384-e 
 
 SB 2fl 
 
 B X 
 
 5937 
 
 D69 
 
 1901 
 
 MAIN 
 
GIFT OF 
 
ROMANIZING 
 TENDENCIES 
 
 IN THE 
 EPISCOPAL 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 SERMON DELIVERED IN CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, BY ITS RECTOR, THE 
 
 REV. GEO. TITOS. DOWLING, D. D. 
 
 ^ = JULY 14, 1901 ===== 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE VESTRY 
 
ROMANIZING TENDENCIES 
 IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 SERMON DELIVERED IN CHRIST 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, LOS AN- 
 GELES, CAL^ JULY J4, 1901, BY 
 ITS RECTOR, THE 
 
 REV. GEO, THOS, DOWLING, D. D. 
 
 r i f T n T n o t 5 A N i 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE VESTRY 
 
RESOLUTIONS BY THE VESTRY. 
 
 The following resolutions, presented by Judge Albert M. 
 Stephens, and seconded by Judge James A. Anderson, were 
 unanimously passed by the Vestry after listening to the sermon : 
 
 WHEREAS, we, the Vestry of Christ Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, believe that the discourse delivered this morning by 
 our Rector, the Rev. Dr. Geo. Thos. Dowling, on "Roman- 
 izing Tendencies in the Episcopal Church," dealing, as it did, 
 with that question, in a Christian and judicial spirit, and from 
 the broadest standpoint, reveals facts of a startling character 
 which are not generally known; and, whereas, the circulation 
 of such information is in our judgment most important and 
 timely; therefore, 
 
 RESOLVED, that we extend to Dr. Dowling our grateful 
 congratulations for his courage in speaking thus openly and 
 cogently, on a topic of such importance. 
 
 RESOLVED, that we request from him the liberty of pub- 
 lishing said discourse in pamphlet form. 
 
 RESOLVED, that we appoint our Junior Warden, George 
 W. Parsons, a committee to attend to such publication. 
 
 RESOLVED, that we do hereby authorize and request Mr. 
 Parsons to use all such measures as in his judgment may re- 
 sult in its widest possible circulation. 
 
 fROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 15, 1901. 
 
 A society of clergy and laymen has been formed with the 
 avowed object of "resisting in the I/)S Angeles Diocese Roman- 
 izing Tendencies in the Episcopal Church;" and yesterday 
 Rev. Dr. Geo. Thos. Dowling, one of the most brilliant preach- 
 ers in Southern California, struck out from the shoulder. 
 
 Dr. Dowling' s sermon is published in full herewith. It 
 will make a sensation. 
 
 He contends that the issue ^deeper than forms and graver 
 than ritual but ho sermon speaks Tor itself. 
 
 NOflCt'.*'' 
 
 Those desiring copies of this discourse for circulation will be supplied 
 by the Vestry of Christ Church at wholesale price twenty for a dollar, 
 postage prepaid. Money must be sent with order. Smaller orders not 
 taken. Address 
 
 GEO. W. PARSONS, Junior Warden, 
 
 107 S. Broadway. Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 Single copies for sale at Fowler Bros., 221 W. Second Street, Los 
 Angeles; and at other book stores. 
 
"ROMANIZING TENDENCIES IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH" 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. GEO. TI10S. BOWLING, D. D. 
 
 IN CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, LOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 
 Gal. II. ii : "When Peter was come to Antioch, I with- 
 stood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." 
 
 I am not here today, my friends, to condemn ritual; for I 
 am a ritualist, and so are you. The man who shakes hands 
 with his neighbor uses a rite with which to symbolize a 
 thought; and that is ritualism. I could not be a Churchman 
 without advocating its use; but no one can be a good Church- 
 man while advocating its abuse. The distinction between 
 those terms, I shall shortly consider. 
 
 At the same time I realize that the worst abuse of ritual is 
 the abuse of Ritualists. If there must be controversy, so be it! 
 "As far as lieth in you," saith the apostle, "live peaceably 
 with all men." But there come times when it no longer lies 
 within us, nor should. St. Paul strove with St. Peter, and 
 "withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." 
 Yet you will notice that St. Paul, who is the typical Broad 
 Churchman of the New Testament, did not assail his motives. 
 He did not charge him with dishonesty. He did not mistake 
 heat for light, nor concussion for discussion. As every broad- 
 minded disputant should, he dealt, not with personalities, but 
 with principles. 
 
 Two other distinctions and then I shall pass on to the 
 chief burden of my message. 
 
 When I speak of certain of the clergy as seeking to intro- 
 duce the errors of Romanism into this Church which historians 
 
 312794 
 
have been accustomed to speak of as the ' 'bulwark of Protest- 
 antism," I mean just what I say: certain of the clergy, but 
 not the clergy. I believe that the great body of our ministry 
 throughout England and America, are as yet true to the stand- 
 ards of our fathers, and the Holy Scriptures. So far as our 
 own Diocese is concerned I thank God for the character of the 
 clergy, taken as a whole, who have recently come into our midst. 
 It indicates progress, and inspires hope for the future. From 
 all the reports which I hear concerning the past, the outlook is 
 not so dark as it was a few years ago. And I am not forgetful 
 that these changes have taken place under the wise and kindly 
 administration of our present Bishop; a man, whom, whatever 
 our individual views of Churchmanship may be, we all delight 
 to honor and to love; who, if he were to die tomorrow, could 
 receive no more fitting tribute than that which was expressed 
 of the late Arch-bishop of Canterbury, when, with his work 
 finished, he passed from the Church militant up to the Church 
 triumphant, and they said of him, that he was "a High Church- 
 man, with broad leanings and evangelical fervor." If all the 
 clergy of our communion were of such a type as he, whether 
 their individual proclivities were High or Broad or Low, there 
 would be no need that such a discourse as this should be de- 
 livered. 
 
 NOT OF IT BUT IN IT. 
 
 And once more for there is nothing like clear discrimi- 
 nation as an aid in straight thinking you will observe that 
 our theme this morning is not the Romanizing Tendencies of 
 the Bpiscopal Church, but in it. Such tendencies are not 
 native to our communion. They are exotics introduced from 
 without; introduced as they tell us rabbits were introduced into 
 Australia, only at last to become a pest. It is true that the 
 word "Protestantism" has never been a legal title of the Church 
 of England; but it is equally true that the thing, Protestantism, 
 has been inwrought into the very fabric of her history. In the 
 litany of the English Prayer- Book in the days of the Reform- 
 ation, and after, there appeared this petition: "From the 
 Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, good Lord 
 deliver us." If that is not Protestantism, what is it? When 
 
this American branch of the Church came to be organized, the 
 Mother Church of England, with no question, permitted that 
 word Protestant to become a part of our legal title. As such 
 it stands today; otherwise, why all this turmoil about chang- 
 ing it. The fact is, that the question was never seriously 
 raised, until the so-called Oxford movement of sixty or seventy 
 years ago, when John Henry Newman and his associates, went 
 from the Church of England to Rome, and Edward Bouverie 
 Pusey and his associates once more introduced Rome into the 
 Church of England. 
 
 And new the successors of these men, in this 
 American Protestant Episcopal Church of ours, propose, if 
 possible, at the Triennial Convention in San Francisco next 
 October, to fling aside our historic name, and call themselves 
 "The American Church." I do not believe they will succeed. 
 I believe the conservative counsel of the wise men of the East, 
 who shall gather there, will outvote them every time; for I 
 have all confidence in this grand old Church of ours, when it 
 comes to a crisis. 
 
 OTHERS WILL SMILE. 
 
 But suppose they do succeed, what then? My friends, the 
 only people to be hurt by such folly will be ourselves. These 
 other communions about us will simply smile, and pass by on 
 the other side of the street. We shall present to them only an 
 amusing spectacle of a company of men, arrogating to our- 
 selves, a title to which we have no right, because we are mis- 
 led by an overwhelming sense of our own importance. Would 
 to God that these men had enough saving sense of humor to 
 rescue them from absurdity! But this, aftea all, is a subordi- 
 nate question of comparative irrelevance . 
 
 What is the real principle at stake? Do not be so silly as 
 to join in the cheap superficiality, that this, which is today arous- 
 ing the English people, shaking Parliament, and is destined to 
 arouse our Church in America, is the old question between 
 High Church and Low and Broad. Years ago that question was 
 settled. Neither is it a mere matter of millinery. If that 
 were all, it would cease to be a struggle demanding respect, 
 and become only a squabble deserving contempt. Neither you 
 nor I would waste our time with such trivialities. But you 
 
might just as well say, that when our Colonies threw out their 
 banners in the face of Great Britain 125 years ago and sur- 
 rendered the quiet of peace for the disquiet of war, their battles 
 were only for a bit of bunting. It was what that bunting 
 stood for which gave dignity to their cause. We may be pro- 
 testing against a posture; but if we do, it is simply because 
 that posture, as we believe, teaches an imposture. And that is 
 the abuse of ritual. Ritual is used when it teaches a truth. 
 It is abused when it teaches an error. 
 
 My friends, listen closely now. The whole question is 
 this: Will this Anglo-Saxon race ever permit itself to be led 
 back again, as, I say it in all kindness, and simply because I 
 think I can show it to be true, as these men are trying to lead 
 it back, to that slavery of mind and spirit from which, by 
 God's grace they escaped, with groans and tears, in the days 
 of the Protestant reformation in the sixteenth century ? Is it 
 true that the Church of the tuture is to be the Church of priest- 
 craft, as in the Middle Ages it was when, with his supposedly 
 miraculous power, and divine authority, the priest, from the 
 day of a man's birth until the day of his death; yes, and after 
 that, following him with his horrible clutch into the realms of 
 shadow; the priest, came between the man and his Maker, and 
 said, with all the awful power of his anathema, * 'Unless you 
 come to God through me, you shall go to Hell ?" 
 
 That is the question; whether it assumes the form of au- 
 ricular confessional, or the intercessory power of the priesthood 
 with the Virgin Mary and the saints, or the ability of the 
 priest with a word, to change a bit of bread into the very body 
 of God; that is the question; it is the whole question; and it 
 is the only question. Will this Anglo-Saxon people, whose very 
 name is a synonym for liberty, obey the voice of their God when 
 He says to every man : "Arise and stand upon thy feet;" or 
 will it hand over once more its conscience into the keeping of 
 some magic-working priesthood, and permit itself to be robbed 
 of that liberty from such intolerable bondage which the reform- 
 ation gained? 
 
 THE CONFESSIONAL ATTACKED. 
 
 Do you ask what bondage? Well to begin with, the 
 bondage of the confessional. Do you realize the awful power 
 
 6 
 
which this would give over the susceptible consciences of your 
 wives and daughters? Are you willing that any fallible man, 
 whether he wear the garb of layman or priest, shall teach that 
 it is their duty mark you that word for I shall refer to it in a 
 moment their duty, before they shall go confidingly to father 
 or mother, or any other living person, to go to him, and lay 
 bare to him all their secret words and deeds and thoughts ? 
 Perhaps you do not know the infamous history of the confes- 
 sional. It may be just as well that you do not; but this is 
 what one of our own Bishops, Bishop Wilberforce of England 
 thought of it. Said he: "It is one of the worst developments 
 of popery. In the first place as regards the penitent, it is a 
 system of unnatural excitement, a sort of spiri.ual dram-drink- 
 ing fraught with evil to the whole spirtual constitution. In 
 families it introduces untold mischief. As regards the priest, 
 it brings in a wretched system of cauistry. But, far worse 
 than this, it necessitates the terrible evil of familiar dealing 
 with sin, especially with sins of uncleanliness, thereby some- 
 times even tempting to their growth." 
 
 And now here is one specimen among many which is pub- 
 lished by the League of the Holy Cross, and circulated by 
 thousands in the Church of England, in which the priest is 
 put before the very father and mother, and the child is taught 
 as follows: "It is to the priest only that the child must ac- 
 knowledge his sins if he desires that God should forgive him. 
 Do you know why? It is because God, when on earth, gave 
 to his priests, and to them alone, the divine power of forgiving 
 sins. Go to the priest, who is the doctor of your soul and 
 who cures you in the name of God. I have known poor chil- 
 dren who concealed their sins in confession for years; they were 
 very unhappy; were tormented with remorse, and if they had 
 died in that state they would certainly have gone to the ever- 
 lasting fires of hell." 
 
 But perhaps you say that was in England. Yes it was, 
 though precisely the same thing is being taught in this Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church of America. But this was not in Eng- 
 land; this was in Los Angeles, and less than a year ago; when 
 a priest of this Diocese, a Christian gentleman whom for his 
 learning and piety I profoundly respect, went to a mission 
 
 7 
 
station, which had recently come from another communion 
 into this, led hither by its devoted and godly minister. In a 
 booklet, the name of which is "The Pilgrim's Path," a copy of 
 which I now hold in my hand, on the title page of which is 
 the published statement that this issue is of the thirteenth 
 thousand, there appear the following instructions: "How to 
 make a confession. If you have never been to confession, go 
 and ask your priest to advise you how to prepare for it. We 
 should look upon confession not only as a privilege some- 
 thing to do us good but as a duty, something which we owe 
 to God," (and the word "owe" is italicised,) "therefore we 
 should have regular and stated times for going to confession 
 and observe the following rules:" On page 72 of the same 
 book it says : "When you go to your confessional kneel down 
 and think that you are at the feet of Jesus on His cross, and 
 say : In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost. Amen. I confess to God the Father, God the 
 Son, and God the Holy Ghost, before the whole company of 
 Heaven, and before you Father, that I have sinned exceeding- 
 ly in thought, word, and deed, by my fault, by own fault, by 
 my own grevious fault. Especially I remember having com- 
 mitted the following sins since my last confession, which was 
 (so long) ago. Here mention your sins. For these and all 
 my other sins which I cannot now remember, I am heartily 
 sorry, I firmly propose to amend, and ask you, Father, pen- 
 ance, advice and absolution. Now reverently listen to the ad- 
 vice given and the penance enjoined, by your confessor; and 
 joyfully receive absolution." 
 
 And these people were taught by this priest, not simply 
 that it was a privilege as it is always the privilege of any 
 burdened soul who chooses, to seek the tender counsel of his 
 minister these people were taught, that it was their duty to 
 go and confess to him; and were counselled to do so before 
 they partook of the holy communion. 
 
 WHAT BONDAGE? 
 
 Do you ask again, what bondage? The bondage which 
 comes from the assumption of supernatural powers in the holy 
 communion, because of the priestly office. If it is in the 
 
 8 
 
clergyman's power, without any figure of speech, to turn that 
 bread into the real body of Christ, and that wine into His real 
 blood ; and if it is essential to your salvation that you shall par- 
 take of it; and if it is within the precincts of his authority to 
 withhold it from you; then again, he stands between you and 
 your God. And this is what these men claim to do, or else, 
 as I see it, the English language has no meaning. In proof 
 of this I quote again from one of their manuals for children. 
 This is the instruction given: "When the priest begins the 
 prayer, that which is on the altar is bread and wine; when the 
 priest ends the prayer that which is on the altar is Christ's 
 body and blood; it is Jesus; it is God. Who does this? The 
 priest acting for Jesus in the power of the Holy Ghost. How 
 does he do it ; I cannot tell you. He does not know himself 
 how he does it; but it is done. It is a work of God, and no 
 one knows how God works. If you were to ask the great St. 
 Michael, he could not tell you. It you were to ask the blessed 
 Mary, she could not tell you. It is God's own secret, a 
 knowledge which belongs to Him and to no one else. We go to 
 the altar and kneel down, and the priest comes to us with the 
 blessed sacrament. We receive that which looks like bread 
 and which tastes like bread; we receive that which looks like 
 wine, and which tastes like wine ; but that which we receive is 
 the body and blood of Christ. It is Jesus Himself; it is Al- 
 mighty God." 
 
 Is that Protestantism or is it Romanism? Who can tell? 
 Perhaps a Romanist can. Well this is what a Roman Catholic 
 priest, writing from Manchester, England, says: "At this hour 
 5000 Church of England clergymen are preaching from as 
 many Protestant pulpits the Catholic faith to Catholicizing con- 
 gregations, much more effectually, with less suspicion and more 
 acceptance, that we can ever hope to do. We could desire no 
 better preparation for joining the Catholic Church than the 
 ritualist preparatory school ; and the fact that from them we 
 have secured the majority of our converts strengthens us in 
 our view of it." 
 
 SOWING THE SEED. 
 
 Perhaps a Roman Catholic Cardinal can tell. Well this is 
 what Cardinal Vaughan says: "They are doing our work 
 
 9 
 
much better than we ourselves could do it ; they are sowing 
 the seed; while we, with folded hands, are standing by waiting 
 to reap the harvest." 
 
 Now doubtless such a statement as that of the manual 
 quoted, would be considered too extreme by many of the High 
 Churchmen in our midst. Then why should they teach the 
 same thought by the kind of ritual which they employ ? If it 
 is true, or if they think that it is true, let them say it out and 
 out, and then we will know what they mean. But if it is not 
 true, let them cease to imply it by their ritual ; by their flec- 
 tions and their genuflections. 
 
 This, my friends, is why the Broad Churchman objects to 
 their bowing as they pass the altar with the elements upon it. It 
 is because they are thereby teaching their congregations that that 
 bread has become Jesus, and that is false. This is why we ob- 
 ject to their withholding the cup from the communicant when 
 he partakes of the wine; though the rubrics declare that he 
 shall take it in his hands. It is because they are thereby 
 teaching by ritual, that it is too holy to be touched by any but 
 the priest. This is why we object to their changing their 
 robes for the administration of the holy communion. It is not 
 that we care for so insignificant a thing as how they shall 
 dress. That is a matter pertaining entirely to their own taste. 
 There is absolutely no law in our church to prevent a man 
 going into his chancel in a swallow-tail coat if he were foolish 
 enough to do it. But it is because they therebj^ convey the 
 impression that their ordinary priestly garb, is not holy 
 enough for such an hour. Whether they intend to do so or 
 not, they are practicing a rite which teaches an untruth. It 
 is a poor use to make of ritual, when we employ it to convey 
 to the minds of our congregations an error which we do not 
 dare to express. 
 
 IN THIS DIOCESE, 
 
 But in this Diocese there are those who do dare to express 
 it. There is an organization among us, a branch of a British 
 society, who call themselves in plain English "A Confraternity 
 for the Adoration mark that word the Adoration of the 
 Blessed Sacrament." Now that very title means one of two 
 
 10 
 
things, and it can mean nothing else. Either trans-substanti- 
 ation has taken place according to the Roman Catholic doc- 
 trine, and that bread and wine has become Almighty God, 
 worthy of being adored, or else it has not. If it has not, then 
 to adore it is idolatry. You can take your choice. In either 
 case it is a practice which is abhorent to all the teaching and 
 the history of our Church. It is true our Lord did say "This 
 is My body." But it seems to me that every man who thinks 
 should know that he was using thereby a figure of speech, pre- 
 cisely as when he said, "I am a door." But a whole sacer- 
 dotal system has been built up about the misinterpretation of 
 four words, and these men are seeking to perpetuate that sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Thus, in the manual to which I have already referred, the 
 manual which was distributed for use in the Church of the 
 Neighborhood of this city, less than a year ago, there were 
 these instructions: "At the Consecration of the Bread, say: 
 Hail, true body of my Lord Jesus Christ ! Prostrate in lowli- 
 est devotion, I worship and adore Thee. At the Consecration 
 of the Wine say: Hail, true blood of my Lord Jesus Christ ! 
 Prostrate in lowliest devotion, I worship and adore Thee." 
 So, likewise, in England the Venerable Frederick W. Fairer, 
 D. D., F. R. S., Archdeacon of Westminister, assures us that 
 there are churches where the prayer prescribed by the Church 
 in administering the elements is entirely omitted, and nothing 
 is said to each communicant but "The body of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ," and "The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Now, what can be the only possible effect of this thing 
 upon thinking men living in this twentieth century ? W T hat 
 has been the effect in this Diocese? Why, men and women, 
 the Episcopal Church was the first religious organization in 
 this city. But, as you see the great congregations pouring 
 forth from the houses of worship of other communions; as you 
 see the number of men among them, young and old, what kind 
 of a commentary is it upon the narrow and sacramentarian 
 teaching, which, until recent years, has almost exclusively 
 prevailed here in Southern California ? Why is that so seldom 
 the men are seen in churches of this type, and the worshipers, 
 as a rule, are composed of children who cannot think, and women 
 
 ii 
 
who, with their sweet and spiritual yearnings, will worship 
 anyhow, even though they have to do it in the midst of super- 
 stition? My friends, it is because the Anglo-Saxon man does 
 not want this thing ; and if he did want it he would go to the 
 Roman Catholic Church where he can find it in its perfection. 
 
 If I had time I could refer to the practice of high mass 
 and low mass ; to requiems for the dead, and other Romish 
 innovations, which have been introduced into our midst. But 
 I have no time today to pursue this subject further. 
 
 TO OTHER CLERGY. 
 
 To my brethren in the ministry I would say and God 
 forbid that I should say it at all, unless I can say it in the 
 spirit of sincerity, and earnestness, and brotherly love to my 
 brethren in the ministry I would say : Why should you alien- 
 ate the various Protestant bodies about you by persistently em- 
 phasizing points of difference, instead of points of agreement ? 
 It is true there are certain historic claims for this Church, 
 which for their sakes as well as ours we must defend. There 
 are truths for which we stand for which I believe no other 
 body of Christ's disciples in the world so fully stands. And it 
 is this which makes me thank God every day that my steps 
 have been led into this fold. Many in those communions are 
 hungering for these truths and they do not know it. They 
 are hungering for just that which you have to give. They 
 are hungering in their services to feel behind them a great 
 Catholic in the only real sense of that word broad, compre- 
 hensive, historic Church, reaching back through the ages. 
 They are hungering for the dignity of our worship, the beauty 
 of our liturgy, the simplicity of our creed, the possible com- 
 prehensiveness of our Christian platform. If you will give 
 them half a welcome they will gladly come to you. But they 
 are Protestants, as we are, and they are Anglo-Saxon Protes- 
 tants. They do not want your elaborate ritual with its Italian 
 accretions, for that only repels and disgusts them. 
 
 Tell me ! Tell me if you can, why should you turn your 
 back upon them, with whom we have so much in common, and 
 your face toward the only religious body in the world which 
 
 12 
 
persistently refuses to recognize you or your orders, and never 
 permits an opportunity to go by to treat you with contempt? 
 
 I tell you that any possible union of our communion with 
 the Roman Catholic Church is an irridescent dream unless you 
 are willing to fall in complete allegiance at the feet of their 
 Pope. And I ask you in perfect frankness, and am willing to 
 be corrected if I am wrong have I not shown this morning 
 that if there are those in our communion and out of it, who be- 
 gin to harbor the suspicion that this is what all your efforts are 
 leading toward ; have I not shown that they at least have some 
 reason for their fears? 
 
 WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT? 
 
 Well, now I will only detain you a few moments more, 
 while I answer the practical question : What can we do about 
 it ? If ever there was a time when we needed to retain that 
 word Protestant it is now, for never has there been so much 
 reason for protest within our own ranks. 
 
 In every onward movement there are four things which 
 are essential. They are always the same : agitation which 
 may result in education ; education which may result in organ- 
 ization, and organization which may result in reformation. I 
 can refer now only to the first two, leaving the others to follow 
 as God's providence may direct. 
 
 And let us bear in mind that this agitat ion is not of our 
 seeking. We are men of peace. We would much prefer that 
 these various schools of thought in our midst should represent, 
 not different parties, but only different parts of one grand 
 Church. There is room for all High and I/)W and Broad pro- 
 vided they are in very deed a part of us. This is the boast of 
 our Church, and I rejoice in it. I would not have it other- 
 wise, if I could. I would be broad enough, and I would have 
 you, my people, broad enough to include even what may seem 
 to us to be narrowness. But there is no room, unless the 
 whole battle for purity and freedom, has got to be fought over 
 again there is no room in this Protestant Episcopal Church 
 for Romanism, and the resulting priestly assumption of undue 
 authority. 
 
 13 
 
To those of my brethren in the ministry who have written 
 me, only one in the spirit of acrimony, and all the others with 
 kindness and brotherly love, not to precipitate a controversy, I 
 would say : Why my dear brethren , can you not discern the 
 signs of the times ? It is already precipitated. This very day 
 arrangements are being made in San Francisco for the publica- 
 tion of a weekly paper, whose chief object is the dissemination 
 of these sacredotal views, which, in their final outcome, as I 
 think I have shown, represent only another term for 
 Romanism. This very day agents are at work in this Diocese 
 trying to secure subscribers for that paper. The Rev. Stephen 
 Innes, the Rector of the Church of St. Mary, the Virgin, in the 
 city of San Francisco, a Protestant Episcopal Church, in which 
 prayers to the Virgin Mary are offered in Latin, thus frankly 
 states the purpose of this publication. He says : "One of 
 the main objects of the paper will be to counteract to kill 
 Protestantism in the Episcopal Church. We believe the Church 
 is overrun with a particular form of Protestantism that is an- 
 tagonistic to the old Catholic doctrine, and we want to root it 
 out. We hold that the advancement of the future Church de- 
 pends upon the suppression of this Protestantism." 
 
 My brethren; is it any too soon for somebody on this 
 Pacific Coast to have taken up the gauntlet which these men 
 have thrown down ? 
 
 ON THE WARPATH. 
 
 A gentleman said to me this last week, "I understand you 
 have gone on the warpath." And as I thought of such state- 
 ments as that which I have just quoted from the San Francisco 
 clergyman and editor, I answered, "Well, if you call it the war- 
 path, perhaps it is ; but I found when I got there that I had 
 no reason to feel lonesome." These men have been on the 
 warpath for years, and in all this Diocese not a voice has thus 
 far been publicly lifted, so far as I can learn, to declare in the 
 name of our Bible and our Prayer Book, and our beloved Church, 
 that if they are determined to advocate these teachings, in our 
 Protestant Episcopal communion, where they do not belong, it 
 would be better for them, and for us, if they would go into the 
 Roman Catholic Church, where they evidently do belong. 
 
 14 
 
And to the men like him whom I have quoted, who are 
 threatening to crush out Protestantism from our midst, I would 
 say, "My dear sirs, you will never succeed. It is possible, 
 though not probable, that you may wipe out the name, but 
 you will never get rid of the thing. You are hammering at an 
 anvil which has worn out a great many hammers, and will 
 wear out a great many more. Your predecessors tried it in 
 the Middle Ages, and though they had all the power of the 
 Inquisition on their side, they failed. You will find, as many 
 others before you have found, that in trying to stamp out the 
 flames you are only spreading the sparks. If you can appeal 
 to men's judgment, then you will surely win, as you ought to 
 win. But if you come to them only with that ecclesiastical 
 authority which you are seeking to borrow from the Middle 
 Ages, you and your associates are as certain to fail in the end, 
 as yonder sun to pursue its appointed course. All your ana- 
 themas cannot bring back the night when the day is already 
 rising toward the noon. 
 
 Gentlemen, we do not want medievalism. We are not 
 living in those ages of darkness which you prefer to call the 
 ages of faith. We are living today. Our Church exists for 
 the people who are now on earth, and those who are to follow. 
 And with this in view I cannot better close than by quoting, 
 with approval, those ringing words uttered in the House of 
 Commons by the Hon. A. J. Balfour. I believe they are as 
 true of America as they are of England. "I do not conceal 
 for one moment," he says, "my own belief that if this Church 
 is to remain the Church of the great majority of the nation, it 
 must be that ancient institution as it was purified and remod- 
 eled at the time of the Reformation. It is, indeed, the Church 
 of St. Anslem and St. Augustine, but it is something more. 
 It is the Church whose doctrine was purified and whose ritual 
 was simplified in the sixteenth century, and it is only so long 
 as it retains that character that it can hope to retain the affec- 
 tions of the English people. ' ' 
 
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 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 YC 15835 
 
 in 
 
 CDMSb3Q331 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY