus, Valentine, Agricola, Lavoisier, Linacre, Fourier, 

Hafty, Toricelli, Bernard, . Schwann, Abbot Mendel, H. V. 
Dumas, Chevreul, Becquerel, Professor and Madam Curie, 

Roentgen and Pasteur in chemistry and allied sciences; of 

Fallopius, Eustathius, Steno and seven other Catholics, 

whose names have been given to parts, or structures, of 

the human body; to Cesalpino, Jussieu, Buffon, Daubenton 

and Malpighi in the natural sciences; to Gerbert, Cava-

lieri, Mersenne, Pascal, Cauchy, van Roomen, Descartes, . 

Chasles, Monge, Hermite in the higher mathematics. 

Among the inventions and discoveries of Catholics we 

might mention the gamut, the use of stringed instruments, 

the organ; banking and book-keeping; the hydraulic 

Composers 

Scienth:ts 

Inventions 
and 
Discoveries 



Seek First 
the Kingdom 

of God 

64 THE CHARGE OF OBSCURANTISM. 

press ; clocks, watches, spectacles, the printing press, 

fire arms; the heliocentric theory, spectrum analysis; 

algebra, descriptive geometry, acoustics, crystallography, 

the science of heat; the thermometer, barometer, tele-

scope, opera-glass, microscope, camera-obscura, magic 

lantern and photography; the mariner's compass, Merca-

tor's projection, the astrolabe, quadrant, log, globe; canal-

locks, water-mills; the electric dynamo, the armature, 

the electric lamp, the storage battery; the steam engine, 

the gas-motor, flying machines; illuminating gas, balloons, 

the stethoscope; bacteriology, the X rays, and so on in-

definitely. The study of geography was stimulated by 

Marco Polo-greatest of ancient travelers, Leif Ericson, 

Christopher Columbus-discoverer of a new world, Magel-

lan-first to circumnavigate the globe, Amerigo Vespucci 

-who gave his name to our country, Balboa-first to 

gaze upon the Pacific Ocean, Cortes and Pizarro-con-

querors and founders of modern kingdoms, de Soto-dis-

coverer of the :Mississippi, which was first explored by 

Joliet and Marquette; and then there were the Cabots, 

Champlain, Cartier, de la Salle, Hennepin, Junipero Serra 

-founder of San Francisco and apostle of California, and 

a hundred others, whose names are appropriately perpet-

uated in our mountains, rivers, lakes and cities. Would 

you conclude from this partial array of fragmentary facts 

that the Catholic Church is inimical to science 1 Facts 

may not be more eloquent than high-sounding words; 

but they are more convincing. 

In any case Christ's religion was given us, not for any 

earthly advantage primarily, but for spiritual gain and 

eternal reward. It is undoubtedly true that the princi-

ples, proclaimed by the divine Teacher, if followed by 

mankind, would cure all the ills that present society is 

suffering from, and give us a foretaste of the Heavenly 

Kingdom even here on earth; nevertheless, it is the future 

life we look to for the complete realization of the petition 

in the Lord's prayer: .f Thy Kingdom Come." That King-

dom we can make our own, if we will. 



APOSTOLATE PUBLICATIONS 

Catholic Religion, Rev. Charles Alfred Martin. A statement of 

Christian teaching and history, 496 pages, cloth, illustrated, 

$1.00. Boston Pilot, Jan. 7, 1911: "No Catholic family 

should be without this book. It is a new 'Faith of our 

Fathers,' only more extensive. It touches on every conceiv-

able topic connected with the Catholic Church doctrinally 

and historically. The low price of the book is a marvel and 

for that r eason alone, the circulation ought to go into the 

millions. It is just the thing to give to your Protestant 

friends.' , 

Cana, Little Chapters on Courtship, Marriage and the Home, Rev. 

Charles Alfred Martin. 10 cents. 

Follow Me, Little Chapters on the Rosary, Rev. Charles Alfred 

Martin. lliustrated, 10 cents. 

For these books address Rev. C. A. Martin, Cor. Oak Hill 

Ave. and Cleveland St., Youngstown, Ohio. 

Questions of Socialists and Their Answers, Rev. William Stephens 

Kress, 200 pages, paper, 25 cents. 

The questions in this book were asked by Socialists, and 

were asked, not so much to gain information, as to impart it. 

They bring the r eader into direct touch with American 

Socialists-their aims and methods. 

Address The Ohio Apost olate, 6914 Woodland Ave. S. E., 

Cleveland, Ohio. 



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