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"The Great Reformation" 
 A Great Mistake 
 
 "His liberal soul with every sect agreed, 
 Unheard their reasons, he received their creed." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 BY A LAYMAN 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
Sviltil (fciat 
 
 REV. JOSEPH C. SASIA, S. J., 
 Censor Deputatus. 
 
 imprimatur 
 
 P. W. RIORDAN, 
 
 Archbishop of San Francisco. 
 September, 1912. 
 
 , 
 * THE ''JAMES H. RJ^RRY- , OOMPAN y 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 Unity 1 
 
 Infallibility 31 
 
 The Primacy of Peter 54 
 
 The Supremacy of the Popes 68 
 
 Papal Infallibility 95 
 
 The Bible 108 
 
 The Holy Eucharist 137 
 
 Of Communion in One Kind 163 
 
 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 167 
 
 The Sacrament of Penance 182 
 
 The Blessed Virgin Mary 208 
 
 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 231 
 
 Indulgences 246 
 
 Misrepresentations by Protestant Missionaries and 
 
 Others 259 
 
 History Since the Advent of Protestantism 287 
 
 Conclusion , 325 
 
 29 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Two words that begin with the same letter. The 
 first a negative, the second a positive. The first a small 
 word, the second a giant. The small word contains 
 one more letter than the large word, which is in the 
 nature of a surprise. The small word is with poor 
 reason written with a large letter, the large word with 
 good reason with a small letter. Protestant prejudice: 
 are the "Siamese Twins" in words that have dined and 
 supped with thousands, the former acknowledged with 
 pride, the latter undiscovered at the festive board, in- 
 visible at the library table. 
 
 We ask the former in the plural to divest them- 
 selves of the latter quality of mind, that they who have 
 spent part of a life-time in gazing upon one side of 
 the shield, may with us contemplate for a brief period 
 the beauties of the other. No opinions so stable as 
 those early formed, which is both a help and a hin- 
 drance for we should never be averse to a reversal 
 of our former judgment, if that judgment be found 
 under the scrutiny of a greater searchlight, to have been 
 ill-formed. 
 
 Protestants have received their religious opinions and 
 beliefs from their own teachers which is but fair, but 
 their investigations along the line and within the realms 
 of catholic truth have generally been conducted under 
 the same teachers, which is manifestly unfair. In the 
 hope that many candid minds, hitherto familiar with 
 
iv Preface 
 
 one side only, will here find reason for a reconsideration 
 of the subject, and if not satisfied will continue their 
 quest in other books, till certainly shall result for one 
 cannot well be satisfied with less where eternity is at 
 stake this book is written. 
 
 One cannot well be accused of undue haste in rushing 
 into print who has though in small degree borne the 
 heat and burden of the day for five and thirty years 
 since first the light of a new day shot its golden rays 
 over the somber mountains of doubt, bringing the old 
 faith, ever new, as a season of clear shining after rain ; 
 a welcome and a glad surprise. 
 
 It cannot well be wrong to give one's reasons for 
 being right. In the pages following the endeavor will 
 be to show that the much heralded "Great Reforma- 
 tion" was a great, a fatal mistake, because it sought 
 the reformation of the doctrines revealed by God him- 
 self, rather than reformation of the lives of those for 
 whose ultimate salvation the doctrines had been re- 
 vealed. 
 
 A great mistake, because through the rejection of all 
 authority in the person of an infallible head, they with- 
 drew from that unity enjoined by the Saviour of men 
 and which, for them, resulted in the downfall of all 
 authority and order in religion. Also by the further 
 great and fatal mistake made in the introduction of a 
 novelty styled "Private Judgment" the herald of the 
 coming sects and cults by which the world was flooded 
 with an army of self-appointed fallible explainers of an 
 infallible book, whereby all certainty regarding the 
 book's true meaning was for them forever lost. 
 
Preface v 
 
 The separate counts in the indictment of "The Great 
 Reformation," will be specialized in the chapters fol- 
 lowing. It should be kept in mind that it is the un- 
 doubted right of all to criticize the principles, and be- 
 liefs, of their opponents so long as they keep to the 
 truth, and no longer. This will be illustrated in the 
 chapter entitled "History Since the Advent of Protes- 
 tantism." In the chapter treating of the Misrepresen- 
 tations by Missionaries and others, the subject of 
 Charity will assume prominence. 
 
 It should be remembered, too, that we are fighting 
 principles, not people, and in this, we but follow the 
 precept of St. Augustine, which says: "Love men, but 
 kill their errors." So while we can give protestantism 
 no favorable mention, we respect and esteem those 
 protestants who in perfect good faith notwithstanding 
 the clogs of their prejudiced and circumscribed environ- 
 ment are doing the best they know for the glory of 
 God and the salvation of souls. In that day when the 
 secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, the charity of 
 catholics for their separated brethren will be found as 
 wide as earth's boundaries, as vast as the heavens. 
 
Sincere thanks are here returned for the excerpts 
 taken from many distinguished writers, and notably 
 those citations from protestant pens which without 
 their intention have admirably served in substantiating 
 the truth and reasonableness of the catholic position. 
 
 Our obligations are also acknowledged to the San 
 Francisco Monitor, for many excellent quotations from 
 its columns. 
 
 To the learned Jesuit author Father Sasia of San 
 Jose, Cal., great appreciation is due for many helpful 
 suggestions. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The English speaking people having been since the 
 "Great Reformation" to a large extent protestant, it 
 naturally follows that English literature should be also 
 largely protestant. 
 
 The books of history or travel, which you take from 
 the library shelves, the magazines and pamphlets, which 
 you take to the seashore, the books in the public schools, 
 together with that great former of public opinion, the 
 press, are all in tone and spirit unmistakably protestant. 
 The English dictionary, upon close inspection, proves 
 to be like the others named, a protestant book. 
 
 The world which at the fall of the Roman Empire 
 had lapsed into barbarism, had, with the coming of the 
 Christian faith, received a greater illumination from the 
 feeble rushlight of the catacombs which, with ever ex- 
 panding and intensified brilliancy penetrated the dark 
 corners of the earth, and in place of the classic splen- 
 dors of a civilization under pagan rule, brought Chris- 
 tian civilization and the healing of the nations in its 
 beams. 
 
 The immensity of the work, of converting and civil- 
 izing a world, cannot be rightly valued by those who 
 have received its benefits as an inheritance only. For 
 centuries the Church Universal had striven with igno- 
 rance and pagan superstition, with vice and irreligion, 
 and had suffered repeated spoliation at the hands of 
 covetous and barbaric princes; when at last with the 
 passing of the fanatical Lollards, she had been led to 
 
viii Introduction 
 
 hope for a season of well merited rest protestantism 
 took its rise in the rebellion of the Monk Martin 
 Luther. 
 
 In Luther's taking refuge under the sheltering arms 
 of the German princes, was made manifest the prudence 
 of the unjust steward. With the moral and financial 
 support of the temporal power assured, his appeal was 
 largely to the dissatisfied and inconstant who were 
 filled with enthusiasm at the contemplation of a religion 
 that not only possessed the charm of novelty, but prom- 
 ised much in the emancipation of the mind from the 
 restraints of the old time authority, and in the sup- 
 pression of practices humiliating to pride, which made 
 the yoke of service to the Master uneasy and the bur- 
 den the reverse of light. 
 
 As usual with reformers, the cry was mostly of 
 corruption, and reliance was largely placed upon the 
 use of irreverent and revolutionary language inter- 
 spersed with the rough, coarse humor of the time 
 which, as we read, Luther himself did not disdain to 
 use. At the outset Monasticism was singled out as pre- 
 senting the most favorable target for this kind of war- 
 fare. 
 
 THE MONKS. 
 
 The "reformers" accordingly brought, from the cen- 
 turies long past, the life history of the Monks, and 
 placed them on trial. It is easy to find fault with the 
 past; safe to abuse the dead whose bones have mingled 
 with the dust of ages gone by. A trial in which one 
 side only is argued is the precursor of conviction. 
 
 The pictures of the Monks, of the centuries prior to 
 
Introduction ix 
 
 'The Great Reformation," drawn by protestant pens 
 pointed with satire and dipped in gall ; at first a hid- 
 eous distortion, by succeeding artists enlarged and fur- 
 ther embellished, are still on exhibition as true likenesses 
 of those noble men, who, in toil and fasting, in their 
 rude and comfortless monasteries, kept trimmed the 
 lamp of Christianity, and the light of learning and 
 civilization burning, in the early ages of the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 Concerning the lives of the Monks, the researches of 
 Doctor Lingard, from the opportunities at his disposal 
 for investigation together with his acknowledged fair- 
 ness, entitle him to be considered a reliable authority. 
 He says : 1 "To secure the correct living of their dis- 
 ciples, the monks had adopted the most effectual pre- 
 cautions which human ingenuity could devise. The 
 necessity of mortifying every irregular inclination was 
 inculcated both by precept and example. The sobriety 
 of their meals, and the meanness of their dress, recalled 
 to their minds that they had renounced the world and 
 had dedicated their souls to the service of God. 
 
 "The gates of the convent were shut against the 
 intrusion of strangers, visits of pleasure were forbidden, 
 and the monk whom the necessities of the community 
 forced from his cell, was constantly attended by two 
 companions. 
 
 "To the precautions of prudence were added the mo- 
 tives of religion. The praises of chastity were sung 
 by the poets and extolled by the preachers. Its votaries 
 were taught to consider themselves as the immaculate 
 spouses of the Lamb, and to them was promised the 
 
 i Anglo Saxon Church. Lingard, p. 80. 
 
x Introduction 
 
 transcendent reward which the book of Revelation 
 describes. But where thousands unite in the same per- 
 suit, it is impossible that all should be animated with 
 the same spirit or persevere with the same resolution. 
 
 "Of these recluses there were undoubtedly some whom 
 passion or seduction prompted to violate their solemn 
 engagements ; but the unsullied reputation of an immense 
 majority contributed to cast a veil over the shame of 
 the weaker brethren." In another place the same 
 author says : 2 "In the monastic establishments of the 
 earlier centuries, the most sublime of the Gospel virtues 
 were practiced; even kings descended from their thrones 
 and exchanged the scepter for the cowl." 
 
 Historian Hassall informs us that 3 "in the monasteries 
 in Gaul A. D. 486, piety and learning secured a home, 
 and they became strong enough to triumph over law- 
 less violence. No institutions of that time could com- 
 pare in sound usefulness with the monasteries which 
 sprang up all over Gaul and Germany, and taught the 
 people the elements of agriculture as well as the 
 ordinary arts of civilization. In the monasteries of 
 these countries and throughout the civilized world was 
 to be found all the education and knowledge which then 
 existed." 
 
 The historian Hume says : 4 "It is rare, that the annals 
 of so uncultivated a people as were the English, as well 
 as were the other European nations after the decline of 
 Roman learning, have been transmitted to posterity so 
 complete and with so little mixture of falsehood and 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 86. 
 
 3 "The French People," p. 24. 
 
 4 History of England, Vol. II, p. 507. 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 fable. This advantage we owe entirely to the Church 
 of Rome, whose clergy founding their authority on 
 their superior knowledge, preserved the precious litera- 
 ture of antiquity from total extinction. In the collection 
 of letters which passes under the name of Thomas A. 
 Becket, we see how familiar all the ancient books were 
 to the dignified churchman of that time, and conse- 
 quently how much that order of men must have sur- 
 passed all the other members of society." 
 
 5 "The Anglo Saxon monks of the seventh and eighth 
 centuries were," says Doctor Lingard, "men who had 
 abandoned the world through the purest motives, and 
 whose great solicitude was to practice their profession. 
 They refrained from the use of flesh, wine and beer, 
 refused the assistance of slaves, and with their own 
 hands cultivated the deserts that surrounded them. In 
 investigating the manners of a class of men who lived in 
 a remote period, it is difficult to restrain the excursions 
 of the fancy; but if passion be permitted to guide the 
 inquiry, possible are frequently substituted for real 
 occurrences; and what might have been the guilt of a 
 few individuals, is confidently ascribed to the many. 
 
 "If in the theology of the monks 6 'to patronize the 
 order was esteemed the first of virtues,' if they taught 
 that 7 'the foundation of a monastery was the secure 
 road to heaven,' and that 8 'a bountiful donation would 
 efface the guilt of the most deadly sins without repent- 
 ance/ they were undoubtedly the corruptors of morality, 
 and the enemies of mankind. But of these doctrines no 
 
 5 "Anglo Saxon Church," p. 890-1. 
 
 6 "Hume's Hist. Eng.," pp. 42-77. 
 
 7 "Reflect, on Popery," p. 31. Sturges. 
 
 8 Henry, Vol. IV, p. 299. 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 vestige remains in their writings, and we have yet to 
 learn from what source their modern adversaries derive 
 the important information." 
 
 The "Venerable Bede" taught that "no offering, 
 though made to a monastery, could be pleasing to God, 
 if it proceeded from an impure conscience." The Coun- 
 cil of Calcuith taught that "repentance was then only 
 of avail, when it impelled the sinner to lament his past 
 offences, and restrained him from committing them 
 again." "The man," say the prelates at the Synod of 
 Cloveshoe, "who indulges his passions in the confidence 
 that his charities will procure his salvation, instead of 
 making an acceptable offering to God, throws himself 
 into the arms of Satan." 
 
 Such were the plain and uncompromising teachings 
 of the Monks of the Early Ages of faith, whom such 
 writers as Sturges, Henry, Lord, D. Aubigne, Goldwin 
 Smith and others, knew only through the partisan tes- 
 timony of their most bitter enemies. Up to the time 
 of "The Great Reformation," the Monks were feeding 
 the poor at their monastery gates and were busily 
 engaged in making, with pen and many colored inks, 
 those beautifully illuminated copies on parchment of the 
 Sacred Scriptures, for which the Anglo Saxon and Irish 
 Monks were so justly celebrated. 
 
 But for all that has been, or can be, said in their 
 favor, it would be unwise for any friend of the Monks 
 to deny that they were guilty of being among those 
 whom our modern brethren are accustomed to disparage 
 as being men of one idea. No refutation of this charge 
 will be attempted, and it is admitted that in the further- 
 ance of that one idea, they alike toiled, rested and took 
 
Introduction xiii 
 
 necessary refreshment. From their comfortless pallets, 
 at the call of the chapel bell, they rose a long time 
 before day, to hear or say Mass, and to chant the psalms 
 of David. 
 
 If, in the fields, they followed the plow or cleared 
 the forest's tangled growth, led forth, at morning's light, 
 the flocks and herds to pasture; it was for this one 
 idea. If, in the Scriptorium, they labored with the pen, 
 writing often in letters of gold the Bible, word for 
 word, sketches made of landscapes beautiful for the mar- 
 gins of their Gospel Books, or, in the fields without, 
 sought inspiration where wild flowers bent their heads 
 in stately compliment to each passing breeze that, in its 
 wake, brought songs of countless happy birds whose 
 delight in sounding the praise of God without the dim 
 old chapel's cloistered walls, rivaled successfully the 
 greatest efforts of the Monks within this, also, was for 
 the one idea. 
 
 If they taught the youth, entrusted to their care, the 
 holy faith and other general learning in the fields of 
 science and of art, as far as was then known, the secret 
 of their unfailing patience with restless inattention and 
 mediocrity in attainment, was the all pervading one idea. 
 As the water from an upland spring winds, as a thread 
 of silver, through the greenery of the meadows far 
 below, giving life and freshness to the ferns and flower- 
 ing plants that spring into life along its banks, this 
 one idea was, to the Monks, the source and mainspring 
 of their actions and their life. And this one idea was 
 the love of God, and the love of man for His sake. 
 
 An anonymous writer, about the year 1591, thus 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 describes the Monks on the eve of "The Great Reforma- 
 tion." 9 "The Monks taught and preached the faith and 
 good works and practiced the same both in word and 
 deed; not only within the monasteries but all abroad 
 without. . . . They made such provision daily for 
 the poor and needy, that very few lacked relief. Yea, 
 many of them made hospitals and lodgings wherein 
 they kept a number of important persons with all neces- 
 saries for them, besides the great alms they gave daily 
 at their gates. Yea, no wayfaring person could depart 
 without a night's lodging, meat and drink. 
 
 "They taught the unlearned; yea, the poor as well as 
 the rich. There was no person that came to them 
 heavy or sad, that went away comfortless. They never 
 revenged themselves of any injury, but forgave it freely 
 upon submission. And if the price of corn had begun to 
 start up in the markets, they made thereunto with wain- 
 loads of corn, and sold it under the market price to 
 poor people to the end to bring down the price thereof. 
 If the highways were tedious to the passengers that 
 sought their living by their travel, their great help 
 lacked not towards the repair and amendment thereof. 
 
 "If any poor householder had lacked seed to sow his 
 land, or corn or malt, before the harvest, and come 
 to the monastery, he should have had it until harvest. 
 Yea, if he had made his moan for an ox, horse or 
 cow, he might have had it on his credit." 
 
 "It might be objected," says Doctor Gasquet, "that 
 this is a fancy picture drawn after date; but not merely 
 
 "Henry VIII., and the Eng. Monasteries," Gasquet, Vol. II, 
 p. 500. 
 
Introduction xv 
 
 is it the work of one who well remembered the ancient 
 days, but it agrees entirely with the declaration of 
 Robert Aske, written half-a-century before, to say noth- 
 ing of many other cotemporary testimonies and well 
 ascertained facts." 
 
 Sir Thomas More in his "Apology" says : "I myself, 
 see sometimes so many poor folk at Westminster at the 
 doles, of whom so far as I have ever heard, the Monks 
 are not wont to send many away unserved, that I have 
 for the press of them been fain to ride another way." 
 
 Before the advent of the protestant historian, the 
 common fame of the monasteries was that of eleemos- 
 ynary corporations, and that the Monks themselves were 
 in the van in all learning and the peaceful vocations of 
 life. When protestant historians search the annals of 
 the Monks, and dig and delve among the dusty tomes 
 of an almost forgotten lore, it is, that Christian resig- 
 nation may not fail them at finding there some records 
 that might likely shun the blaze of noon. They could 
 not seek a better source for their purpose. The writers 
 of the Monkish Chronicles, were the brethren of the 
 order, and it was never their custom to trumpet their 
 own praise ; to do good works was the distinguishing 
 characteristic of each day's occupation, the sum total of 
 which remains unwritten ; but, were there among them a 
 weak and an offending Brother ; the record of his mis- 
 deeds, in their entirety, stood boldly out upon the page 
 an ink-spot on white parchment, that all the brother- 
 hood seeing how, and by what means, he fell, might, by 
 the reading of it, take warning and flee from a like 
 temptation. 
 
xvi Introduction 
 
 Were twenty to be asked concerning the distinguish- 
 ing qualities and acts of the several Apostles, a moment's 
 thought might be necessary before replying, but were 
 the question raised anent the betrayal of the Divine 
 Master, the answering chorus would be instantaneous. 
 So stands out from a quiet and unnoticed background 
 of good deeds a single act of crime. So the act of one 
 false brother, may serve to cloud the fair fame of an 
 entire order, whose members were, not least, among the 
 noblest of men. 
 
 Considering then that the good deeds done by the 
 Monks of old have, by the world outside the Catholic 
 Church, been mostly forgotten, and themselves, by their 
 irreverent adversaries, sufficiently caricatured : Why may 
 not the historian and the artist allow the dead to rest, 
 and assist in preserving the memory of their good deeds ; 
 allowing their evil deeds if it be granted they had any 
 to remain in the obscurity of the tombs that hold 
 their bones. 
 
 THE ENGLISH INQUISITION. 
 
 Considering the number of pages in history which 
 are available for a description of the cruelties of the 
 Spanish Inquisition, it is surprising that so small a space 
 should suffice for a narration of far greater cruelties 
 perpetrated in the English Inquisition. The Spanish 
 Inquisition was instituted, largely, for the punishment 
 of such crimes against the state as would ordinarily 
 be amenable to criminal courts ; the English Inquisi- 
 tion for its object had the uprooting from the land 
 
Introduction xvii 
 
 of that faith which, in the early centuries, had received 
 its establishment at the desire of the Roman Pontiff. 
 
 Fines, imprisonment, death, the trinity of punishments 
 in unity with this settled purpose of the "reformers." 
 The protestant writer, John Richard Green says : 10 "As 
 the royal policy disclosed itself, as the Monarchy 
 trampled under foot the tradition and reverence of ages 
 gone by, as its figure rose bare and terrible out of the 
 wreck of old institutions, England simply held her 
 breath." 
 
 How, in the years of his increasing acts of despotism, 
 Henry browbeat a timid parliament into complete sub- 
 servience to his will, all history makes known to us. 
 Having completed the details connected with his change 
 of wives for conscience sake Henry turned his cove- 
 tous eyes upon the possessions of the Monks. During 
 his investigations, along this pleasing line of duty, 
 Henry found that the religious houses were sadly in 
 need of moral "reform." As we have seen, in matters 
 connected with conscience, Henry's practice was to brook 
 no delay in the establishment of suitable reforming 
 methods. As historian Traill says : n "The wealthiest 
 corporation of the realm was to be despoiled: Nobles, 
 gentry, merchants, lawyers, invited by the Crown, made 
 haste to the feast." From the same authority we learn 
 that 12 "Henry suppressed six hundred and forty-four 
 monasteries, ninety colleges, two thousand three hundred 
 and seventy-four free chapels, and one hundred and ten 
 
 10 "Hist, of the English People," p. 164. 
 
 11 "Social Eng.," pp. 50-1. 
 
 12 Ibid., p. 128. 
 
xviii Introduction 
 
 hospitals. More than eighty-eight thousand persons 
 were cast adrift by the suppression of the first named 
 alone. This must have greatly aggravated the existing 
 poverty and the struggle for existence." 
 
 According to Doctor Jessop : 13 "The monasteries 
 were plundered even to their very pots and pans. The 
 almshouses, in which old men and women were fed and 
 clothed, were robbed to the last pound, the poor alms- 
 folk being turned out in the cold at an hour's warning 
 to beg their bread. The splendid hospitals for the sick 
 and needy. . . . These were stripped of all their 
 belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some 
 convenient dry ditch to lie down and die in, or to crawl 
 into some barn or house, there to be tended, not with- 
 out fear of consequences, by some kindly man or 
 woman, who could not bear to see a suffering fellow- 
 creature drop down and die at their own door-posts." 
 
 England, in "pre-reformation" days, was known all 
 over the world as "Merrie England" a name imply- 
 ing a love for outdoor sports, athletic contests, and 
 innocent amusements, so happily described by Walter 
 Scott, which, with the advent of that reign of blood 
 and terror which ushered in the new religion passed 
 away forever. 
 
 The "reformation" in England was the result, in part, 
 of the breaking of that commandment which treats of 
 the sin of covetousness. The interminable wars between 
 England, France, and other nations, largely engaged in 
 as a healthful stimulus to the pride of kings, drained 
 the countries mentioned of their wealth, and it became 
 
 13 "Parish Life in Eng.," p. 432. 
 
Introduction xix 
 
 often necessary to resort to questionable methods for 
 the expanding of the country's deflated exchequer. 
 
 An equitable proportion of the commonwealth of 
 Christendom had, from the beginning, in its several 
 empires and kingdoms been set aside for the mainte- 
 nance of religion that institution which had made the 
 state possible; and a fair allowance again from the first- 
 mentioned sum, for the support of Christ's Vicar at 
 Rome. In the English government there were many 
 who had long cast envious eyes upon the various sums 
 greatly exaggerated that yearly found their way to 
 the Chief Shepherd, and which it was desired to keep 
 at home for use in furthering those wars of conquest 
 and aggression which should later on make possible the 
 proud declaration that "the sun never sets on British 
 dominions." The spoliation of Peter, for the purpose 
 of carrying on war or the purchase of peace, was often 
 resorted to by the Catholic sovereigns of Europe. 
 
 The "reformation" in some degree may be imputed to 
 the caricatures, the invectives, and the irreverence of the 
 Humanists, which helped to further feelings of dissent 
 among the people. The awakening, at this time, of the 
 spirit of commercialism and worldliness among many, 
 resulted in a gradual falling away from the old-time 
 strictness in religion's sweet observances, thereby giving 
 scandal to the discontented and inconstant, and further 
 paving the way for the success of that most sad of all 
 mistakes : "The Great Reformation." 
 
 The inspiration of all good works will most naturally 
 be looked for as coming from above, but the work under 
 consideration seems to have been set in motion in Eng- 
 
xx Introduction 
 
 land by a tyrannical and immoral king, in part, to dis- 
 tract the attention of his subjects from their monarch's 
 sins through the hope of temporal benefits to be received 
 in the wholesale robbery and slaughter of the Monks. 
 Thus the "reformation" had its inspiration not from 
 above, but from below, and was at all times character- 
 ized by a desire to acquire the good things of this world, 
 rather than to do works of self-abnegation in prepara- 
 tion for the world to come. 
 
 The Anglican Bishop Stubbs says : 14 "Where protes- 
 tantism was an idea only, as in France and Italy, it was 
 crushed out by the Inquisition; where in conjunction 
 with political power, and sustained by ecclesiastical con- 
 fiscation, it became a physical force, there it was lasting. 
 It is not a pleasant view to take of the doctrinal changes, 
 to see that where the movements toward it were pure 
 and unworldly, it failed ; where it was seconded by 
 territorial greed and political animosity, it succeeded." 
 
 The protestant historian Lecky says : 15 "But what 
 shall we say of a church, that was but a thing of yester- 
 day, a church that had as yet no services to show, no 
 claims upon the gratitude of mankind ; a church that was 
 by profession the creature of private judgment, but was 
 in reality generated by the intrigues of a corrupt Court, 
 which nevertheless, suppressed by force a worship that 
 multitudes deemed necessary to their salvation, and by 
 all her organs, and with all her energies, persecuted 
 those who clung to the religion of their fathers. 
 
 "What shall we say of a religion which composed at 
 
 i* "Lectures on Mediaeval and Mod. Hist.," Stubbs. 
 is "History of Rationalism," Vol. II. 
 
Introduction xxi 
 
 most but a fourth part of the Christian world, and 
 which the first explosion of private judgment had shiv- 
 ered into countless sects, which was nevertheless, so 
 pervaded by the spirit of dogmatism that each of these 
 sects asserted its distinctive doctrines with the same 
 confidence, and persecuted with the same unhesitating 
 virulence as a church which was venerable with the 
 homage of more than twelve centuries? 
 
 "What shall we say of men who, in the name of re- 
 ligious liberty, deluged the land with blood, trampled 
 upon the very principles of patriotism, calling in 
 strangers to their assistance and openly rejoicing in the 
 disasters of their country and who, when they at last 
 obtained their object, immediately established a religious 
 tyranny as absolute as that which they had subverted? 
 These were the attitudes which for more than a century 
 protestantism uniformly presented ; and so strong and so 
 general was its intolerance that for some time it may 
 be said that there were more instances of partial tolera- 
 tion being advocated by Roman Catholics than by prot- 
 estants." 
 
 Speaking of the succession of Mary, historian Beesly 
 says : 1G "Apart from the hot-headed protestant minority 
 chiefly to be found in London, the mass of the nation 
 was conservative, and welcomed the re-establishment of 
 the old religion as a return to order and common sense 
 after a short and bitter experience of revolutionary 
 anarchy. There was a rooted objection to restoring the 
 old meddlesome tyranny of the bishops, and the nobles 
 and squires who had got hold of the abbey lands would 
 
 16 "Queen Elizabeth," E. S. Beesly, p. 7. 
 
xxii Introduction 
 
 not hear of giving them up. But the return to com- 
 munion with the Catholic Church and the recognition 
 of the Pope as its head gave satisfaction to three- 
 fourths, perhaps to five-sixths of the nation, and to a 
 still larger proportion of its most influential class, the 
 great landed proprietors. 
 
 "Mary's accession was the great and unique oppor- 
 tunity for the old church. If Mary and Pole had been 
 cool-headed politicians instead of excited fanatics, if they 
 had contented themselves with restoring the old wor- 
 ship, depriving the few protestant clergy of their ben- 
 efices, and punishing only outrageous attacks on the 
 State religion, Elizabeth would not have had the power, 
 it may be doubted whether she would have had the in- 
 clination to undo her sister's work." 
 
 Continuing in another place this author says : 17 "What 
 protestants called a return to the Bible and the doc- 
 trines of primitive Christianity, the deliverance from 'the 
 Bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities,' were 
 not followed by any general improvement of morals in 
 protestant countries. He that was unjust was unjust 
 still; he that was filthy was filthy still. The repulsive 
 contrast too often seen between sanctimonious profes- 
 sions and unscrupulous conduct contributed to the dis- 
 enchantment." 
 
 These excerpts, from non-partisan protestant writers, 
 are effective in establishing the fact that the religious 
 aspect of the "reformation" so assiduously claimed as 
 the first great principle of the struggle was, in fact, but 
 secondary to that of acquiring through the Church's 
 
 IT Ibid., p. 134. 
 
Introduction xxiii 
 
 spoliation, ultimate material gain. That new religion, 
 of the "reformers," that failed to require the restitution 
 of the abbey lands, the great cathedrals, and other prop- 
 erty, to their rightful owners, would be but feeble com- 
 fort and support in that eventful hour when the mask 
 of "sanctimonious professions" will fail to hide from 
 the clear searching gaze of the Judge of equity, its 
 pretended owner's duplicity. 
 
 Of the number who, in the mistake of "The Great 
 Reformation," may have thought it God's work that was 
 being done in this seeking of new paths, their descend- 
 ants of the present age, if equally honest, cannot fail to 
 see that what makes most for stability in faith, and the 
 moral uplift of the world, is still, as of old, the dis- 
 tinguishing feature of Catholicism. Protestantism com- 
 ing into existence too late to claim a participation in 
 the divine commission given the apostles, is, in conse- 
 quence, without the authority to compel the submission 
 of its adherents to definite moral teaching. 
 
 What authority then can be invoked to stay the rising 
 tide that threatens; that unceasing ebb and flow, that 
 with its flotsam of easy divorce and racial limitation, is 
 undermining the foundations of society and threatening 
 the life of the nations? The answer must be sought in 
 the Catholic Church whose teaching, regarding faith and 
 morals, is at once authoritative, and of infallible truth. 
 
 Between the doctrine taught, before and after the so- 
 called "Great Reformation," there is not the slightest 
 difference. True doctrine before the "reformation," true 
 doctrine ever since, so it will remain till God's promise 
 that "the gates of hell shall not prevail" against His 
 
xxiv Introduction 
 
 Church, shall perish from the earth in the wreck and 
 ruin of all his works. 
 
 ENGLAND AFTER "THE GREAT REFORMATION." 
 
 Regarding the moral condition of England after the 
 new religion had, for about two hundred years, been 
 the established faith, the historian Lorimer says : 
 18 "Literature was to an unparalleled degree coarse, 
 debasing, licentious, as the pages of Smollet, Defoe, 
 Fielding and Coventry illustrate. The real sanctity of 
 the marriage tie had seriously declined among the more 
 exclusive classes of the realm. Drunkenness, profanity, 
 gambling, and profligacy reigned throughout the land. 
 What shall be said of the moral tone of a community, 
 where one hundred and sixty crimes were punishable 
 with death, and where capital punishment was inflicted, 
 as plays are presented at theaters, publicly and for 
 money." 19 "But a yet deeper impression may be gained 
 of the extent of this falling away, from the prevailing 
 corruption and black infamy of the social life, which 
 disgraced a country where the cross of Christ had been 
 the symbol of its faith for centuries." 
 
 The protestant writer Traill, says : 20 "The subject of 
 religion mentioned in society, excited nothing but 
 laughter." Mr. Lecky also in confirmation of the above 
 authorities says : 21 "After the Reformation, there seems 
 
 18 "Christianity in Nineteenth Cent," pp. 16-17. George C. 
 Lorimer. 
 
 19 Ibid., p. 14. 
 
 20 "Social Eng.," p. 129. 
 
 21 "Eng. in Eighteenth Cent.," p. 579, 
 
Introduction xxv 
 
 to have been a falling off in almost all branches of 
 intellectual and moral life. The preachers complained 
 bitterly of the decay of morality." The protestant writer, 
 Bayne, gives like testimony in the following words: 
 22 "The movement instituted by Luther, tended to per- 
 manently diminish the intensity with which religion had 
 dominated mediaeval life." 
 
 The Anglican bishop, Burnet, says : 23 "The much 
 greater part of those who come to be ordained are 
 ignorant, to a degree not to be apprehended by those 
 who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of 
 knowledge is that to which they are the greatest 
 strangers. Those who have read some few books yet 
 never seem to have read the Scriptures." 
 
 Those who strive for success along a chosen line of 
 effort, are often, through excess of hope and zeal, slow 
 to recognize the failure of the work, even after it has 
 become conspicuously apparent to those outside the circle 
 of endeavor. The "reformers," fully occupied in the 
 broad field of discussion incident to the changing of a 
 world's religion were, naturally, lacking opportunity in 
 which to observe what effect the new teaching was 
 likely to have upon the morals of the people. When 
 the innovators, at last, had the knowledge forced upon 
 them that all was not well in the new zion, "the 
 preachers complained bitterly of the decay of morality" 
 among those who had been "reformed" but were now 
 also beyond redemption. 
 
 It is not difficult to understand why, after the "ref- 
 
 22 "Life of Luther," p. 29. 
 
 1:3 "State of Anglican Ch. in Eighteenth Cent." 
 
xxvi Introduction 
 
 ormation," the moral condition of the people should 
 have been decadent. It is far easier to let down the 
 strings of a musical instrument than to bring them 
 back to permanent concert pitch. The "reformation" 
 was a letting down of the moral tension from the high 
 standards and ideals of past centuries. It was, as these 
 quotations show, of the world worldly. 
 
 The followers of the new religion having been eman- 
 cipated from the yoke of obedience to "those who had 
 the rule over them," and by their new teachers dispensed 
 from the humiliating and troublesome obligations of 
 fasting and other penances, naturally used their new 
 liberty to its fullest extent, and, being in accord with 
 the Antinomian suggestions of the founder of protest- 
 antism, entered into the pleasures of the world with 
 such zest and abandon, as to call forth the above com- 
 plaints of their preachers. 
 
 THE NEGLECT OF CHURCH ATTENDANCE. 
 
 At the time of "The Great Reformation" the ancient 
 zeal and enthusiasm as before mentioned had, to an 
 appreciable extent, abated. Historian Traill says : 24 "In 
 England as on the Continent, Christianity had slowly 
 become debased, not so much by a perversion of true 
 doctrines into false, as by the general decay of zeal and 
 interest." This protestant writer makes no charge of 
 doctrines changed. The fault was not with the faith, but 
 with those who, through neglect, failed to live up to the 
 faith. The reformation needed was not the reformation 
 
 24 "Social England," p. 35. 
 
Introduction xxvii 
 
 of the doctrines which God had revealed, but the ref- 
 ormation of the people the shaking up of dry bones. 
 
 Have our adversaries ever mourned over an enervated 
 zion? 
 
 In the published account of the Commencement exer- 
 cises of Yale Divinity School, Dr. George H. Harris, 
 President of Amherst College, "dwelt first on the sig- 
 nificance of the fact, that the number of Church goers 
 has fallen off in recent years. This he ascribed to a 
 change in the popular conception of religion. In 
 former times the Church was looked upon as the indis- 
 pensable means of salvation. There has been an imper- 
 ceptible but sure change of sentiment." 
 
 The cause of diminishing church attendance must be 
 regarded as the natural outcome of an eclipse of faith. 
 Do our friends know whether they were right in "former 
 times," or at the present day? As the Rev. President, 
 in his succeeding remarks, finds no fault with the pre- 
 vailing sentiment, that is, that "the protestant churches 
 are not indispensable," it is fair to presume that to be 
 his opinion, and with that opinion we heartily concur. 
 
 "We find in religious papers," says the New York 
 Sun, "much discussion of the cause of diminishing 
 church attendance. . . . Apparently the Roman Cath- 
 olics are not suffering from it. ... The lamentation 
 comes from the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and 
 kindred religious bodies. The Christian Intelligencer, 
 representing the old Dutch Reformed Church, once so 
 powerful in New York, tells of the results of inquiries 
 sent out in this city, as to the reasons for this neglect 
 of the church. 
 
xxviii Introduction 
 
 The responses in the first place, found fault with "the 
 preaching, 'the. inconsistencies if not hypocrisies of the 
 church members and the unprofitableness or exclusive- 
 ness of the church and its services.' . . . Declin- 
 ing church attendance, is a consequence of diminishing 
 faith. ... A large part of the Christian pulpit is 
 teaching the people that the Scriptures on which alone 
 they based their belief are of dubious validity, or it is 
 tacitly consenting to the work of destruction. Instead 
 of believing, therefore, people are criticising." 
 
 The Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, in report- 
 ing a sermon by the Pastor of Hope Church Rev. S. 
 H. Woodrow, says: "Still another cause" for indiffer- 
 entism "has been the discussion over the Bible. There 
 is no need to question the honesty and sincerity of 
 those who carry on these discussions, but the fact 
 remains that in the public mind the thought is that the 
 Bible is being attacked, and with good promise of being 
 overthrown. The impression has gone out that it is not 
 the word of God; and that to all appearances it con- 
 tains a very much mixed and jumbled word of man. 
 . . . One other cause is worthy of note. In the 
 rejection of certain crude forms of future punishment 
 that had been long in vogue, the church has swung to 
 the opposite extreme, and we hear very little about 
 punishment in any form." 
 
 Was the Congregational Church in New England 
 right when it held firmly to the belief that the Bible 
 was the inspired word of God, or is it right now when 
 so many of its teachers, after more than a century's 
 study of its pages, are divided in their opinions con- 
 
Introduction xxix 
 
 earning it? Was the same church right when it believed 
 in the endless punishment of the wicked in hell, or is 
 it right now when it does not? Can the searcher after 
 truth, have confidence in the teaching of a church, that 
 swings from one extreme to another? 
 
 Pastor Woodrow continuing says: "This feeling that 
 it does not much matter how we live or what we do, 
 all will come right in the end, has sapped the moral 
 fiber of the church." The Congregational divine here 
 laments the results of his own teaching. When the 
 shepherd teaches his flock that "crude forms of future 
 punishment" which the Bible, in details terrifying, so 
 clearly sets forth have been rejected by modern science 
 and twentieth century methods ; then with the elimina- 
 tion of all fear from the mind; will come, as a natural 
 sequence, the "feeling" which the Rev. brother laments. 
 
 Since the authority for the existence of heaven and 
 its opposite, hell, is one and the same, rather than ignore 
 the existence of the latter, the better practice might be 
 to keep it constantly in mind, that meditation on its 
 terrors might, as with whip of cords, urge us far from 
 those dire portals, even to the gates of that fair city on 
 the heights which is its antipode, the home of God. 
 
 At a missionary meeting in London at the commence- 
 ment of the present century, 25 "The Rev. W. D. Wal- 
 ters, a Methodist divine, said that it was only in com- 
 paratively recent years that they had realized the fact 
 that England was heathen! Of the six and a half 
 millions of London only about a million and a half 
 attend any place of worship. Thousands of people have 
 
 25 Public Press. 
 
xxx Introduction 
 
 never seen a Bible, and have never heard the name of 
 Christ except in blasphemy!" 
 
 Says Cardinal Manning: "The violation of the im- 
 munities of the patrimony of the Church led at once to 
 the sacrilege and spoliation of the sixteenth century. 
 And this robbery of the inheritance of the poor has pro- 
 duced by a direct cause the spiritual destitution of Eng- 
 land. Nearly one-half of its people, we are told, to use 
 the language of its own statistical books, enter no place 
 of worship." 
 
 These few excerpts anent Neglect of Church At- 
 tendance, seem to indicate a general falling: away from 
 the old time faith and strictness. Faith in the Bible, 
 and its doctrines, appears to be passing away, with the 
 advent of new century methods, beautiful music, and 
 eloquent preaching. 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Modern historians are agreed in admitting that the 
 two great revolutionary movements of the 15th and 
 16th centuries were the Reformation and the Renais- 
 sance. Under the former are included the violent meas- 
 ures employed by the enemies of the Church to over- 
 throw authority, that was coeval with Christianity, and 
 replace it with the despotism of civil rulers and the 
 fallible tribunal of private judgment. The Renaissance 
 a movement far less capable of exact definition im- 
 plied the development of many phases of civilized life, 
 though not always in the right direction. It included 
 an exaggerated worship of and fascination for pagan 
 
Introduction xxxi 
 
 literature; an enthusiastic cultivation of the fine arts 
 almost exclusively intent on the revival and glorification 
 of the glories of paganism. The Catholic Church in 
 her broad sympathies made friends with the Renais- 
 sance of letters and of classic art, condescending, as 
 far as her principles allowed it, to the new craving for 
 earthly things, only drawing a prohibitive line where 
 the love of nature threatened to degenerate into sen- 
 sualism; liberty into license, and love of independence 
 into hatred of authority. As judicial, impartial writers 
 have remarked, it is precisely on this prohibitive line 
 alone that the later Renaissance and the so-called Great 
 Reformation met and kissed each other. The result 
 was anarchy and schism in Germany, schism and royal 
 despotism in England, not to speak of other countries 
 more or less affected by the new learning and the new 
 gospel, the inevitable consequence being everywhere a 
 low standard of both the principles and the practice of 
 Christian morality. These preliminary remarks are in- 
 tended as a justification of my treatment of the Renais- 
 sance in connection with my subject The Great Refor- 
 mation a Great Mistake. 
 
 See "Reformation and Renaissance," by J. M. Stone, 
 London, Duckworth & Co., 1904. A very able work on 
 this subject. 
 
 In the century preceding the so-called "Great Refor- 
 mation" it had become the custom with many literary 
 men to employ their time largely in the study of the 
 pagan writers of ancient Greece and Rome. This re- 
 turn to antiquity was singularly styled the New Learn- 
 ing, more appropriately the Renaissance, signifying in 
 
xxxii Introduction 
 
 part a resurrection. As applied to Architecture it may 
 be called the revival of the Greek form of decoration 
 applied to the prevailing style of the Gothic or Pointed. 
 Some of the early efforts made in the attempt to har- 
 monize and blend the two styles, cannot be considered 
 as altogether happy in their results ; as conspicuously 
 evidenced in the facade of the renowned Cathedral of 
 Milan, where pointed windows seem engaged in an 
 ineffectual strife with the round arches and heavy win- 
 dow and door caps of classical architecture. 
 
 Says Ruskin, "renaissance architecture is the school 
 which has conducted men's inventive faculties 
 from the marble shaft and the lancet arch, the wreathed 
 leafage and the glowing and melting harmony of gold 
 and azure, to the square cavity in the brick wall." 
 
 As architecture and sculpture were, by the Renais- 
 sance, held in bondage to the sensuousness of classic 
 paganism, the art of painting from the culmination of 
 medieval art in the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo 
 whose inspiration was derived more from the greatness 
 of his Christian faith than the study of pagan art 
 under the influence of the Renaissance, gradually de- 
 clined. 
 
 More specifically in the revival of letters has the 
 Renaissance received its most extravagant praise, not 
 only from catholic, but more notably from protestant, 
 writers, in recognition of the fact that the New Learn- 
 ing at its inception had become an active assistant in 
 making possible the protestant reformation. 
 
 The New Learning, or Humanism which was the 
 name given to the Renaissance as identified with the 
 
Introduction xxxiii 
 
 revival of classic learning had its genesis in Italy in 
 the fourteenth century, and from there slowly extended 
 itself over western Europe. Paganism seems never to 
 have been so entirely eradicated in Italy, as in most 
 countries which had been won from barbarism. The 
 presence in the Eternal City of so large a number 
 of majestic ruins and monuments, and other matchless 
 evidences of the height to which civilization had at- 
 tained during the Empire, together with the legends 
 which were associated with them, had a marked ten- 
 dency in keeping alive the old superstitions, and mem- 
 ories, connected with the pagan past. 
 
 "The learning of the Middle Ages, as exemplified in 
 art, is," says Mr. Ruskin, "but the expression of the 
 joy of those who have found the young Child with 
 Mary his mother." The literature, and the teachings, 
 of the ages of faith were never separated from faith; 
 yet where they were so constantly centered upon the 
 Latin authors as to become unmindful of the fact that, 
 with the world's growth and expansion, new influences 
 and conditions would arise; small wonder if they failed 
 to equal in worldly wisdom, the wisdom of the world. 
 So, where a larger education should have led the way, 
 scholasticism with its well-nigh endless refinements of 
 thought, and dialectical subtleties, used in fruitless dis- 
 putations upon traditions and narratives of doubtful 
 value, so occupied the minds of the schoolmen as to 
 make them seemingly content to follow at a distance, 
 rather than press forward in the van. 
 
 A revival of learning was indeed the world's great 
 need, next to that of right living, but a revival of learn- 
 
xxxiv Introduction 
 
 ing by which enlightenment was sought from the writ- 
 ings of pagan authors, was a resort to a fountainhead 
 which was at least questionable, and the results, how- 
 ever desirable they may have been, seem on the whole 
 not to have proved an unmixed blessing. 
 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam, the friend of Luther, and the 
 reformers, an ecclesiastic of great learning, was a 
 Humanist, though of a greatly improved type from 
 those who brought disgrace upon the Church in Italy. 
 Erasmus was first a scholar, critic, and satirist, and 
 secondly, a catholic who showed at times a proclivity 
 for joining in the chase with the hounds, and again, 
 giving aid and comfort to the hares: thus he was the 
 friend of Luther and Melanchthon, Sir Thomas More 
 and Bishop Fisher! Claimed as a reformer by the 
 reformers which he was not the revolt of Luther 
 may, in some degree, be attributable to the keen wit 
 and merciless satire with which he dissected character, 
 and belabored the weaknesses and shortcomings in 
 learning, of all from the Pontiff to the humblest eccle- 
 siastic especially the different monastic orders. 
 
 Luther was but an humble imitator of the more pol- 
 ished and brilliant Erasmus in his wholesale abuse of 
 the monks. Luther, from a railer of men, became a 
 railer of doctrines. Erasmus never denied catholic doc- 
 trine, he was only the friend of those who did; his spe- 
 cial province was to find fault with whatever existed 
 which is the easy part but in finding a remedy for 
 existing evils which is the difficult part he had no 
 skill. 
 
 While the protestant revolt was greatly aided by the 
 
Introduction xxxv 
 
 sympathy manifested for it in the carpings of the Hu- 
 manists, the condition of public morals, which then ex- 
 isted, was more than any other cause attributable to the 
 Humanists themselves who, having drank long and deep 
 from the poisoned wells of an immoral and pagan liter- 
 ature, had, at least the more radical among them, be- 
 come largely dominated by its spirit. So if at first 
 they had been captivated by the spell of poetic imagery, 
 and language eloquent, by which the alluring pleasures 
 of a worldly and not over innocent life were portrayed 
 with consummate art, the enticing details of which 
 through being partially concealed were the more plainly 
 revealed, we shall see in the sequel, that the worship 
 of those beautifully wreathed flowers of Grecian rhet- 
 oric, was superseded by the worship of that which had 
 been so eloquently described. 
 
 Thus the radical Italian Humanists have justly won 
 the title of being considered 26 "the corruptors of 
 youth." The vices that made Greece infamous were 
 transplanted to Italian soil, and in the bud and blossom 
 of them raged a curse and plague in the cities of the 
 land. 27 "It may safely be asserted then," says Mr. 
 Lilly, "that speaking generally, Italian Humanism was 
 practically a rejection of the claim made by Christianity 
 to supply the true standard and rule of human action. 
 It was on the whole a movement away from Christian 
 morality. It was a return, Rio has well observed, not 
 so much to Classicalism as to paganism." 
 
 Thus it was not through ignorance so much, as 
 
 26 "Revival of Learning," Symonds, p. 407. 
 
 27 "The Claims of Christianity," W. S. Lilly, p. 161. 
 
xxxvi Introduction 
 
 through learning, that a decadence in the spiritual life 
 of large numbers in the Church is to be attributed. 
 Any preference for the Christian religion over ancient 
 philosophy was charitably attributed by the Humanists 
 to ignorance, and the rise and progress of Christianity, 
 as an interregnum of barbarism. We also hear much 
 about the greatness of man's intellect, the freedom of 
 his will, his emancipation from the thraldom of old be- 
 liefs and galling superstitions; all of which are notice- 
 able as having entered into the tonal structure of the 
 dominant chord of the "reformation" under Luther. 
 
 The Renaissance was a revolt against the spiritual 
 in religion, literature and art, and the substitution in its 
 place of the sensuous and luxurious delights of a civil- 
 ization which had long since died of its own effeminacy. 
 The effect upon the Church of the revival of pagan 
 learning was, in the main, to lower the moral standard 
 and make fashionable corrupt living, by a rehabilitation 
 and worship of the flesh. It was an infatuation for a 
 vain learning, a false philosophy, which tending to 
 engender conceit and pride, led to an abandonment of 
 faith and virtue with a return, brief though it was, to 
 the old paganism of the Empire. 
 
 The same doctrines which had gladdened the ears 
 and hearts of the first Christians, and are welcomed by 
 us to-day, were the same that in the epoch of the 
 Renaissance fell on unwilling ears and divided hearts. 
 The Church, rich at this time in the lives of her saints, 
 failed not by their words and the convocation of her 
 bishops to sound notes of warning and remonstrance, 
 but to ears that were made dull and eyes that had be- 
 
Introduction xxxvii 
 
 come dazzled by the splendor of the world, her bell, 
 book, and candle, seemed enveloped in a haze that 
 neither sound nor light could penetrate, and failed to 
 awaken to spiritual life, and obedience, the sleeping 
 sinner from blissful dreams of pagan eloquence and 
 word painted imagery. 
 
 Another cause, for the people's indifference, may be 
 found in the exile of the Papacy for the space of 
 seventy years; an exile commonly known by name as 
 the "Babylonian Captivity," during which the Chair of 
 Peter was removed to Avignon in France. The popes 
 and cardinals, being largely natives of that country, 
 were, supposedly, more or less under the influence of 
 French politics, and the Papacy, in consequence, lost to 
 some extent its catholic character becoming, in the 
 opinion of other rulers, an ally of the king. By this 
 unfortunate occurrence the Papacy lost its prestige, and 
 its power for good was greatly weakened throughout 
 the world. 
 
 The necessity for a reformation was no original dis- 
 covery of either Huss or Luther, but had long been 
 recognized by the ablest and best among the holy men 
 and women of the Church. To arouse her lukewarm 
 children to a knowledge and appreciation of their mani- 
 fold delinquences, to warn them of the danger to which 
 they had exposed themselves by so intemperate a devo- 
 tion to the New Learning, earnest effort had been 
 made. But the devil, hard to dislodge even from Para- 
 dise, in company with Caesar, the flesh, and the Hu- 
 manists, was enabled for a time to retain the citadel. 
 
 In this dark period of Christian history there re- 
 
xxxviii Introduction 
 
 mained a large majority who continued faithful. Among 
 them St. Catherine of Siena, who manifested no fear 
 in reproving popes when the good of the Church re- 
 quired it. The Venerable Thomas a Kempis, born a 
 century earlier than Luther and like him an Augus- 
 tinian monk, but unlike him fond of the ways of peace 
 and holy contemplation, was a typical son of the Church 
 whose devotional writings are valued even by our ad- 
 versaries. 
 
 The young Spanish page at the court of Ferdinand 
 did, in later years, a far greater work for the Church 
 than his kingly master when he drove the Saracen from 
 Spain; and the life and immortal works of Ignatius 
 Loyola worked prodigies in church reformation. 
 
 "THE GREAT REFORMATION" IN GERMANY. 
 
 28 "In the year 1510," says Doctor Stevens, "an Au- 
 gustinian monk walked with desolate heart the streets 
 of Rome, and turning away from the pomp of her 
 churches and the corruptions of the Vatican, sought re- 
 lief to his awakened soul by ascending on his knees, 
 with peasants and beggars, the staircase of Pilate, which 
 was supposed to have been trodden by Christ on his 
 trial. While pausing on the successive steps to weep 
 and pray, a voice from Heaven seemed to say: The 
 just shall live by faith. It was the voice of Apostolic 
 Christianity, and the. announcement of the Reformation! 
 He fled from the superstitious scene. Seven years 
 later, the same monk nailed on the gate of the Church 
 
 28 "Hist, of Methodism," Abel Stevens, p. 19. 
 
Introduction xxxix 
 
 at Wittenberg the theses which introduced the Reforma- 
 tion." 
 
 Luther, 29 whom the terrors of a thunder storm fright- 
 ened into becoming a monk, was a man of strong con- 
 victions and marked individuality, of many and varied 
 attainments in general learning, being as well a musician 
 and hymn writer of some skill. He was of a particu- 
 larly rugged, combative and aggressive nature, imperi- 
 ous and self-willed; an effective sledge-hammer, but a 
 poor anvil. "Luther had," as Doctor Lindsay says, "the 
 gift of strong smiting phrases ; and no other epoch- 
 making man has ever flung about wild words in such 
 reckless profusion." The doughty friar who spectacu- 
 larly nailed the theses to the Church door, in something 
 like two years' time, wrote the following letter to the 
 Pope: 
 
 30 "Necessity forces me, as the very dregs of men and 
 the dust of the earth, to address again Thy Holiness 
 and Majesty. Deign then to bend thy paternal ears, 
 which are truly those of the Vicar of Christ, to this 
 Thy little lamb, and attend to my bleating. . . . 
 What am I to thee Most Blessed Father? I know not 
 what to do. Thy wrath I cannot endure; and yet how 
 to be delivered from it I know not. 
 
 "I am commanded to recall the discussion. If I could 
 accomplish what is intended by this demand, it would 
 be done without delay. But on account of the resist- 
 ance of my adversaries, my writings have been pub- 
 lished to a much greater extent than I had intended. 
 
 29 "Life of Luther," Jacobs, p. 21. 
 so Ibid., p. 126. 
 
xl Introduction 
 
 They have entered into many hearts so deeply that they 
 cannot be recalled. Nay, our Germany to-day flour- 
 ishes so remarkably in learning and sound judgment, 
 that however much I desire to honor the Roman 
 Church, they cannot be recalled. For this is impossible 
 without bringing still greater disgrace upon the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 "They whom I have resisted have brought infamy 
 and shame among us in Germany upon the- Church of 
 Rome. . . . Before God and all creatures I attest 
 that I have never wished, nor do I wish to-day, to plot 
 against Thy power; on the contrary I acknowledge the 
 power of the Church to be above all things ; nor is any- 
 thing to be preferred to it, except alone the Lord Jesus 
 Christ the Lord of all." 
 
 Luther was not sincere in this abject letter, he was 
 only prudent, so in case the Elector of Saxony could 
 not be depended upon in the event of a complete break 
 with the Pope, a safe retreat would be provided for. 
 The boldness of this "reformer" was likely to increase, 
 or decrease, according as the facilities for personal 
 safety did, or did not, present themselves. When sub- 
 sequently Luther's personal safety became assured, he 
 adopted a tone toward the Hierarchy that would have 
 been the superlative of arrogance in the greatest of 
 Popes. 
 
 Upon the receipt of the Papal bull of excommunica- 
 tion, Luther stirs up, within him, his favorite "gift of 
 strong smiting phrases." 81 "Leo X., and you, ye car- 
 dinals of Rome, I address, and to your face I freely say : 
 
 si "Life of Luther," Jacobs, p. 172. 
 
Introduction xli 
 
 If this bull has gone forth in your name, and with 
 your knowledge ... I will use my authority, by 
 which, in baptism, by the mercy of God, I became a 
 son of God, and co-heir with Christ, and was placed 
 upon a firm rock, which dreads neither the gates of 
 hell, nor heaven, nor earth, I exhort you in the Lord, 
 to repent, and to make an end to these diabolical blas- 
 phemies, and that too, speedily. Unless this be done I, 
 with all who worship Christ, will regard your See 
 possessed of Satan, and the accursed abode of Anti- 
 christ. . . . 
 
 "For this declaration we are ready ... to offer 
 ourselves for death, that you may satisfy your bloody 
 tyranny. But should you persevere in your fury after 
 this has been written, we condemn you and, together 
 with the bull and all its decreetals, deliver you to Satan, 
 for the destruction of your flesh, that your spirit may 
 be delivered in the day of the Lord. In the name of 
 Jesus Christ, our Lord, whom your persecute. Amen." 
 
 In what other than a "Pickwickian sense" these words 
 "we are ready to offer ourselves for death/' etc., are 
 to be taken, it is not easy to say, but as a declaration 
 made in a place of perfect safety, would seem useful 
 only as a bid for sympathy and applause. Upon the 
 same subject Luther elsewhere says : 32 "Give ear now, 
 you bishops, or rather you visors of the devil: Dr. 
 Luther will read you a bull and a reform, which will 
 not sound sweet in your ears. Doctor Luther's Bull 
 and Reform is this, whoever spend their labor, per- 
 sons, and fortunes, to lay waste your episcopacies, and 
 
 32 Adversus falso Nomin, Tom. II, Jen. A. D. 1525. 
 
xlii Introduction 
 
 to extinguish the government of bishops, they are the 
 beloved of God, true Christians, and opposers of the 
 devil's ordinances. On the other hand, whoever sup- 
 port the government of bishops, and willingly obey 
 them they are the devil's ministers." 
 
 Notwithstanding these strongly pronounced opinions, 
 Luther in 1542 in order to please the Elector of Sax- 
 ony, his chief patron and protector is found ordain- 
 ing his friend Amsdorf as Bishop of Naumburg! 
 
 The Renaissance spirit had penetrated the University 
 of Erfurth and Luther becomes a Humanist. Mr. Bayne 
 says : 33 "A man of mark and intellectual aspiration, 
 to the circle of young Humanists who then, in the first 
 glad flush of the renaissance, as it broke from below 
 the Alps and shot its morning crimsons towards the 
 north, talked, rhymed, laughed at priests and monks, 
 praised Reuchlin, adored Erasmus, polished Latin prose 
 to a Ciceronian luster, aspired to write verses of which 
 Horace and Virgil would not have been ashamed, and 
 on the whole cultivated and affected a classic elegance, 
 freedom, and pride of existence in the precincts of 
 Erfurth University." 
 
 Young Martin occupied his time largely in the study 
 of such authors as in an ecclesiastical sense might be 
 styled revolutionary, especially the works of William of 
 Occam, which he poured over 34 "until he could repeat 
 from memory the great folios of that author." It was 
 Occam who taught "that it cannot be proved from Holy 
 Scripture that in order to do good works, the Holy 
 
 33 "Life of Luther," Bayne, p. 132. 
 
 34 "Life of Luthei-," Jacobs. 
 
Introduction xliii 
 
 Spirit is necessary." It was in Occam that Luther was 
 taught that "popes were fallible." It was Occam that 
 Luther called "his dear master." 35 We also find Mar- 
 tin reading by stealth the writings of John Huss, and 
 noticing with pleasure that far from containing any- 
 thing objectionable, there were many quotations from 
 Scripture in them. 
 
 If it be true that the boy is the father of the man, 
 can we not look upon young Martin, who began thus 
 early to manifest admiration for the writings of those 
 who sat at the feet of the sage of Rotterdam, "in full 
 sympathy with his exposure of the errors of monks 
 and priests"; who with his brother Humanists, railed, 
 laughed at, and commiserated the inmates of the cloister 
 for their ignorance of the pagan classics ; as the father 
 of that Doctor Martin, who later railed at catholic doc- 
 trine and the pope? 
 
 Luther's departure from the world of student life 
 was carefully arranged with a view to effect. 86 "He 
 asked a few of his most intimate friends to spend an 
 evening with him; he entertained them with his best 
 talk, his best music; bade adieu to them, without hint- 
 ing that anything unusual was to happen ! . . . The 
 friends suspected nothing. Next morning they learned 
 that he had entered the Augustinian convent. Those of 
 them who hurried thither he declined to see. Not until 
 a month had passed did he admit audience from the 
 outer world." 37 "In a glow of complacent hopefulness 
 
 35 "Life of Luther," Bayne, p. 160. 
 
 36 "Life of Luther," Bayne, p. 143. 
 
 37 Ibid., p. 174. 
 
xliv Introduction 
 
 and high-strung resolution, he began after his ordination 
 to make of himself a model of saintship. To use his 
 own phrase, 'he would take heaven by storm.' " It is 
 not surprising that this young man, who was somewhat 
 inclined to boasting, should after the "glow of compla- 
 cent hopefulness" have become more mild and his ex- 
 citement to some extent abated being utterly des- 
 titute of the most important requirements of his pro- 
 fession, viz: patience and humility began soon to fret 
 and complain. 38 "The thunders of Sinai rolled over 
 his soul. The lightnings of Divine wrath smote him 
 as with pangs of everlasting death. He was hurried 
 from one extreme of impassioned feeling to another, 
 as Milton pictures the transference of the lost from 
 regions of searching fire to regions of thick ribbed ice. 
 At one moment he strained all his faculties to a par- 
 oxysmal intensity in the mortification of sin; at another 
 he fell back upon the mood of rebellious defiance, al- 
 most disposed to hurl blasphemous upbraidings at an 
 unrelenting God." 
 
 When Luther "fell back upon the mood of rebellious 
 defiance," the act was characteristic of the man, and 
 the mood one in which he doubtless felt the most at 
 home. The all-pervading idea of Luther's mind was 
 Luther. While yet a student at Erfurth, with his cus- 
 tomary modesty young Martin 39 "lamented that, during 
 his entire career there he had never heard either a 
 Gospel or a Psalm properly explained." 
 
 An exceedingly adulatory letter addressed in 1519 to 
 
 38 "Life of Luther," Bayne, p. 175. 
 
 39 "Life of Luther," Jacobs, p. 19. 
 
Introduction xlv 
 
 Erasmus, as it were by accident, gives the key to 
 Luther's inspiration and ardor in his warfare against 
 the papacy. In this letter Luther cries out in rapture: 
 
 40 "Who is there that has not admitted Erasmus to the 
 inmost chambers of his mind ? Whom does not Erasmus 
 teach? In whom does not Erasmus reign? I refer 
 of course to such as have a genuine love for letters." 
 Luther in conclusion gives voice to that which is dearer 
 to his heart than the fame of the polished scholar: 
 
 41 "My name, too, has begun to emerge from obscurity" 
 While the founders of new religions may succeed in 
 
 making themselves believe that their labor is all for 
 God's glory, who without their distinguished services 
 would never be set right before the world; yet there 
 will be those who, reading between the lines and thus 
 discovering other and far different motives for their 
 actions, will not fail to draw a parallel between these 
 and the more ingenuous statements of those men of 
 old who said prior to the attempted building of that 
 tower whose top should pierce the vaulted heavens : 
 "Come let us make ourselves famous," before our dust 
 becomes the sport and plaything of the summer winds. 
 
 THE PEASANTS' WAR, 1524. 
 
 Whatever political, social, or economic conditions 
 antedated the insurrection known as the peasants' war, 
 the more immediate cause of the outbreak can be traced 
 to Luther's talent as an agitator, ably assisted as he 
 
 40 "Life of Luther," Bayne, p. 458. 
 
 41 Ibid., p. 459. 
 
xlvi Introduction 
 
 was by Ulrich von Hutton, mentioned by the protestant 
 Professor Lindsay as 42 "the stormy petrel of the epoch," 
 and Franz von Sickingin, "the last flower of German 
 chivalry," and other renowned patrons of the reformed 
 faith who, by their unlimited attainments in the use of 
 vehement and incendiary language, were enabled to 
 incite the ignorant to the committal of acts of disorder 
 and crime. 
 
 One Thomas Miinzer, who seems to have also been 
 a rather stormy petrel, is on record as the author of 
 the following mild and pious language : 43 "Arise ! fight 
 the battle of the Lord! On! On! On! The wicked 
 tremble when they hear of you. On! On! On! Be 
 pitiless! although Esau gives you fair words (Gen. 
 xxxiii.). Heed not the groans of the godless; they 
 will beg, weep, and entreat you for pity like children. 
 Show them no mercy, as God commanded Moses (Deut. 
 vii.), and as He has revealed the same to us. Rouse 
 up the towns and the villages: above all rouse the 
 miners. . . On! On! On! while the fire is burning; 
 let not the blood cool on your swords! Smite pinke- 
 pank on the anvil of Nimrod! Overturn their towers 
 to the foundations; while one of them lives you will 
 not be freed from the fear of man! While they reign 
 over you it is of no use to speak of the fear of God! 
 On while it is day! God is with you." 
 
 The art of printing proved an invaluable aid to the 
 "reformation," which was largely carried on by the 
 distribution of small leaflets printed on coarse paper, 
 
 42 "Life of Luther," Lindsay. 
 
 43 "Life of Luther," Lindsay, p. 184. 
 
Introduction xlvii 
 
 and in cases where language failed to sufficiently cari- 
 cature the Roman Curia and the monks, or give the 
 intensity of vituperative expression desired illustrated 
 with rude woodcuts. These small sheets were the only 
 inexpensive literature obtainable, and were eagerly read 
 by those possessed of the requisite scholarship, and 
 those who could not read would find the desired in- 
 struction from the cartoons, or by listening, as the 
 leaflets were read and discussed in ale houses and tav- 
 erns. These proselyting publications, like the one shown, 
 that the cause might seem the more pious, were sup- 
 plied with numerous Scripture quotations explained to 
 suit the times. 
 
 In the early months of the year 1525, the "Evangeli- 
 cal Brotherhood" were everywhere victorious, and the 
 way of their advancing hosts was made bright by 
 blazing castles and monasteries, to be succeeded by 
 blackened ruins and desolate hearths. 
 
 Luther, who seems to have been greatly surprised at 
 his success in instigating rebellion, 44 "wrote a vehe- 
 ment tract, 'Against the Murderous Thieving Hordes of 
 Peasants.' In this terrible pamphlet he hounded on 
 the princes to crush the rising." The protestant Pro- 
 fessor admits that "when all is said that can be reason- 
 ably said in explanation of his conduct at this time, one 
 cannot but feel that the language of this pamphlet is 
 an ineffaceable stain on Luther which no extenuating 
 circumstance can wipe out. ... In the case of an 
 insurgent, says Luther, 'every man is both judge and 
 executioner. Therefore, whoever can, should knock 
 
 44 "Life of Luther," Lindsay, p. 186. 
 
xlviii Introduction 
 
 down, strangle, and stab such, publicly or privately, 
 and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, and devilish 
 as an insurgent. . . . Such wonderful times are 
 these that a prince can merit heaven better with blood- 
 shed than another with prayer.' " 
 
 45 "I Martin Luther have shed the blood of the re- 
 bellious peasants, for I commanded them to be killed. 
 Their blood is indeed upon my head but I put it on 
 the Lord God, by whose command I spoke." 
 
 The protestant professor makes every effort possible 
 to show that Luther's name should not be connected 
 with the rising, but as his friends and other reformers 
 were so connected, it seems fair to judge Luther, by 
 the company which he kept. The demands of the peas- 
 ants as summed up in the "Twelve Articles" the pro- 
 fessor admits, were approved by Luther, and further 
 that 46 "it must be acknowledged that there was an 
 intimate connection between that disastrous outburst 
 and Luther's message to the German people." A hun- 
 dred thousand lives is supposably the cost of listening 
 to the "smiting phrases" of the reformers. 
 
 The apologists for the "Great Reformation" have un- 
 weariedly set forth that movement on the pages of 
 their histories, as the chief among the many blessings 
 which God, in the superabundance of his mercy, has 
 bestowed upon us since that memorable day when the 
 gates of paradise in closing, left without its boundaries, 
 fallen man. If we will hear them, the "reformation" 
 was a return to Bible Christianity, to primitive purity 
 
 45 Luther's "Table Talk." 
 
 46 "Life of Luther," Lindsay, p. 169. 
 
Introduction xlix 
 
 in faith and morals. It was the assertion of the great 
 dignity of man made in God's image and of his in- 
 dividual right to answer to his Maker for his stew- 
 ardship, without intervention from any authority of 
 church, saint, or angel. It was the throwing off the 
 shackles of that power which had from its first small 
 beginning, in time forged link, after link, of a chain 
 of religious despotism, that had enthralled the mind 
 of ail Christendom and held it in abject slavery for 
 centuries. The reformation was the soul's declaration 
 of independence, the sum total of all the good that 
 ever had happened to mankind. The bare statement of 
 these glittering phrases, of pure protestant buncombe, 
 have been successful in further deepening the impres- 
 sions already received, from protestant histories, in the 
 public schools. Thus the average protestant, though 
 often changing his opinions, perhaps drifting into un- 
 belief; yet seldom feels called upon to pass the bound- 
 aries that turned his youthful feet, but does his thinking 
 as of old on strictly party lines. 
 
 Few, who fully realize the extent to which early 
 prejudice holds unrelentless sway over the mind. What 
 our mothers first taught us, what our fathers thought, 
 and did, the state of life that we were born to, the 
 games we played by ocean side or in the velvet mead- 
 ow's shade; the earliest opinions formed; these all are 
 the little tyrants that urge us on with whip and spur 
 through life, and become embodied in the sentiments 
 that grace our tombstones at the end. 
 
 So the work of the protestant reformation prospered 
 in Germany under the fostering care of the princes 
 
1 Introduction 
 
 whose vanity Luther had flattered by giving authority 
 in the ecclesiastical as well as the secular domain of 
 the new Church, and the "reformation" became an 
 accomplished fact; a German Church for the Germans. 
 
 But what a "reformation" was that which silenced the 
 bells of Churches, Monasteries, and Convents, those an- 
 cient seats of learning and devotion where, until now, 
 the daily offering of the Holy Sacrifice had never, since 
 Christianity shed light and civilization on pagan dark- 
 ness, been omitted? What a reformation was that 
 which destroyed Christian Unity, and unsettled the faith 
 of so large a number of the German people, till from 
 believers, they became a nation of angry disputants, and 
 irreverent users of God's Word? What a reformation 
 was that which was accomplished by an appeal to igno- 
 rance and fanaticism, the might of princes, the fire- 
 brand and the sword? What a reformation was that 
 which in its train brought laxity in morals, and the 
 legacy of divorce? 
 
 When Luther, towards the close of his life again 
 visited Wittenberg, the city where he discovered "The 
 Great Reformation," he thus writes concerning the spir- 
 itual condition of this reformed city. 47 "The disor- 
 derly conduct of the young women, their fashionable 
 dress, which he pronounces indecent, and the utter un- 
 concern of those whose duty it was to reprove them, 
 are mentioned as reasons why he should leave. 'Away 
 from such a Sodom ! I would sooner wander about and 
 beg my bread than vex my last days with the irregular 
 proceedings at Wittenberg/ " 
 
 47 "Heroes of the Reformation," Jacobs, p. 205. 
 
Introduction li 
 
 The number of evil livers in the Church, during the 
 debasing period of the Renaissance, may have been 
 legion, but such living so far from finding its justifi- 
 cation in doctrines taught, was in direct and open vio- 
 lation of such teaching; while the well-known laxity 
 in morals at Wittenberg is directly traceable to the re- 
 former's regard for the tenets of the Antinomians, as 
 shown in his declaration that "marriage was a worldly 
 thing with which the Church had nothing to do," and 
 also his connivance at the sin of bigamy, if done "under 
 the seal of confession." 
 
 What then did Luther's so-called Reformation give 
 to Germany? A church suited to the times and the 
 people. A church which, in the absence of divine au- 
 thority, lay prone at the feet of princes in the spirit of 
 the most abject Csesarism, thankful if allowed to live 
 by the surrender of its principles whenever required. 
 A church suited to the people founded by a distin- 
 guished representative of fallibility whose gift pre- 
 eminent, the power of using the most vehement in- 
 vective depending for its perpetuity and correct defini- 
 tion in teaching, upon the popular will of princes and 
 the ever changeable mind of man. A church which in 
 its very constitution carried the seeds of its early dis- 
 solution and which, as a matter of fact, at its first 
 contact with the world was shivered into fragmentary 
 and opposing sects. 
 
 Doctor Lord, one of the most prejudicial of protest- 
 ant writers, says : 48 "Northern Germany the scene of 
 the stupendous triumphs of Luther is and has been, 
 
 48 "Beacon Lights," Vol. Ill, p. 270. 
 
Hi Introduction 
 
 since the time of Frederick the Great, the hotbed of 
 rationalistic inquiries; and the German as well as the 
 French and Swiss Churches which Calvin controlled 
 have become cold, with a dreary and formal Protest- 
 antism without poetry or life." 
 
 LUTHER AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 In, or near, A. D. 1455 twenty-eight years before 
 the birth of Luther one of the first books ever printed, 
 the complete Bible, was published in the city of Mentz, 
 Germany, on the Feast of the Assumption. 49 "We may 
 see," says Mr. Hallam, "in imagination this venerable 
 and splendid volume leading up the crowded myriads 
 of its followers, and imploring as it were a blessing 
 upon the new art by dedicating its first fruits to the 
 service of heaven." 
 
 Between the years 1461 and 1470, which would be 
 at least thirteen years before the birth of Luther, five 
 Latin Bibles and two in German were printed, which 
 looks very much as though catholics feared and hated 
 the Bible and wished it kept from the people. These 
 facts anent the publishing of so many editions of the 
 Bible, in so short a time after the ability to print was 
 demonstrated, serve to throw light on former miscon- 
 ceptions, and a flavor of improbability upon the follow- 
 ing highly dramatic romance of D. Aubigne : 
 
 "One day as Luther was opening the books in the 
 library of Erfurth one after another, in order to read 
 the names of the authors, one which he opened in its 
 
 49 "Introduction to Literature of Europe," p. 96. 
 
Introduction liii 
 
 turn, drew his attention; he had not seen anything 
 like it till that hour; he reads it, it is a Bible! a rare 
 book, unknown at that time. His interest is strongly 
 excited; he is filled with astonishment, at finding more 
 in this volume than those fragmentary portions of the 
 Gospels and Epistles which the Church has selected 
 to be read to the people in their places of worship 
 every Sunday in the year. Till then he had thought 
 that they were the whole of the word of God. And 
 here are so many pages, so many chapters, so many 
 books of which he had no idea! His heart beats, as 
 he holds in his hand all the Scripture divinely inspired. 
 . . . The Reformation lay hid in that Bible." 
 
 Doctor Maitland, a protestant writer, commenting 
 upon this legend of D'Aubigne says: 50 "Is it not. odd 
 that Luther had not by some chance heard of the 
 Psalms? But there is no use in criticising such non- 
 sense. Such it must appear to every moderately in- 
 formed reader, but he will not appreciate its absurdity 
 until he is informed that on the same page, this precious 
 historian has informed his readers, that in the course 
 of the two preceding years, Luther had applied himself 
 to learn the philosophy of the Middle Ages in the 
 writings of Occam, Scott, Bonaventure and Thomas 
 Aquinas of course none of these knew anything about 
 the Bible. The fact is simply this : The writings of the 
 dark ages are, if I may use the expression, made of 
 the Scriptures. I do not merely mean that the writers 
 constantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them 
 as authorities on all occasions, as other writers have 
 
 50 "Dark Ages," Maitland (fifth edition), p. 505. 
 
liv Introduction 
 
 done since their day, but that they thought and wrote 
 and spoke the thoughts and words and phrases of the 
 Bible, and that they did this constantly and habitually, 
 as the natural mode of expressing themselves." The 
 same writer continuing says: "To say nothing of parts 
 of the Bible, we know of at least twenty different edi- 
 tions of the whole Latin Bible, printed in Germany be- 
 fore Luther was born. And yet more than twenty 
 years after, we find a young man who had received a 
 very liberal education, and who nevertheless did not 
 know what a Bible was because the Bible was an un- 
 known book in those days!" 
 
 How many people have felt their pulse quicken and 
 their protestant hearts grow warm, at the recounting 
 of this touching story about Luther finding the precious 
 Bible. This little story has accomplished the work it 
 was intended it should do, just as well as though it 
 were true. 
 
 The art of printing; not the "Great Reformation," 
 gave the people the Bible. 
 
 Says Mr. Hallam : 51 "A more immediate effect of 
 overthrowing the ancient system" the catholic "was 
 the growth of fanaticism, to which in its worst shape, 
 the Antinomian extravagances of Luther yielded too 
 great encouragement. . . . When he saw the dan- 
 ger of general licentiousness, which he had unwarily 
 promoted, he listened to the wiser counsels of Melanch- 
 thon, and permitted his early doctrine upon justification 
 to be so far modified in expression, that it ceased to 
 give apparent countenance to immorality; though his 
 
 si "Literature of Europe," Hallam, Vol. I, p. 187. 
 
Introduction Iv 
 
 differences with the Church of Rome as to the very 
 question from which he had started, thus became of 
 less practical importance, and less tangible to ordinary 
 minds than before." 
 
 As a marked decline in the morals of the people was 
 traceable to the "Great Reformation" in England; so 
 the same result is seen to follow its establishment in 
 Germany; and Luther is here seen endeavoring to 
 qualify the doctrine of his invention in the interests 
 of the moral code. And this can be done only by ap- 
 proaching as nearly as possible the teaching of that 
 Church which he had left in anger and disdain because 
 of such teaching. 
 
 The San Francisco Monitor says: "If the Church 
 were really corrupt, the true reformer would aim at 
 purifying it from within and purging it of abuses. 
 But the reformers attempted to destroy all authority, 
 to overthrow all Christian institutions and to preach a 
 doctrine of license. Such men could not be genuine. 
 They might excite the populace against the Church by 
 denouncing its alleged abuses, but they themselves in- 
 troduced far worse abuses." This is practically ad- 
 mitted by the protestant historian Hallam. 
 
 52 "The adherents of the Church of Rome have never 
 failed to cast two reproaches on those who left them: 
 one, that the reform was brought about by intemperate 
 and calumnious abuse, by outrages of an excited popu- 
 lace or by the tyranny of princes; the other, that, after 
 stimulating the most ignorant to reject the authority of 
 their Church, it instantly withdrew this liberty of judg- 
 
 52 "Literature of Europe," p. 200. 
 
Ivi Introduction 
 
 ment, and devoted all who presumed to swerve from 
 the line drawn by law to virulent obloquy, or some- 
 times to bonds and death. These reproaches, it may 
 be a shame for us to own, can be uttered but cannot 
 be refuted. 
 
 "But without extenuating what is morally wrong, 
 it is permitted to observe, that the protestant religion 
 could, in our human view of consequences, have been 
 established by no other means. Those who act by 
 calm reason are always so few in number, and often 
 so undeterminate in purpose, that without the aid of 
 passion and folly, no great revolution can be brought 
 about." 
 
 So the establishment of the protestant religion, the 
 panacea for the world's evils, according to this distin- 
 guished apologist, could not be effected "by calm rea- 
 son" owing to its rarity among the reformers(?) 
 but by the aid of "passion and folly" only. We may 
 be permitted to call attention to the fact that the 
 Church from which the reformers separated, was found- 
 ed by the Redeemer of men, who had need of neither 
 of the "aids" found necessary by protestants, in their 
 self-imposed work of church founding. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the limits regarding space, 
 prevent a more extended acquaintance with the life and 
 teachings of Martin Luther, as it would tend to disillu- 
 sionize the mind from the tyranny of early impressions 
 concerning one who, under the sting of disappointed 
 ambition, made most strenuous efforts to unhinge the 
 gates of the Catholic Church. One more quotation 
 from the life of Luther must suffice. 
 
Introduction Ivii 
 
 53 "Philip, Landgrave of Hesse," a married man 
 "brightest, boldest and by far the most capable of all 
 the Evangelical Princes, had fallen in love with Mar- 
 garethe Von der Saal." He asked Luther's consent to a 
 marriage. The Landgrave had rendered aid and com- 
 fort to Luther in his warfare against the pope, and the 
 chief protestant shepherd was under great obligations 
 to this shining light of the "pure Gospel." Luther's 
 permission to the Landgrave of Hesse to have two 
 wives, may be summarized, says Doctor Lindsay, thus: 
 "We are now living under the Gospel, which does not 
 prescribe rules for the external life, and has not ex- 
 pressly prohibited bigamy. In individual cases of dire 
 need, and to prevent worse results the Pastorate may 
 sanction bigamy in a purely exceptional way. . . . 
 Such a bigamous marriage, is a true marriage, the 
 necessity being proved in the sight of God and of 
 conscience, but it is not a true marriage with reference 
 to public law and customs. Therefore such a marriage 
 ought to be kept secret, and the dispensation which is 
 given for it, ought to be kept under the seal of con- 
 fession." 
 
 Says Fr. Balmes : 54 "During many centuries amid 
 circumstances the most various, and sometimes the most 
 terrible, the Catholic Church struggled with intrepidity 
 against the passions of potentates, to maintain unsullied 
 the sanctity of marriage. Neither promises nor threats 
 could move Rome ; no means could obtain from her any- 
 thing contrary to the instructions of her divine Master; 
 
 53 "Life of Luther," by Dr. Lindsay, p. 255. 
 
 54 "European Civilization," Balmes, p. 137. 
 
Iviii Introduction 
 
 protestantism, at the first shadow of the slightest em- 
 barrassment, yields, humbles itself, consents to polyg- 
 amy, betrays its conscience, opens a wide door to the 
 passions, and gives up to them the sanctity of marriage, 
 the foundation stone of true civilization. . . . What 
 would now be the condition of Europe, if Luther, the 
 founder of protestantism, had succeeded in inspiring 
 society with the indifference which he shows on this 
 point in his commentary on Genesis? 'As to whether 
 we may have several wives,' says Luther, 'the authority 
 of the patriarchs leaves us completely free.' He after- 
 wards adds that 'it is a thing neither permitted nor pro- 
 hibited, and that he does not decide anything thereupon.' 5: 
 
 In McClure's Magazine of December, 1909, Professor 
 G. E. Howard, a non-catholic of the University of 
 Nebraska, says: "It should not be forgotten that liberal 
 divorce in Christian lands is the fruit of that phase of 
 the renaissance in thought that we call the Reforma- 
 tion. For in its origin the prevailing modern doctrine of 
 divorce, like the prevailing modern conception of the 
 form and nature of wedlock, was shaped by the brain of 
 Martin Luther. . . . Luther's famous dictum that 
 marriage is not a Sacrament but a 'temporal wordly 
 thing' which 'does not concern the church/ led the mind 
 of the western world to sanction civil marriage and its 
 counterpart, civil divorce." 
 
 The writings of the founder of protestantism, show an 
 entire lack of appreciation of the sacredness of mar- 
 riage; and at the birth of the new principle of private 
 judgment, the reformers, under the lead of that false 
 priest, began the pleasing task of reversing the judg- 
 
Introduction lix 
 
 ment of the Catholic Church, who, at the beginning, 
 had defined marriage to be a holy sacrament, ordained 
 by Christ and indissoluble, except by death. In the 
 prosecution of this work, they took Bible in hand and 
 found a text, which, by the aid of 55 private interpreta- 
 tion, they professed to understand in a sense opposed to 
 that of the Church. This new interpretation was pro- 
 fessedly in the interests of morality as a relief to inno- 
 cent persons, in a marriage the ethical principle of which 
 had been profaned. 
 
 As it is a favorite device of the devil, to appear in 
 the garb of an angel of light, this attack upon the faith 
 of so many centuries, came under the cloak of religion; 
 and thus was handed down to posterity, by the first 
 reformer, the legacy of divorce. 
 
 Let us contemplate for a moment the moral effect 
 upon the world of this effort at reformation! Divorce, 
 the monster sin of the age, stands responsible, during 
 the last twenty years, for the destruction of one million 
 three hundred thousand homes. By this multitude of 
 desolated firesides, broken hearts have sorrowed, angry 
 passions been aroused, families divided and its members 
 scattered, with as little concern for their future, on the 
 part of parents, as though they were so many kittens 
 and puppies. The parents of these children, having 
 found their "soul mates," are now only interested in 
 obtaining the decree. If the "lady" be young, the public 
 press will refer to her as "the charming divorcee." Not 
 long since in the divorce court at San Francisco, a 
 young lad was asked by the judge "which parent he 
 
 55 Matt, xix, 3-9. 
 
Ix Introduction 
 
 would choose to go with?" The boy made answer 
 between sobs, "I want them both." 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maine says : 
 "Laxity of opinion and teachings on the sacredness of 
 the marriage bond, and on the question of divorce orig- 
 inated among the protestants of Europe in the sixteenth 
 century. It soon began to appear in the legislation of 
 protestant States on that continent, and nearly at the 
 same time to affect the laws of New England. And 
 from that time to the present it has proceeded from one 
 degree to another in this country, until especially in New 
 England the Christian conception of the nature and obli- 
 gations of the marriage bond finds scarcely any recogni- 
 tion in legislation, or, as must thence be inferred in 
 the prevailing sentiment of the community." 
 
 "As a favor to the church," says the San Francisco 
 Monitor: "The Rev. Mr. Hamilton, a prominent Prot- 
 estant Episcopal divine, implores society to discounte- 
 nance divorce by withholding recognition from divorced 
 persons who remarry. He is addressing a representative 
 audience of Newport cottagers : 
 
 "The reverend gentleman frankly admits that the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church is unable to enforce its 
 decrees among immediate adherents, or to curb the 
 destructive current of divorce among fashionable people 
 who profess to recognize its authority. He beseeches 
 society, therefore, to rescue 'the Church' from an unfor- 
 tunate predicament in which otherwise it must be hope- 
 lessly involved. 
 
 "The people of Newport, Dr. Hamilton declares, are 
 endowed with the power to suppress the evil. Con- 
 
Introduction Ixi 
 
 secutive polygamists are sensitive about their social 
 standing, though coldly indifferent to the voice of 
 religion; the divorce industry would be effectively dis- 
 couraged, he thinks, by the refusal of society especially 
 the Newport brand to 'know' the principals in these 
 unholy matrimonial entanglements. 
 
 "If home-wreckers are received into society and into 
 all the homes of the land ; if home-wreckers get society's 
 sanction in Newport, concludes Dr. Hamilton, they do 
 not care about the church's censure anywhere. 
 
 "Such a confession from such a source, places 'the 
 Church' in a very peculiar light. Here we have an 
 appeal to society to save the church from a danger 
 against which the church itself should shield society. 
 It is the duty of the church, as it is the mission of 
 religion, to safeguard the moral and spiritual life of its 
 membership from baleful influences in every shape. The 
 church which is forced to acknowledge its inability to 
 perform an obvious duty toward its adherents, is cer- 
 tainly in a bad way. It is nearing, if it has not reached 
 the end of its usefulness, as a moral and spiritual 
 force. . . . 
 
 "The pathos of Dr. Hamilton's singular appeal is 
 accentuated by the fact that the particular audience to 
 which it is addressed is composed in large part of the 
 individuals from whom its members are asked to with- 
 hold social recognition. Yet upon the consciences of 
 these people the rector would lay the burden of saving 
 the church." 
 
 The Episcopal Convention held in Boston, October, 
 1904, in its legislation on divorce, maintained through 
 
Ixii Introduction 
 
 the medium of its Hierarchy, the Catholic doctrine 
 regarding the indissolubility of the marriage relation, 
 but the public press that brought us this surprise, also 
 brought the intelligence that the voice of the Apostles, 
 speaking through the medium of the Episcopal Bishops, 
 was not received as conclusive, by the highly respectable 
 contingency composed of capitalists, manufacturers, real 
 estate agents and dentists, known as the lay delegates, 
 who refused to submit to the promulgation of the chief 
 shepherds concerning moral doctrine. 
 
 That these bishops may not be confounded with those 
 bishops who teach as the Master did, as "one having 
 authority," these Episcopalian Bishops make haste to 
 surrender the faith at the behest of a number of lay- 
 men, and effect a compromise which leaves the ques- 
 tion about where it was before. In a church governed 
 by bishops, it would be but natural to look to them as 
 the representatives of that church's authority, but in this 
 case authority in faith and morals, seems rather the 
 prerogative of the laity than of the hierarchy. 
 
 58 "The evil effects of divorce," says Father Yorke, 
 "are so marked in the world around us, that one would 
 think nobody could be found to defend it. It is the 
 fruitful cause of gross immorality, of strife, contentions, 
 murder, every crime on the statute books. It ruins the 
 family, and in doing so necessarily the state and the 
 nation. It takes away the glory of womanhood, and 
 makes man worse than the beasts of the field. Depravity 
 marks its progress, desolation follows in its wake. How 
 
 so S. F. Monitor. 
 
Introduction Ixiii 
 
 any decent man can defend it, seeing what havoc it 
 makes, is not to be understood. 
 
 "If there were no God above us and no religion but 
 the good of the state, our common sense would tell us 
 that there must be no divorce." 
 
 It has been shown by protestant testimony, that Eng- 
 land's moral condition received a great setback from 
 the reformation, and Germany executed a retrograde 
 movement at the same time and from the same cause, 
 and if attention be given to the moral state of our own 
 land under the curse of easy divorce also admitted by 
 protestant authorities to be a child of the reformation 
 it must be conceded that the truth of the proposition 
 contained in the title of this work, is established defi- 
 nitely now and forever. 
 
 The history of a nation that in prosperity forgets 
 God, ignores the moral law, that debases marriage, 
 and that practices race suicide, will at no distant day be 
 called upon to chronicle the event of that government's 
 fall and passing among the nations. 
 
 The Roman Empire, in its later history, practiced 
 these iniquities, and the empire fell. The empire that 
 extended its great civilization, its arts, and maintained 
 the valor of its arms in every quarter of the then 
 known world, may have its history repeated in our day 
 and among us, as the national emblem of our country 
 shall be seen waving over broken hearthstones and 
 homes desolated by divorce. 
 
 It is with pleasure that we turn from this subject, 
 and call your attention to a quotation from one of 
 
Ixiv Introduction 
 
 the works of that staunch protestant and prince of 
 essayists, Lord Macaulay: 
 
 "The history of the Catholic Church joins together 
 the two great ages of human civilization. No other 
 institution is left standing which carries the mind back 
 to the time when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the 
 Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in 
 the Flavian amphitheater. The proudest royal houses 
 are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of 
 the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an 
 unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon 
 in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who crowned 
 Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin 
 the august dynasty extends. The Republic of Venice 
 came next in antiquity. But the Republic of Venice was 
 modern when compared with the Papacy, and the Re- 
 public of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. 
 The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, 
 but full of life and vigor. The Catholic Church is still 
 sending forth to the farthest ends of the world mission- 
 aries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with 
 Augustine, and still confronting hostile kings with the 
 same spirit with which she confronted Attila. 
 
 "The number of her children is greater than in any 
 former time. Her spiritual ascendency extends over 
 the vast countries which lie between the plains of the 
 Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century 
 hence, may not improbably contain a population as large 
 as that which now inhabits Europe. Her acquisitions 
 in the New World have more than compensated for 
 what she has lost in the Old. The members of her 
 
Introduction Ixv 
 
 communion are certainly not fewer than one hundred 
 and fifty millions, and it will be difficult to show that 
 all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred 
 and twenty millions. 
 
 "Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the 
 term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw 
 the commencement of all the governments and of all 
 the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the 
 world ; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined 
 to see the end of them all. She was great and respected 
 before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the 
 Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence 
 still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still wor- 
 shiped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist 
 in undiminished vigor when some traveler from New 
 Zealand shall in the midst of a vast solitude, take his 
 stand on a broken arch of London Bridge, to sketch the 
 ruins of St. Paul's. We often hear it said that the 
 world is constantly becoming more and more enlight- 
 ened, and that this enlightening must be favorable to 
 protestantism and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish 
 that we could think so. But we see great reason to 
 doubt whether this be a well-founded expectation. We 
 see that during the last two hundred and fifty years, 
 the human mind has been in the highest degree active 
 that it has made great advances in every branch of 
 natural philosophy that it has produced innumerable 
 inventions tending to promote the conveniences of life 
 that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have 
 been greatly improved that government, police, and 
 law have been improved though not to the same extent. 
 
Ixvi Introduction 
 
 Yet we see that during two hundred and fifty years, 
 protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking 
 of. Nay, we believe that so far as there has been a 
 change, that change has been in favor of the Church 
 of Rome." 
 
 Whatever history, be it catholic or protestant, that 
 we read, it must be conceded by all, that the civiliza- 
 tion of the nations was the result of the teaching of a 
 united Church in obedience to the See of Rome. 
 
 The Catholic Church stands out as the great central 
 figure, in the history of the nations. In America it 
 cannot be considered an exotic, it was here at work 
 teaching the Christian religion years before the "Pil- 
 grim Fathers," armed with a charter giving them a 
 monopoly in the fishing interests of the Atlantic coast, 
 left the snug harbors of Holland, where they had not 
 suffered persecution at the hands of the phlegmatic 
 Dutch. 
 
 Our separated brethren for obvious reasons tolerate 
 the presence here of the Catholic Church, but they 
 seek no knowledge. Why? Because protestant minis- 
 ters, day and Sunday school teachers, and the protestant 
 press, have told them all about it. Without suspicion 
 that these sources of information may through preju- 
 dice be unreliable, our friends, laying aside this cus- 
 tomary wisdom, continue to confine their attention to 
 such authorities and to magazine articles and histories 
 written for no other purpose than the confirmation of 
 the religious fairy tales to which at their mother's knee 
 they listened, and the spirit of which was breathed in 
 
Introduction Ixvii 
 
 the native air of their child life, and confirmed later 
 in protestant school books and general literature. 
 
 One might think that a dictionary could be consulted 
 without danger of being taught protestantism, but such 
 is not the fact, it too has its little protestant sermons. 
 In the Standard Dictionary, you will find that a Jesuit 
 is "a crafty, insidious, double-dealing person, a subtle 
 casuist, an intriguer. Their casuists have held that, 
 when truth cannot be revealed, mental reservation is 
 allowable ; and that when acts are indifferent in them- 
 selves, the end to be attained determines their ethical 
 character. But they have been charged with teaching 
 that pledges may be made with a mental reservation, 
 and that the end justifies the means." This protestant 
 reputation "has caused them to be expelled from both 
 protestant and catholic countries." 
 
 No treatise has ever been published by the Society of 
 Jesus, which could by even the most extravagant as- 
 sumption, be deemed as favoring the declaration that 
 "the end justifies the means," on the contrary they have 
 repudiated and anathematized it as a morally wrong 
 principle of action thousands of times, as well as that 
 other and kindred fallacy in regard to making prom- 
 ises with mental reservations. 
 
 The assertion that a Jesuit is "an insidious, crafty, 
 double-dealing person," is not sustained by anything in 
 the nature of proof, and could be asserted in regard to 
 the editor-in-chief of the Standard Dictionary with 
 equal truth and politeness. 
 
 Jesuits have been expelled from catholic and pro- 
 testant countries, for reasons complimentary to them- 
 
Ixviii Introduction 
 
 selves. Their founder prayed that, in imitation of the 
 Master, they might suffer persecution ; as "the blood 
 of Martyrs is the seed of the Church." 
 
 This prayer was answered in the English Inquisition, 
 and in many countries and in many centuries of time 
 before the Standard Dictionary came to add its mite. 
 And then as now, when bankrupt kings wish to replen- 
 ish their empty treasury, they expel the Jesuits, and "ac- 
 quire" their property. 
 
 If the editor had ever heard what the Jesuits suf- 
 fered in their work of converting the Indians of the 
 great west in America, he might have thought them 
 worthy of at least a respectful mention in his prot- 
 estant dictionary. 
 
 Has the editor-in-chief ever read how these Jesuit 
 Missionaries went out into the wilderness to convert 
 and civilize the savages? 
 
 Through the pathless forests, and the borders of 
 the Great Lakes, carrying the few necessaries they pos- 
 sessed on their backs, together with a portable altar 
 and a few pictures to assist them in telling the story 
 of the Cross, traveled foot-sore and weary, among the 
 different tribes, these men. They were not generally 
 welcomed by the Indians, and were often subjected to 
 the same cruel treatment as that accorded to captives 
 taken in battle. Some had their thumbs cut off with 
 sharp stones, some in like manner their toes, and some- 
 times a foot or a hand. 
 
 A favorite diversion of these children of the forest, 
 was to insert under the skin, pegs or splinters of 
 
Introduction Ixix 
 
 pitch-pine which when set on fire produced the most 
 excruciating suffering. 
 
 When they returned from the war-path without 
 captives to torture, they brought out the missionaries 
 and took revenge on them, with many ingenious and 
 varied devices of torture. 
 
 Enduring the mental anguish resulting from the 
 beastly habits of the Indians, when obliged as they 
 often were, to live, eat, drink, sleep, and be as it 
 were one of them the better to win their friendship 
 and confidence ; enduring cold and hunger on the long 
 journeys through the forests, loaded down like beasts 
 of burden, but if permitted always carrying their altar 
 and pictures; they fully believed "that the end (the 
 conversion of the heathen) justified the means." Had 
 they not been "crafty Jesuits," the sufferings of these 
 heroic patient men, living for savages a life like this, 
 and at their death to unknown graves descending, "un- 
 wept, unhonored, and unsung," would have won the 
 admiration, and challenged the wonder of the world. 
 But, that the editor of this protestant dictionary, know- 
 ing all this and more, could in his comfortable office, 
 supervising this work for revenue only, say these 
 things of these men, is a wonder incomparably greater! 
 
 Another cause which stimulates to greater activity 
 the giant protestant prejudice, and which deters our 
 friends from making inquiries concerning the Catholic 
 Church is, that the common people, the unlearned, the 
 laboring poor, are so conspicuously present there. 
 
 In a street car recently a number of daintily attired 
 ladies were talking together, as the car passed where 
 
Ixx Introduction 
 
 a beautiful protestant church was in process of erec- 
 tion, a lady remarked: "That's where I shall go to 
 church when it's finished ; the best people will go there !" 
 
 While the "best people" may be in general the most 
 agreeable, the old Church, in imitation of her divine 
 Lord's practice, is no respecter of persons; the lame, 
 the halt, the blind, the ignorant and "the poor, have 
 the Gospel preached to them." 
 
 Those who are looking for a church where only the 
 rich and fashionable go, will have no difficulty in find- 
 ing many such among our friends in the cities and 
 towns of the world. 
 
 Those on the contrary who do not expect a church 
 to be entirely free from those who, like the divine Mas- 
 ter, were among the poor and despised of the world, 
 might, could they inquire with dispassionate minds re- 
 garding the teachings of the Church especially if the 
 writer could avoid raising by too plain speech a spirit 
 of opposition reap much profit thereby. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 UNITY. 
 
 The final conclusion of discussions concerning faith is 
 often reached, by protestants, not through agreement, 
 but through concurrence in expressions regarding the 
 hopelessness of agreement. That "we cannot all think 
 alike," seems a settled conviction ; but were it to be sc 
 amended as to read "we will not all think alike," this 
 must be the real truth, for, the unamended saying is a 
 declaration of God's inability to reveal a religion to all 
 mankind sufficiently reasonable for all mankind to ac- 
 cept, while the amended saying points directly to the 
 supposition that the fault is theirs, and that it is a 
 fault of the will and not of the understanding. 
 
 The desire, the will to disbelieve the divine teach- 
 ings, to ignore the experience of the past, to find a 
 new way, that you may have the satisfaction of leading 
 others up the pathway that you alone discovered and 
 from which vantage ground complacently point out, 
 through clearer air, the mass of common toilers in the 
 dusty plains below is after all but the beggarly rec- 
 ompense of an overweening pride. In the desire to be 
 leaders, not followers, among men, is found a motive 
 far more potent for the many, than that of zeal for the 
 glory of God. And in this lies the secret of the origin 
 and multiplication of sects. 
 
 The religious denominations have, as a consequence 
 
2 Unity 
 
 of these ambitious motives, increased in numbers to so 
 great an extent, as to cause, among the older sects, 
 misgivings in connection with questions of finance 
 as to the desirability of further divisions. It would 
 appear that four hundred denominations ought to be 
 sufficient for the expression of all the opinions con- 
 nected with the varying phases of protestantism. 
 
 Among the sects, an increasing number of individ- 
 uals will be found who are unwearied searchers after 
 opinions novel and strange and which differ, more or 
 less, from the standard of the organization to which 
 they belong. Then comes the great army of the in- 
 different, who have made shipwreck of their faith on 
 the rocks and sands of the numberless cults and isms- 
 of the day. To this class it is of small consequence 
 what one believes, so long as they are sincere in it. 
 
 So besides the large number of religious bodies, we 
 have in each one, as a wheel within a wheel, a great 
 number of conflicting opinions and beliefs, which, with 
 the progress of time, become less and less sharply de- 
 fined, finally passing beyond the realms of certain knowl- 
 edge into the broad fields of speculation and conjecture; 
 as western skies, at close of day, flash out their richest 
 coloring just as the passing moment changes all dis- 
 tinctive outlines into weird and shapeless phantoms of 
 the night. 
 
 This divided condition of the protestant world then, 
 is the outcome of that false maxim that "we cannot 
 meaning will not all think alike." The education of 
 protestants has always this end in view, of impressing 
 upon all minds the inestimable advantage accruing from 
 
Unity 3 
 
 this bequest of the "reformers." That with which we 
 are from youth familiar causes no surprise. Little 
 wonder that our friends are so slow in realizing their 
 loss, when they have never experienced the perfect rest 
 resulting from that sure and certain faith which is the 
 attendant of Christian Unity. 
 
 The lion, born in captivity, paces wearily back and 
 forth the length of his cage; while his far-seeing eyes 
 roam over the distant forest's shade his natural home 
 his body cannot pass the iron bars to follow. He 
 feels that something is wrong, perhaps that he is 
 wronged, but never having had a taste of freedom, 
 never having enjoyed the thousand and one sweet 
 odors of the jungle or pleasures of the chase, he 
 knows not, as the captive of yesterday knows, the lack 
 of what he never enjoyed. 
 
 Protestant ministers for nearly a half century have 
 confessed to a feeling of disquietude as though they, 
 too, felt that something was wrong in the practical 
 working of their systems of religion. "There is at this 
 time," say they, "a great feeling of unrest throughout 
 the religious world." A Presbyterian divine, 1 pastor 
 of a "rich and influential" church, recently said in sub- 
 stance: This feeling of unrest, which seems to be in- 
 creasing throughout the world, amounts at times to 
 almost torture. What is to be the final outcome? 
 Will it lead us to a higher plane, or plunge us down 
 to the lower level of darkness and despair? The feel- 
 ing of unrest, complained of by this learned Doctor, is 
 the natural outcome of uncertainty regarding faith. In 
 
 i Dr. Coyle. 
 
4 Unity 
 
 confirmation of this, a second protestant minister is 
 cited. 
 
 The Rev. J. W. Conley of Fresno, California, in a 
 sermon at the Baptist Church upon the subject of 
 "Saving the Church," said : 2 "The danger confronting 
 the church now is abstraction and uncertainty of belief. 
 There is little direct opposition to Christianity, but 
 there is vagueness. The danger to the church to-day is 
 the haze of uncertainty." 
 
 In a sermon preached at Springfield, Massachusetts, 
 the Rev. Mr. Woodrow said : 3 "There are enough 
 Christians in many communities to affect them power- 
 fully for good, but, alas, they are split up into sects and 
 factions and torn by petty jealousies. 
 
 "In our Western States as soon as a new town starts, 
 we have the spectacle of half a dozen churches, each 
 with a handful of adherents, and each receiving mis- 
 sionary help, when there should be one self-respecting 
 and self-supporting church. This is as true in New 
 England as in the West. We see small towns with 
 three or four churches, when if all the people in the 
 town went to church, it would not make one good 
 congregation." 
 
 These protestant teachers here show: First, a gen- 
 eral and increasing condition of unrest throughout the 
 religious world meaning themselves which amounts 
 to almost torture; Secondly, this unrest is traced to un- 
 certainty, vagueness, and haziness in teaching the Chris- 
 tian faith; Thirdly, it appears that this unrest and un- 
 
 2 San Francisco Call's report of Baptist Convention, Nov. 15, 1911. 
 s Springfield Republican. 
 
Unity 5 
 
 certainty come as the sad result of all not willing to 
 believe alike in humble submission to that desire ex- 
 pressed in the Gospel by the divine Son to his Father: 
 that they all might be one, as he and the Father were 
 One. 
 
 Our adversaries are, seemingly, in the vanguard in 
 their appreciation, in worldly things, of the many ad- 
 vantages of Unity, and are exceedingly apt at institut- 
 ing comparisons between the prosperity of the United 
 States among nations, and that of the same States if 
 dismembered and dissevered. The motto that "in 
 union is strength" seems to be regarded as Gospel 
 truth while in affairs connected with the Gospel they 
 profess to believe that in disunion there is strength! 
 
 Our Saviour established one true Church. 5 "Be 
 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 bap- 
 tism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
 in us all." This is paraphrased by Cardinal Gibbons, 
 in this manner : 6 "As you all," he says, "worship one 
 God, and not many Gods; as you acknowledge the 
 same divine Mediator of redemption, and not many 
 mediators; as you are sanctified by the same divine 
 Spirit, and not by many spirits; as you all hope for 
 the same heaven, and not different heavens, so you 
 must all profess the same faith." 
 
 It is not, by any process of reasoning, conceivable 
 
 4 St. John, ch. 17, v. 22. 
 
 5 Ephes. iv, 3-6. 
 
 e "Faith of our Fathers," p. 24. 
 
6 Unity 
 
 that our divine Lord could have founded a Church on 
 the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity, and then one on 
 the Unity without the Trinity; nor is it possible that 
 he could have built a Church on Peter, and then a 
 Church in opposition to that, upon the right of Private 
 Judgment. Could our Lord found a Church to teach 
 the eternal punishment of the wicked, and another that 
 the eternity of punishment is no true doctrine? Could 
 the Eternal Wisdom found a religion to teach that 
 Christ was God, and then one to teach that he was not? 
 
 God is the author of order, not of confusion. If a 
 stated proposition be true, its opposite cannot also be 
 true. Would our Lord establish a Church so unrea- 
 sonable in its requirements, that all could not, if they 
 would, submit to them? When our friends say that 
 they cannot all think alike, they virtually deny the 
 truth of revealed religion. Certainly God could reveal 
 but one religion, and that one religion must be true. 
 
 For the space of fifteen centuries Christian Unity 
 was an historical fact. All nations were as one fam- 
 ily living in Unity under one head the father of the 
 household ; as a kingdom under one king ; as the sheep 
 of the fold under one shepherd; as the different mem- 
 bers of the human body under one head. As the 
 branches of trees, and vines, and flowers, receive their 
 life and beauty from their union with the main trunk, 
 so the different nations preserved their spiritual life 
 and Unity, by obedience to one supreme head on earth, 
 the Roman Pontiff. 
 
 During this long period, the heathen nations con- 
 verted to the faith became its brave defenders, and 
 
Unity 7 
 
 the Saracen legions were driven back to their deserts, 
 and the priceless treasure of the Christian faith, to- 
 gether with the learning of ancient Greece and Rome, 
 preserved to posterity. In the realm of conjecture, 
 what might have been the result of this long conflict 
 with the Moslem, had Christianity been divided as at 
 present into a large number of sects, each under their 
 separate leaders, and more or less at war among them- 
 selves ? 
 
 When the Scotch Covenanters were drawn up in 
 battle array, waiting to repel an incursion into their 
 domains by the Royalists of England in the reign of 
 Charles First, they, unfortunately for themselves, be- 
 came engaged in a war of words in regard to the 
 proper understanding of a text of Scripture. The bat- 
 tle which they had not come out to fight, continued to 
 be waged right merrily and with such vehemence and 
 constantly increasing din, as to enable the Royalists 
 to approach near enough without being seen, to pour 
 a well directed volley into their ranks, which broke up 
 the discussion and accelerated their flight. 
 
 In pre-reformation times, the age of Christian Unity, 
 by the united labor and self sacrifice, for the glory of 
 God, of the whole people, were built those magnificent 
 temples, the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe, which trav- 
 elers are wont to cross the seas to admire. They may 
 be given great admiration and not be over-praised. 
 They are the only Churches worth going a stone's 
 throw to see. Architects may imitate, but never hope 
 to rival, those monumental works built by the inspira- 
 tion of a Christian people whose heart, as well as skill, 
 
8 Unity 
 
 was in the energy put forth. Their harmonious pro- 
 portions, vast size, their graceful springing arches and 
 tracery with wealth of detail lavishly bestowed, make 
 these huge piles of solid masonry that have bid de- 
 fiance to the elements and the disintegrating hand of 
 time for centuries, seem light and airy as a lacework 
 pattern, or the fleecy clouds towards which their lofty 
 spires and pinnacled turrets point. On earth indeed, 
 but yet disdaining such low and universal support as 
 mother earth affords, stand, in most dainty equipoise, 
 as if in contemplation of a speedy upward flight as 
 in the morning's crimson glow, the lark's ecstatic song 
 mounts upward to the gates of peace and light. 
 
 To uphold the Cross on which the King of Glory 
 died; to house a Tabernacle wherein the King of Glory 
 might make his dwelling place with the children of his 
 love in temples made with hands; this was the inspira- 
 tion of all Christian Architecture; this the noble am- 
 bition that fired the hearts and strengthened the sinews 
 of the Medieval builders who raised to the glory of 
 God, the Cathedrals of the world. 
 
 Take a brief glance at how these noble works of 
 the builders' art fared during "The Great Reforma- 
 tion." 
 
 7 ''Lead was stripped from the roof of the finest 
 church without the slightest hesitation and melted at a 
 fire made with wood of stalls, screen work, or rood. 
 Orders were sent, to wreck the roof and 'pull the 
 lead' of some of the most glorious architectural monu- 
 
 7 "Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," Gasquet, Vol. II, 
 p. 426. 
 
Unity 9 
 
 ments which England then contained. Bands of work- 
 men went about from place to place throughout the 
 country, lit their fires in the naves or chancels of abbey 
 Churches, and occupied themselves for weeks, in melt- 
 ing the coverings of roofs, and the gutters, spouts and 
 pipes from the building into pigs, the sale of which 
 might add a few pounds to the royal plunder. 
 Like a swarm of locusts the wreckers went forth over 
 the land, and what they found fair and comely, they 
 left black with their smelting fires and useless ruins." 
 
 The testimony of contemporary writers makes evi- 
 dent the fact, that on the eve of "The Great Reforma- 
 tion" in England, Church building was progressing with 
 the usual enthusiasm. This is a very significant fact, 
 for, as our fellow helper, Rev. Mr. Woodrow, has said: 
 "When men are in doubt about the stability of the 
 foundation they do not build." 
 
 When the cyclone of "The Great Reformation" struck 
 the land, Church building, general learning, all prog- 
 ress in the arts and sciences, stood still, as England, 
 no longer as in the old days "Merrie England," bent 
 her head to the storm of fanatical persecution that 
 swept in one broad wave of desolation over the land. 
 
 The "reformers" found the use of much whitewash 
 necessary in obliterating the mural paintings of Scrip- 
 ture scenes the Bible of the poor that decorated the 
 Churches, Chapels, and Cathedrals which they spared 
 for their own use. 
 
 So the "reformers" like a cloud of locusts in a fail- 
 field of wheat descended upon the land, and those 
 beautiful Churches, so fair to see, which the ignorant 
 
io Unity 
 
 and debased catholics had reared to the honor of God, 
 were by these exceedingly intelligent and pious gentle- 
 men, the "reformers," demolished and thrown down. 
 
 It was not the chief part of their offense that lay 
 in roofless Churches and blackened walls ; in monks 
 hanging in chains over slow fires ; in scores of heads 
 on poles and pikes, that decorated the sides of bridges 
 and adorned archways ; it was not the trail of blood, 
 nor rack nor dungeon; it was not gaunt hunger and 
 tears, desolation and want ; these were only the com- 
 mon incidents of the inquisition under Thomas Crom- 
 well the desolating marks of which, in a few genera- 
 tions, might be obliterated and its cruelties forgotten. 
 But it was in the violation of God's law in the de- 
 struction of Unity, that the sum and substance of 
 their offending lay. 
 
 It is not difficult to understand the very sad results 
 which necessarily follow from the loss to the Christian 
 world of Unity. That respect which the masses would 
 feel for the voice of a united Church, can never be 
 inspired by the uncertain, hesitating voices of a multi- 
 tude of sects. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Huntington at an Episcopal Conven- 
 tion in San Francisco, said : 8 "How can we correlate 
 and unify the religious forces of the Republic? In this 
 convention we have a memorial seeking denominational 
 Unity in the matter of marriage and divorce. Yet be- 
 cause of our unhappy dissensions we know that noth- 
 ing can be done." Here the Doctor bewails the fact 
 
 8 Public press. 
 
Unity ii 
 
 that because of the loss of Unity protestants cannot 
 teach moral doctrine. ' Tis true 'tis pity, 'tis pity 'tis, 
 'tis true." Again the Doctor says: "In our public 
 schools, where our youth are taught everything but their 
 duty to God and their neighbor, that simple religious 
 teaching canot be instilled into the minds of our chil- 
 dren, because of the unhappy divisions of the Christian 
 Church." 
 
 The Doctor, in no uncertain terms, here admits that 
 the divisions among protestants prevent their teaching 
 faith and morals. Now as the Church was founded 
 for the express purpose of teaching faith and morals, 
 why may we not accept this confession of incompe- 
 tency, from so distinguished a light, as being conclu- 
 sive of the entire subject? The loss of Christian 
 Unity, prevents the teaching to children in public schools 
 of any faith. The children who spend five days in 
 every week in acquiring secular knowledge, and about 
 thirty minutes on Sunday in the pursuit of religious 
 knowledge, will not be long in striking a balance as to 
 the relative importance which the parents give the two, 
 and will naturally grow up with but slight apprecia- 
 tion and knowledge of the Christian religion, while 
 worldly pursuits will be the all absorbing occupation 
 of the mind. 
 
 The loss of Unity, has caused vast numbers of prot- 
 estants to be enrolled in the great army of the in- 
 different, because their inquiries after truth met no 
 sure and certain answer. When one inquires the way 
 of salvation, is it not better that one voice should an- 
 swer, rather than a babel of tongues? Protestant mis- 
 
12 Unity 
 
 sionaries are sometimes given advice by the hard- 
 headed heathen after this manner: "Brothers, why not 
 first go home and agree among yourselves what it is 
 that you wish to teach us, and then come and we will 
 hear you." 
 
 The Japanese Consul in Chicago, gave as a reason 
 for the slow progress made by Christianity in his 
 country : 9 "One reason is, that among themselves there 
 are so many differences. The Presbyterians tell the 
 people that they are the true kind, and that Congre- 
 gationalists, Methodists, and Baptists, are none of them 
 the true kind. The Catholics, too, claim to be the only 
 genuine Christians, while they are not allowed to be 
 Christians at all by the others." This is how the 
 pagans are impressed by the divisions among Chris- 
 tians. How different all this before the "Great Refor- 
 mation," when one united Church, teaching by author- 
 ity of the divine Master, taught one faith to all peo- 
 ples, moving upon the fortifications of heathen super- 
 stition, as one grand army perfect in organization un- 
 der one commander, in perfect unity in every purpose 
 and design. 
 
 10 The Rev. S. H. Woodrow, in a sermon in Hope 
 Congregational Church, said : "The Church of Christ 
 is in the world to do a specific work, to redeem society, 
 schools, business, politics; all life is to feel her purify- 
 ing touch. How can she best do this? She cannot do 
 it by carrying on a strife within herself ; she cannot do 
 it by presenting a divided front to the enemy. Where 
 
 9 Public press. 
 
 10 Springfield, Mass., Republican. 
 
Unity 13 
 
 there are common enemies there must be a common 
 purpose of union and aggression if we are to win." A 
 glimmer of light, but insufficient to show our brethren 
 their mistake in continuing the chant of "The Great 
 Reformation's" praise, by which in the loss of Unity 
 and with it necessarily authority in teaching they have 
 been placed in this condition of "strife within them- 
 selves." 
 
 The great success everywhere attending our divine 
 Lord's teaching, resulting in the conversion of great 
 numbers of those who heard him, was the result of 
 an authoritative and definite, not a speculative, teach- 
 ing; it was a teaching that, in its direct plain cer- 
 tainty, carried conviction with it and banished doubt. 
 If our Lord taught with authority and not as the 
 scribes it must have been because authority was nec- 
 essary. If authority was a necessity thus early, it must 
 be indispensably so for all time. Before the days of 
 division all was clear and plain, authoritative teaching 
 was received with respectful submission. If one in- 
 quired concerning the faith he received one and the 
 same answer everywhere; but now if one inquire of 
 those who have lost Unity, a shout of varying and 
 discordant answers will fill the air. 
 
 "If the world lasts for a long time," says Luther 
 writing to Zwinglius, "it will be again necessary, on 
 account of the different interpretations which are now 
 given to the Scriptures, to receive the decrees of 
 Councils and take refuge in them in order to preserve 
 the unity of the faith." The expectation that the 
 friends of division may return and take refuge in the 
 
14 Unity 
 
 decrees of Catholic Councils is, in view of present ten- 
 dencies, but the wildest of dreams. 
 
 If Luther could have foreseen how sects were to 
 increase and how "different interpretations" then 
 scarcely begun were to be forever changing until all 
 certainty in interpretation of, and faith in, the Scrip- 
 tures would be well-nigh lost; even this bold innova- 
 tor would have been dismayed at the work which, in 
 contempt for lawful authority, he had inaugurated but 
 the end of which he could not see. 
 
 A distinguished English Divine thanking him for his 
 appropriate name for the sects has the following to 
 say in explanation of the protestant faith : lx "Let us 
 inquire concerning, not the truth of rival churches, but 
 the form in which the Christian faith can best be pre- 
 sented to our age. Religious men are face to face with 
 serious issues, and are burdened with grave responsi- 
 bilities. The difficulties of belief are great but the 
 consciousness of them is greater; they spring not so 
 much from the new knowledge as the changed esti- 
 mate and conditions of life. Men are so possessed and 
 oppressed by the labor needed to win the means of 
 living, that they have not sufficient energy of mind to 
 weigh or to master the deeper mysteries of life, and 
 so are prepared to allow either authority to confirm 
 their faith or criticism to dissolve it. 
 
 "In such an age Catholicism may have its place, and 
 make its converts ; and it is to no purpose of ours 
 to take it from them or them from it. But if it claims 
 
 11 "Catholicism: Roman and Anglican," A. M. Fairbairn, M. A.. 
 D.D., LL.D., p. 203. 
 
Unity 15 
 
 to be the one real, sufficient and relevant form of the 
 Christian religion, then the truth must be spoken. Not 
 in and through it is religion to be realized in an age 
 of thought, in a world of freedom, progress, order, and 
 activity. 
 
 "Its doctrine of authority and the Church is a direct 
 provocation to skepticism ; its idea of religion is an im- 
 poverishment of the ideal that came in the kingdom of 
 heaven. Faith can come by its rights only as it ful- 
 fills its duties to reason. And the Church that alone 
 has a right to live, is the Church that by finding in 
 God the most humanity, most fills humanity with God; 
 and so works for the establishment of that kingdom 
 which was founded by the Son, and is governed by 
 the Father of man." 
 
 These rythmic flowing sentences contain the usual 
 reference complimentary to "the age of thought, world 
 of freedom, progress, etc." Just why the Catholic 
 Church is deemed incompetent to declare the way of 
 salvation to the wonderful people who live in this world 
 of progress, is not stated. Our friends of the "rival 
 churches," often make radical statements for which they 
 forget to assign reasons or give proofs. The thought 
 seems to be if we may brush away the frosting, and 
 pluck some of the flowers of rhetoric that the Catholic 
 Church has some place, if not right, in the world as 
 a teacher of those poor workers who, after their daily 
 toil is finished, "have not sufficient energy of mind to 
 weigh or to master the deeper mysteries of life," and 
 so are fit subjects for the authority of the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
1 6 Unity 
 
 The learned Doctor has here sounded a distinctive 
 note of protestantism. The Catholic Church if you 
 will, for the poor, the unlearned, and those of low de- 
 gree; but protestantism for the rich, and those pos- 
 sessed of the requisite amount of learning to master 
 the deeper mysteries, and through endless criticism be 
 able to dissolve the faith. Our divine Lord, himself, 
 despised and rejected by the proud Pharisees of learn- 
 ing, was ever the friend of the poor and lowly, but he 
 will love and bless the rich and the learned as well 
 who, not exalting themselves for what God has given 
 them like little children, are willing to submit to 
 proper authority, and to be meek and lowly of heart 
 as the Lord of Glory was. 
 
 "The difficulties of belief," are not great in that 
 Church which abides in Unity, but that they are great 
 in the churches of division ; their long continued quest 
 for truth which when seemingly found proves but a 
 specter, sufficiently attests. "The changed conditions" 
 present no additional difficulties to us, but it is under- 
 standable that such may be the case among the same 
 class in the "rival churches" who, if they wish to make 
 choice of a faith intelligently, must necessarily after 
 their day's toil, study the tenets of a large number of 
 faiths, and would likely find the difficulties of belief 
 as great as Doctor Fairbairn and other protestants 
 generally do. 
 
 The Catholic Church supplies all the requirements 
 of the protestant Doctor, for that "Church which alone 
 has a right to live"; in the belief that Jesus Christ is 
 true God and true man ; and therefore, "finding in God 
 
Unity 17 
 
 the most humanity, most fills humanity with God." 
 Divine truth is one truth, not many truths, it must 
 be taught in Unity, not in diversity; in its nature it 
 is as intolerant and exclusive of all rival claims, as 
 that self-evident truth in mathematics that two and 
 two make four. 
 
 That this one and undivided Church, ever the unre- 
 lenting foe of change and division, came down to us 
 from apostolic times, all non-partisan history shows ; 
 and the utter failure of our adversaries to establish a 
 date for its origin other than that, dispenses us from 
 further proof. 
 
 That protestantism, with its loss of Unity and au- 
 thority and its fallible interpretation of an infallible 
 book, is a "direct provocation to skepticism," the num- 
 ber that in the "rival churches" yearly join the army 
 of the indifferent or go to swell the ranks of Mrs. 
 Eddy's followers, abundantly shows. 
 
 12 "We ask," says Doctor Balmes, "those who see in 
 catholicity only one of the innumerable sects by which 
 the earth has been covered, to point out elsewhere a 
 similar fact; to explain how the Church has been able 
 to show us a phenomenon, constantly existing, so op- 
 posed to the ever-varying spirit of the human mind; 
 let them tell us by what secret talisman the Sovereign 
 Pontiffs have been able to do what other men have 
 found impossible. Those men who have laid aside their 
 own opinions to adopt those of a man called the Pope, 
 were not simple and ignorant men. They are the same 
 
 12 "European Civilization," J. Balmes. 
 
i8 Unity 
 
 men who have filled the highest places in Europe, whose 
 names have been handed down to future generations. 
 
 "Examine the history of all ages, and if you find 
 anywhere such an extraordinary combination of knowl- 
 edge in union with faith, of genius in submission to 
 authority, and of discussion without breach of unity, 
 you will have made an important discovery, a new 
 phenomenon. Impartial reason must draw from it the 
 conclusion that there is in the Catholic Church some- 
 thing which is not to be found elsewhere. 
 
 "These facts, say our adversaries, are certain. This 
 phenomenon, realized in the Catholic Church, only proves 
 the existence of a fixed system. The Church knew that 
 union is the source of strength; that union cannot exist 
 without unity of doctrine; and that unity of doctrine 
 cannot be preserved without submission to authority. 
 The principle of submission, such is the explanation of 
 the phenomenon. The scheme is grand, the system 
 extraordinary, but they do not prove the divine origin 
 of Catholicism. 
 
 "This is the best reply which they can make; it is 
 easy to show that the difficulty remains. Indeed, if 
 there has been for eighteen centuries a society which 
 has known how to bind to this principle eminent men 
 of all ages and countries, the following questions must 
 be asked : Why has the Catholic Church alone pos- 
 sessed this principle, and monopolized this idea? If 
 the sects have been in possession of it, why have they 
 not acted upon it? It is not enough to say that there 
 was a plan a system ; the difficulty lies in the exist- 
 
Unity 19 
 
 ence of this plan and this system ; it consists in ex- 
 plaining how they were conceived and executed. 
 
 "If we had to do with a small number of men, in 
 limited circumstances, times, and countries, for the 
 execution of a limited project, there would be nothing 
 extraordinary; but we have to do with a period of 
 eighteen hundred years, with all the countries of the 
 world, with circumstances the most varied and the 
 most opposed to each other ; we have to do with a 
 multitude of men who did not meet together, or act 
 in concert. How is all this to be explained if it were 
 a plan and a system devised by man? 
 
 "What was the mysterious power of Rome which en- 
 abled her to unite around her so many illustrious men 
 of all times and of all countries? How did the Roman 
 Pontiff, if he be only the chief of a sect, manage to 
 fascinate the world to this extent? What magician 
 ever did such wonders? Men have long declaimed 
 against his religious despotism ; why has no one been 
 found to wrest the scepter from his grasp? Why has 
 not a pontifical throne been raised capable of disputing 
 the pre-eminence with his, and of maintaining itself 
 with equal splendor and power? Shall we attribute it 
 to the knowledge or the virtues of the men who have 
 occupied the Papal throne? There has been in eight- 
 een hundred years and more an infinite variety in 
 the talents and virtues of the Popes. 
 
 "For those who do not see in the Pontiff the vicar 
 of Christ the rock on which he has built his Church 
 the duration of this authority must be the most ex- 
 traordinary phenomenon; how there existed for cen- 
 
2O Unity 
 
 turies a series of learned men faithful to the Roman 
 See." 
 
 The protestant divine George F. Candlin, in a paper 
 on Religious Unity, read at the Parliament of Relig- 
 ions, says: "Surely one of the lessons God is loudly 
 teaching us, is that to have larger measures of success 
 we must have increased Christian unity. In the family, 
 in business, in the management of the state, we do 
 not hesitate to recognize the principle that domestic 
 harmony and outward prosperity are linked inseparably 
 to each other. Can we imagine then that in religion 
 alone, which ought to be its grandest expression, the 
 law is relaxed? Is a religion universal in its empire, 
 but disordered and disparate in its fellowship so much 
 as conceivable?" 
 
 In God's economy this condition is not conceivable, 
 it was only in an attempt by protestants to improve 
 upon God's economy, that this state of things became 
 an accomplished fact. It was undeniably the purpose 
 of our divine Lord, that his children should dwell to- 
 gether in Unity. Recall how feelingly our Lord sup- 
 plicated the Father for the Unity of his Church, there 
 on the banks of the Cedron with the loom of the Cross 
 before him. 
 
 13 "And not for them only (the Apostles), do I pray, 
 but for them also who through their word shall believe 
 in me: that they all may be one, as thou, Father in 
 me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us ; 
 that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 
 
 33 Gospel John xvii, 20-23. 
 
Unity 21 
 
 And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given 
 them; that they may be one, as we also are one." 
 
 Here the conversion of the world is made dependent 
 upon the Unity of the Church. That our Bible reading 
 friends can see their position condemned, as it is in 
 this Gospel, and fail to realize the responsibility that 
 rests upon them for this state of things, is a wonder. 
 There are, of course, sporadic signs that might presage 
 the coming of the dawn. The little bird from the Par- 
 liament of Religions only partially awake on his blos- 
 som twig, surprises his mates and astonishes himself, 
 by sounding a catholic note in praise of Unity. And 
 in the excerpt that follows is seen a well defined streak 
 of light in the east. Hear the Anglican Bishop of St. 
 Andrews : 
 
 "Try to imagine some of the thoughts of our divine 
 Lord, who has proved his love for us by the agony and 
 the bloody sweat of the cross and passion of Calvary. 
 How does it all seem to him? Surely he must recog- 
 nize the waste of power which our separation involves. 
 Surely he must see that if the separate gifts which he 
 has bestowed upon each separate member of his body 
 are not used for the good of the whole body, then the 
 whole body must suffer through the loss of that which 
 every member should supply. Surely our Lord must 
 see that one of the guiding principles of that master 
 spirit of evil, is, To divide and conquer." 
 
 It is morally certain that, in the divisions of Chris- 
 tians, justification is sought by the many for whatever 
 dereliction of duty they may be rightly charged with. 
 
22 Unity 
 
 St. Cyprian in his twenty-third sermon says: "There 
 is one God and one Christ, and his Church is one, and 
 one the people joined together in the solid unity of the 
 body in the bond of concord. This unity cannot be 
 broken nor the one body be divided by the separation 
 of its constituent parts." 
 
 What a beautiful illustration of Unity is found in the 
 Gospel. 14 "And there shall be one fold and one shep- 
 herd." Should one sheep leave the pasture, the others 
 if possible will follow, owing to their dread of a separa- 
 tion from each other. Our Lord intended that the 
 sheep of his fold should remain in Unity under one 
 shepherd, all fed with the same sacraments and nour- 
 ished with the bread of life which is his body and his 
 blood. 
 
 The Church in the Gospel is likened to a kingdom. 
 15 "And of his kingdom there shall be no end." 16 Jesus 
 said to the obstinate Jews: "The kingdom of God shall 
 be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yield- 
 ing the fruits thereof." 17 "For as in one body we have 
 many members, but all the members have not the same 
 office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and 
 every one members one of another." 18 "For as the body 
 is one and hath many members : and all the members 
 of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body: 
 so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized 
 into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond 
 
 14 John x, 16. 
 
 is Luke I, 33. 
 
 IG Matth. xxi, 43. 
 
 17 Rom. xii, 4-5. 
 
 is 1 Cor. xii, 12, 13, 20. 
 
Unity 23 
 
 or free . . . now there are many members indeed, 
 yet one body." St. Paul writing to the Corinthians 
 says : 19 "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same 
 thing, and that there be no schisms among you." 
 
 These few texts, from the Scriptures, need no ex- 
 planation. They show plainly, to those who wish to 
 see, that the division of the Church into numberless 
 sects was no part of God's plan. The protestant prin- 
 ciple of division finds no recognition in the Scriptures, 
 but, as in the above excerpts, finds its sure condemna- 
 tion. The writings of the early Christian Fathers are 
 but the echo of this Scriptural condemnation; the 
 wrong, the great loss in Christian influence, and the 
 scandal of indifferentism that results from this exhibi- 
 tion of human pride in sect building, are apparent to all. 
 
 Protestants feel the loss of Unity and know that they 
 are in the wrong, their Bibles plainly tell them so, but 
 as they never can finish their hosannas over "The Great 
 Reformation" that was the destroyer of Unity, they 
 continue to look up and press forward, always search- 
 ing for the lost treasure where it is not to be found. 
 
 If those desiring to go east, by some mischance go 
 west instead, upon finding their mistake it would save 
 weary days of travel to turn back, rather than press on. 
 In their search for Unity our friends are ever moving 
 further away from the source of Unity. The pride of 
 their hearts forbids them to acknowledge that "The 
 Great Reformation" was a great mistake, an egregious 
 
 19 1 Cor. i, 10. 
 
24 Unity 
 
 wrong; so they preach federation, or they try to 
 20 shave the corners off conflicting creeds and paste 
 the residue together, in the vain hope that Unity may 
 be obtained. 
 
 Turn back then, brethren, to where in the sixteenth 
 century in the pride of their hearts, your and my 
 fathers, made the sad mistake of destroying Christian 
 Unity. Turn back to where they rent asunder the 
 seamless robe of Christ, that emblem of Unity which 
 even the rude soldiers on Calvary's height did not di- 
 vide. Turn back to the truth you have vainly sought 
 while going from it. There can be no difference be- 
 tween truth in the sixteenth and truth in the twentieth 
 century, for truth "takes no note of time/' Truth is 
 an emanation from God, and partakes of his immuta- 
 bility and is, therefore, the same yesterday, to-day and 
 forever, it knows no change nor reformation. 
 
 A super civilization cries "back to the land," back to 
 nature, the glebe, the furrow; better still is a return 
 to first principles, early teachings, the original faith. 
 Fear not then to turn back when on the wrong road, 
 for the rugged stony path of penance will lead to truth 
 and Unity; to victory through humility; to well-earned 
 peace. The "rival churches" in their restlessness are 
 searching for something new, that which satisfies to-day, 
 to-morrow will be old. They seek a religion "suited 
 to the times"; their creed, now old-fashioned, must be 
 "restated along the lines of modern thought." Instead 
 of bringing the times into accord with the Gospel, the 
 
 20 Rev. Thomas Cox. 
 
Unity 25 
 
 Gospel must be explained in a way to reflect the worldly 
 spirit of the times. 
 
 If our friends were ever in possession of the true 
 faith, for what are they now looking, and why does 
 Doctor Fairbairn say that "religious men are face to 
 face with serious issues and are burdened with grave 
 responsibilities, and the difficulties of belief great, etc.?" 
 What are these serious issues, these burdens, these 
 grave responsibilities? Is it that the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, now nearly two thousand years old, are not 
 sufficiently understood by the protestant Doctor and 
 his coreligionists, as to make belief in them reasonably 
 easy? Or are they so oppressed with the weight of 
 responsibility in determining which one of the four 
 hundred "rival churches" can at this late day best begin 
 the evangelization of the world? 
 
 Protestants, both in and out of the pulpit, give evi- 
 dence of this spirit of disquietude, they are ill at ease, 
 continually shifting and changing. 21 "I see," says 
 Theodore Beza, "our people wander at the mercy of 
 every wind of doctrine, and after having been raised 
 up, fall sometimes on one side and sometimes on the 
 other. What they will think of religion to-day you 
 may know; what they will think of it to-morrow you 
 cannot affirm. On what point of religion are the 
 Churches which have declared war against the Pope 
 agreed? Examine all from beginning to end, you will 
 hardly find one thing affirmed by the one which the 
 other does not directly cry out against as impiety." 
 
 21 Th. Beza "Epist. ad Andream Dudit." 
 4 
 
26 Unity 
 
 In this plaint of the Theologian of Geneva, we have 
 a tribute to the efficacy of "The Great Reformation" in 
 the hopeless muddling of men's minds at the very be- 
 ginning of the departure from Unity. It is likely that 
 if this "reformer" could have taken but one glance 
 down the gloomy vista of the centuries of division to 
 the time of Doctor Fairbairn, he would have confessed 
 that his own woes were but a feather's weight in com- 
 parison. 
 
 The slight fissure made in the banks of the swollen 
 and impetuous torrent ever increases in size with the 
 strong current's wash, resulting finally in widespread 
 devastation. 
 
 In a degree far too slight considering its importance, 
 attention has been called in another place to the diffi- 
 culties of belief occasioned by the teaching of many and 
 contradictory opinions in place of one true faith. Let 
 us direct our attention to the obstacles presented to 
 the mind of the inquirer after truth, more especially 
 the poor and those of limited education. The poor are 
 mostly occupied with the labor necessary for their live- 
 lihood. To whom are they to apply to learn the way 
 of salvation? Can they decide which among the 
 "rival churches" is best qualified to teach the truth, 
 without examining at great length the claims of all 
 these would-be teachers? This alone, when we con- 
 sider how little time, outside of work and necessary rest, 
 the toilers have at their disposal, would prove a barrier 
 in most cases. 
 
 But supposing all had the time, have they the learn- 
 ing necessary to decide the knotty points and problems 
 
Unity 27 
 
 of faith, which the learned in the "rival churches" have 
 never been able to agree upon, and which have caused 
 the eminent Doctor Fairbairn to declare that, "the diffi- 
 culties of belief are great"? How are these people, 
 without time to study and think, or very much learning 
 to assist them, to ever find the truth? Would it not 
 be a thought worthy of God, to provide for these poor 
 souls, a church that could teach them with divine 
 authority the one true faith? Would it not be better 
 in such case and in case of the learned as well that 
 "authority should confirm, rather than criticism dis- 
 solve"? 
 
 What advantage can be found in a teaching that is 
 not conclusive it is hard to imagine. If our friends 
 desired instruction in any of the arts or sciences, they 
 would employ only such teachers as could give the 
 desired instruction with certainty, and would be in- 
 tolerant and impatient with all incompetents. But have 
 any among the protestant churches claimed the ability 
 to teach the Christian faith in its entirety with cer- 
 tainty? Certainly not. Our friends have never sev- 
 erally or collectively, professed their ability to answer 
 decisively the all important question: What is truth? 
 And yet every child of Adam has a native inborn right 
 to know the answer. Brought into this world by a 
 most wise Creator, we have a right to know the secret 
 of our destination, and the road leading to it. Our 
 divine Lord recognized this right when he founded one 
 true Church to be our sure and certain guide. 
 
 If a number of people, disagreeing among them- 
 selves, essay to direct the traveler on his way, confu- 
 
28 Unity 
 
 * 
 
 sion will likely result and the traveler fail to reach his 
 destination. There must be a sure guide to truth; that 
 protestants are strangers to this guide their many and 
 varied conjectures, without agreement, plainly show, 
 and they give the impression that truth as a feudal 
 baron in his beleagured castle is being kept from those 
 desiring an intimate acquaintance with it. Doubt, re- 
 garding the truth, is the most cheerless as well as 
 unnecessary of companions. It was never intended by 
 God, that his creatures should be in doubt concerning 
 the way of salvation. 
 
 Suppose, if you will, that some searchers after truth 
 have thought to cast in their lot with some one of the 
 "rival churches." They will be told by no less an au- 
 thority than the Rev. President of Amherst College, 
 that "in former times the Church was looked upon as 
 the indispensable means of salvation," but with increased 
 scientific knowledge "there has been an imperceptible 
 but sure change of sentiment." 
 
 We may imagine the intending members as saying: 
 "Was the Church right in 'former times' when they 
 taught that a church and sacraments were necessary, 
 or are they right now when they teach that they are 
 not? If all the churches are right, and yet all teach 
 differently; if all churches admit their inability to 
 teach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth, and further, that to belong to any one of them 
 is not necessary to salvation; then let us take our 
 chances with the large and respectable number on the 
 outside, trusting 'that all will come out right in the 
 end.' " Considering the circumstances, is not this a 
 
Unity 29 
 
 perfectly sane conclusion for them to come to? Is it 
 not the conclusion that the multitude are coming to 
 in the present century, and is it not directly traceable 
 to the loss of unity and authority in religious teach- 
 ing? But one answer can be returned; the analogy 
 between cause and effect was never so easy to trace, 
 so thoroughly and overwhelmingly conclusive as here. 
 
 Let those who went out from us, thereby breaking 
 the precious bond of Unity, return again to their home, 
 and Christian Unity will result. It is but fair that 
 those who broke the bond, should repair the injury. 
 We had fifteen centuries of Christian Unity, before the 
 "Great Mistake of the Great Reformation" came to 
 destroy it, bringing strife and discord, where before 
 had been peace and harmony. 
 
 Were such a thing possible, and we should essay to 
 go to the "rival churches," there would be no result 
 other than an increase of the malady; confusion worse 
 confounded. Let our kind but mistaken adversaries, 
 with that humility so pleasing in all God's children, 
 give up the thought of Unity accomplished in any 
 other way than by a return to the home of Unity where, 
 in the cessation of strife and discord, of which they 
 and the world as well are weary, in the possession of 
 a sure and certain faith that will not change on the 
 morrow, they will find lasting peace, as weather-beaten 
 storm-tossed ships from off the main swing at their 
 anchor chains, at rest in a quiet and safe harbor. 
 
 The twin sisters, division and doubt, are fruits of 
 the so-called "Great Reformation," and doubt is the 
 badge which all protestants wear from the cradle to 
 
30 Unity 
 
 the grave; and they will never realize how much di- 
 vision and doubt have made them suffer, until coming 
 out from this darkness into the clear noonday light 
 of a faith that can banish doubt, a faith taught with 
 authority by a church in Unity, behold their doubts 
 and perplexities dissolve and vanish, as morning mists 
 from mountain top and quiet valley, at the coming of 
 a new and brighter day. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 In the foregoing pages it has been shown that unity 
 is an indispensable prerogative of the Church, not only 
 from the Scriptures and the writings of the first pro- 
 fessors of the faith ; but also from its agreement with 
 reason. The Infallibility of the Church, is of like im- 
 portance; without which it would be impossible to 
 preserve the true faith, owing to the vacillating ten- 
 dencies of the human mind, as exemplified in the 
 changes continually going on among the sects who dis- 
 card this doctrine. 
 
 Infallibility is the guidance of the Holy Ghost prom- 
 ised in the Gospel to keep the Church in "all truth," 
 and is claimed as a dogma, by the Catholic Church 
 alone. Should a sect be so forgetful of its rightful 
 position among sects as to advance a claim to all truth, 
 it would mean the breaking of that existing bond, which 
 requires that the sum total of truth possessed by all 
 should be so divided that each may have a share, but 
 none a monopoly; otherwise, Infallibility to them the 
 saddest of accidents would result to the one, and with 
 that result necessarily accomplish the destruction of 
 the others. 
 
 As a means of self-preservation then, protestants are 
 obliged to oppose Infallibility, and endeavor to maintain 
 that a number of instructors each differing in many 
 
22 Infallibility 
 
 respects as to the doctrine taught, so that no one of 
 them being entirely right, yet no one of them entirely 
 wrong, are superior to one voice teaching always and 
 in all places, one doctrine and one faith. 
 
 Our opponents aver that it is the acme of priestly 
 arrogance, for a Church composed of fallen humanity, 
 to lay claim to one of the attributes of Deity. * "As 
 well," say they, "might a man claim to be immortal in 
 his body as infallible in his mind." It should be re- 
 membered however that while Infallibility primarily re- 
 sides with and is an attribute of the Deity, yet he has 
 been pleased to reveal to us through nature and the 
 physical sciences many infallible truths for the benefit 
 of man. 
 
 By the laws governing the movements of the earth 
 and the heavenly bodies, the exact time when the sun 
 for a brief period will fail to give his customary light; 
 or, when by the season's changes stern winter will de- 
 part, and under softer skies birds will sing and wild 
 flowers deck the hills and vales in beauty; are infallibly 
 known to us. In such a month the rose will bloom, the 
 cherry and 'the plum will set their fruit, the standing 
 grain be ready for the reaper. Man, and the lower 
 animals as well, have a natural infallibility as evinced 
 in numerous instances. Even the birds know with in- 
 fallible certainty the day of their assembling for their 
 semi-annual flight to other climes. 
 
 The decisions of the Supreme Court are practically 
 infallible. In the very nature of all governments or 
 
 i Jevous "Lessons in Logic," Vol. 1, p. 8. 
 
Infallibility 33 
 
 social institutions, such is the absolute necessity for in- 
 fallibility of some sort to reside in some one of these 
 tribunals that, when actual infallibility cannot be con- 
 ferred, judicial infallibility is given as a substitute. 
 Hence, the framers of the Constitution of the United 
 States, knowing that it was practically useless to have 
 courts of justice, unless their decisions would be made 
 final, at least in one or other of them, bestowed on the 
 Supreme Court what is called in legal terms judicial 
 infallibility, from which there could be no appeal. As 
 some sort of infallibility was indispensable, and they 
 had no power to bestow any other, by determining that 
 the decisions of such a Supreme Tribunal were to be 
 held as practically infallible, and therefore final, they 
 did the very best they could for the peace and welfare 
 of our Republic. On this account its decisions, what- 
 ever they be, cannot be questioned or reversed by any 
 State authority and must be considered as final, even 
 though, in some cases, they might be erroneous or 
 incorrect. It is a much less evil to submit to an 
 occasionally incorrect decision than to have interminable 
 disputes so detrimental to public tranquillity and peace. 
 It is not in the power of any man to confer actual 
 or real infallibility or absolute exemption from error. 
 This, which God alone can do, for He naturally pos- 
 sesses it, was bestowed by Christ, the Son of God, on 
 his Church and on his Vicar upon earth, St. Peter and 
 his successors, for the safe guidance of men in the 
 knowledge of truth and the attainment of their last 
 end. As Almighty Gocl established upon earth such a 
 tribunal, as a necessary, and indispensable means of 
 
34 Infallibility 
 
 religious unity, could he give it mere judicial infalli- 
 bility? Could he make it as defective as a mere human 
 institution, while he possessed the power to make it 
 perfect and unerring? What human reason demands, 
 we know, as an article of divine faith, has been actually 
 done by our most wise and provident Creator to secure 
 religious unity and peace. One of the absurd conse- 
 quences, that would inevitably follow, if only judicial 
 infallibility had been granted to the Church and its 
 head, is that we should then be bound, under pain of 
 mortal sin, to believe as true revelation what might be 
 an erroneous one. 
 
 See Burnett, "The Path Which Led a Protestant 
 Lawyer to the Catholic Church," pp. 117-118. 
 
 The results following the correct use of arithmetical 
 numbers are also infallible. The sudden fall of the 
 barometer infallibly presages the coming storm. By 
 an infallible compass, the mariner shapes his course 
 across the vast expanse of sea beset by varying winds 
 and treacherous currents, in storms and darkness, and 
 in impenetrable ocean fogs; at last finds entrance and 
 safe anchorage in the harbor of his destination. 
 
 Seeing then, so many instances of Infallibility in 
 everything around us, there can be no violence done 
 to reason in the supposition that God in His infinite 
 wisdom, who gave so valuable a privilege in natural 
 science, would not withhold it from us in that more 
 important science pertaining to supernatural things and 
 thus leave His children without compass or guide. But 
 Infallibility was in no way dependent upon the infalli- 
 ble in nature, for above and beyond all these was given 
 
Infallibility 35 
 
 the Infallible Church, preserved from error through 
 the perpetual indwelling of the Holy Ghost, that when 
 the Infallible Bible should be completed, would be the 
 one and only competent guide and rightful explainer 
 of its truths. 
 
 Concerning the ill effects resulting from the rejec- 
 tion of Infallibility in teaching a supernatural religion 
 Cardinal Manning says: "We behold on every side a 
 restless, turbulent swaying to and fro of minds, like 
 the waves of the sea. From every part we hear one 
 cry: What is truth? Where is it to be found? By 
 what test can it be known? Is there nowhere any 
 certainty about doctrines, about revelation, about Scrip- 
 ture, about Christianity, about the distinctions of right 
 and wrong, about the freedom of the will, about the 
 nature of the soul, about the existence of God? 
 
 "The whole idea of certainty is obscured, the princi- 
 ple of certainty is rejected, the possibility of certainty is 
 denied." So our adversaries are at last sure of only 
 one thing, which is, that concerning an article of the 
 faith, it is very, very wrong to know that you are 
 right. 
 
 Mr. E. Hamlin Abbot, writing upon this condition of 
 things in New England, says : "The reaction against 
 religious life and observance is accompanied by a loose- 
 ness of thinking and a flabbiness of mind ... oc- 
 casioned by the loss of distinctness in ideas that is 
 suffered whenever men replace narrow conceptions with 
 broader ones." 
 
 2 Outlook, Nov. 8, 1902. 
 
36 Infallibility 
 
 What a charming fascination, for protestants, in the 
 words broad, and reform, and yet it is difficult to say 
 which of these good words has been oftenest seen in 
 bad company. Mr. Abbot continues: "If there is 
 likely to be under present theological conditions a 
 revival of genuine religious belief in New England, 
 there must be an intelligent and deliberate effort im- 
 pelled by enthusiasm, to adjust the work of the 
 Churches to the changed social environment and intel- 
 lectual temper." This will be easily accomplished. Ad- 
 just the churches to the people, and the difficulty will 
 be removed at once, and true religion again be in the 
 ascendant ! 
 
 The attitude of protestants towards Infallibility in 
 religion and their efforts to derive comfort from the 
 thought that truth is one of the unattainables in this 
 world, and that however diligent we may be in its 
 pursuit it can never be overtaken is superlatively 
 pathetic. 
 
 And why should we not have an Infallible Church, 
 is it not better than a fallible one? Is perfect cer- 
 tainty in religion in anywise objectionable? If we enter 
 a strange city and procure a guide, do we not want one 
 that knows the way? In any court of law, the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is required. 
 In those things which concern our eternal welfare can 
 we be less particular than when in court? No; we 
 must have the truth in its entirety, it being impossible 
 to make an act of faith upon a subject-matter in regard 
 to the truth of which we are in doubt, and without 
 faith it is impossible to please God. 
 
Infallibility 37 
 
 The doctrines taught by our Lord and His apostles 
 must from their divine origin have been infallibly true. 
 The Christian Church, the only teaching body in exist- 
 ence, naturally attracted universal attention among those 
 who for the first time heard the words of infallible 
 truth from lips divine, and saw the ordinary laws of 
 nature suspended in the stilling of the tempest's fury, 
 and the raising of the dead to life. 
 
 The Infallibility of the Church is proven not only 
 by her divine origin, but by her perpetuity, by which 
 she has been through the ages of Christianity, the most 
 patent of all historical facts, and the records of whose 
 achievements were they to be eliminated from the 
 world's annals, would leave history a compilation of 
 unintelligible fragments. 
 
 In addition to these considerations, we find in the 
 New Testament, at its completion, the exact corrobora- 
 tive evidence for which we should look; for, how could 
 a church be called 3 "the pillar and ground of the 
 truth," if by any possibility it could teach error? 
 
 4 "When you had received of us," said the Apostle, 
 "the word of the hearing of God, you received it not 
 as the word of man but as it is indeed the word of 
 God." The teaching of the Apostle then must have 
 been infallible. 
 
 The Apostles claimed Infallibility. St. Paul says: 
 
 5 "We have the mind of Christ." 6 "We have received 
 . . . the spirit which is of God: that we may know 
 
 3 1 Tim. iii, 15. 
 
 4 Thess. ii, 13. 
 
 5 1 Cor. ii, 16. 
 
 6 1 Cor. ii, 12-13. 
 
38 Infallibility 
 
 the things that are given us from God. Which things 
 also we speak, not in the learned words of human wis- 
 dom; but in the doctrine of the Spirit." And again 
 the same Apostle : 7 "For our exhortation was not of 
 error." 8 "Therefore he that despiseth these things de- 
 spiseth not man but God." If the Father sent the 
 Son into the world, it was to teach the truth. If the 
 Son sent the Apostles into the world as the Father 
 had sent him, it was to teach the same truth, and their 
 teaching was therefore infallible. 
 
 When our Lord sent his Apostles to preach his 
 Gospel, he said to them : 9 "He that heareth you, 
 heareth me." If our Lord sent out teachers without 
 preserving them from error, and they taught anything 
 but the infallible truth, this Scripture would make him 
 responsible for the dissemination of error. The teach- 
 ing of the Apostles must then have been without doubt 
 infallible. 
 
 Our divine Lord when speaking to his disciples said: 
 10 "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send 
 unto you from the Father, ... he will guide you 
 into all truth." Now a Church that is kept in all truth, 
 by an Infallible God, is an infallible Church. 
 
 Our separated brethren, having the "open Bible," will 
 read in the Gospel that, lx "if one will not hear the 
 Church let him be to thee as a heathen and publican." 
 The institution here called the Church, was not one of 
 
 7 1 Thess. ii, 3. 
 s 1 Thess. iv, 8. 
 
 9 Luke x, 16. 
 
 10 St. John xv, 26; xvi, 18. 
 
 11 Matt, xviii, 17. 
 
Infallibility 39 
 
 the four hundred "rival churches" ; for the good and 
 sufficient reason that none of them were in existence 
 at the time the words were spoken ; but had they been 
 in existence, their protest against Infallibility would 
 have established the fact that they were in no way con- 
 nected with the Church of the Apostles. 
 
 During the 12 "eight centuries and more," in which 
 the Anglican Church, in her book of homilies, contends 
 that the Church of the Apostles was "buried in damna- 
 ble idolatry," this text in Matthew was sending the 
 people to hear the Church under pain of being consid- 
 ered heathen ! If the book of homilies is true, it sug- 
 gests a surprising condition of affairs truly! But one 
 thing is certain ; if we are bound to hear and obey the 
 Church under so great a penalty, it is manifestly cer- 
 tain that the Church, which we are obliged to hear, is 
 equally bound to teach the truth, as no soul can be 
 obliged to submit to the dictates of error. As the 
 Church owning The Book of Homilies, in which this 
 charitable opinion is expressed, has little respect for 
 the doctrine of Infallibility, we may hold ourselves ex- 
 cusable for not receiving the statements of a body of 
 men who can give no reason for their opinions otffe 
 than that they are their opinions. 
 
 No other conclusion is possible, than that, in God's 
 plan of salvation, there was no place set apart for error ; 
 all were to believe the truth, and as a natural conse- 
 quence, all believe alike. St. Paul says : 13 "Now I 
 beseech you brethren to mark them who cause disscn- 
 
 12 Book of Homilies Anglican Church. 
 
 13 Romans xvi, 17-18. 
 
40 Infallibility 
 
 sions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you 
 have learned, and avoid them, for they that are such, 
 serve not Christ our Lord." Would it be out of place 
 here to inquire, if the "reformers" in Germany, and 
 England, caused dissensions? 
 
 Would our divine Saviour come to this earth and 
 subject himself to cruel sufferings, and death, to estab- 
 lish the one true Church, to be the interpreter of His 
 will, when he foreknew that, owing to the inconstant 
 mind of man, it would soon become corrupt and tend 
 rather to the destruction than the salvation of souls, 
 without protecting his children from the effects of 
 this innate frailty of the mind and will? Such a sup- 
 position would be in the greatest degree offensive to 
 the wisdom and goodness of God. 
 
 Think for one moment of the Church established by 
 our divine Lord for the truth of whose doctrines the 
 noble army of martyrs suffered, as being in "damnable 
 idolatry," until Luther, and Henry VIII., found time 
 to erect upon its crumbling ruins a new and purer one, 
 which should be able to teach the Lord's Gospel which 
 the Lord's Church was incompetent to do! Could there 
 be any supposition more improbable? 
 
 The Church primitive came into existence through 
 the Divine Will, and its teaching was by the same au- 
 thority; this authority must be considered a sufficient 
 guarantee of truth. This truth the Saviour commis- 
 sioned his Apostles to teach in these words : 14 "Go ye, 
 therefore and teach all nations; baptizing them in the 
 
 14 Matt, xxviii, 18-19-20. 
 
Infallibility 41 
 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost. Teaching them 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." 
 To this divinely commissioned body of teachers, in an- 
 other place he says : 15 "He that heareth you, heareth 
 me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me. And he 
 that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me." These 
 teachers in obedience to the divine command, taught 
 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
 and necessarily, their teaching was infallible. 
 
 "Behold I am with you all days, even to the con- 
 summation of the world," shows that he would be 
 also with the successors of this teaching body; it being 
 no part of the plan to establish an Infallible Church, 
 and later with the departure of those to whom these 
 words were addressed, leave it to fallible guidance. 
 The radical changes continually taking place in protest- 
 ant belief show how impossible it is to preserve the 
 faith as it was when first delivered by lips divine 
 without Infallibility. 
 
 16 "Where shall we look," says the Jesuit Father 
 Sasia, "for that body of teachers divinely commissioned 
 to teach, and to teach infallibly? The answer, though 
 a momentous one, thank God, is not far to seek. For 
 when it is a question of identifying the ministers of 
 God's Church, authorized to teach infallibly, we Cath- 
 olics raise a controversy in which we have no opponent. 
 We vindicate a privilege in which we find no rival 
 
 is Luke x, 16. 
 
 16 Christian Apologetics, Vol. ii, pp. 497-498. 
 
42 Infallibility 
 
 claimants. For it is a well-known fact that all the 
 dissenting sects, no matter how much they may con- 
 flict with one another, are perfectly and unanimously 
 agreed on this point of disclaiming infallibility in their 
 teachers, and they make it one of their chief charges 
 against the Catholic Church that she claims immunity 
 from error in faith and morals. 
 
 "By so doing they commit a suicidal act, for they 
 thereby renounce all claim to a divine commission to 
 preach the Gospel. For it stands to reason that teach- 
 ers who by their own confession are fallible, may lead 
 to error and teach falsehood, cannot be supposed to be 
 divinely commissioned and sent by God to teach men 
 the truth. In this question then of the infallibility of 
 the Church, the free and spontaneous concession of our 
 adversaries dispenses us from all further proof." 
 
 Being then thoroughly convinced that we have re- 
 ceived the faith from teachers divinely commissioned, 
 we shall remain steadfastly loyal to those teachers, and 
 respectfully decline to listen to those self-styled Doctors 
 of the "rival churches," who, instead of preaching this 
 faith, are but giving their private opinions concerning it. 
 
 We shall, therefore, refuse to pass by the words of 
 St. Paul that 17 "though we, or an angel from heaven, 
 preach a gospel to you besides that which we have 
 preached to you, let him be anathema," and reject all 
 invitations to learn of things divine from human science 
 and philosophy after the modern method. 
 
 The Church is perfect because it is the work of God, 
 
 ir Gal. i, 8. 
 
Infallibility 43 
 
 and not the work of man. The original deposit of 
 faith was complete. "I have finished the work which 
 Thou gavest me to do," said our Lord. And again: 
 "All things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I 
 have made known to you." 18 "There was to be no 
 tinkering," says Doctor Cox, "with truths revealed, 
 Christ left a Church and a message that needed no 
 patching to be perfect. True the Apostles before the 
 first Pentecost were weak and stupid men, they did not 
 comprehend the full force of Christ's message. But 
 the Holy Ghost was promised to supply for their frailty. 
 "Change in the Church, if such a thing were possi- 
 ble, would come about either by addition or diminution 
 in the deposit of faith, or by cessation in the constitu- 
 tion or organization of the Church. But neither of 
 these has taken place. Those who say the Church 
 changes, because they notice a new definition of doc- 
 trine, or a new development or energy put forth, forget 
 that the Church is like that householder mentioned by 
 our Lord 'who bringeth forth out of his treasure new 
 things and old.' 
 
 "To define a doctrine is to be exact in teaching it, 
 but to teach does not mean to invent. The Church in 
 every age has defined doctrines, but she has never in- 
 vented any. The doctrine of Christ's divinity was de- 
 fined A. D. 325. The dogma of the immortality of 
 the soul was not defined until A. D. 1512. The dogma 
 of the Personality of God was undefined until the 
 Vatican Council which defined Papal Infallibility in 
 
 is "Pillar and Ground of the Truth," Rev. T. E. Cox, p. 235. 
 
44 Infallibility 
 
 1870. But all these doctrines were believed from the 
 very beginning, as no new dogma unknown to the 
 Apostles can be decreed." 
 
 "It often happens," says St. Augustine, that "when 
 it becomes necessary to defend certain points of Cath- 
 olic doctrine against the insidious attacks of heretics, 
 they are more carefully studied, more clearly under- 
 stood; and so the very questions raised by heretics 
 give occasion to a more thorough knowledge of the sub- 
 ject in question." 
 
 As St. Paul commanded, 19 "Hold the form of sound 
 words, which thou hast heard of me in faith." This 
 has always been obeyed by the Catholic Church, and 
 no "restatement" has, or will be made, to "suit the 
 times or the people." The attitude of the Church to- 
 wards revealed truth, has in all ages been that of un- 
 compromising hostility to change. The "restatements" 
 of the faith have been left to the "rival churches," and 
 such restatements must be regarded as an admission of 
 a like number of previous mistakes. Supposing then 
 these churches to have made mistakes, and in conse- 
 quence taught error ; who can tell what injury irrepara- 
 ble has been done; how compensate those unfortunates 
 who have passed beyond the border line where mis- 
 takes are rectified believing a lie? 
 
 Our esteemed friends are wont to make answer that, 
 "if we have believed error here, the truth will be 
 shown us hereafter." This is a hopeful statement with- 
 out sustaining proof, and it is the least of all possible 
 
 19 II Tim. i, 13. 
 
Infallibility 45 
 
 things to say, that a soul-saving rectification of our mis- 
 takes in the great hereafter lacks confirmation. We have 
 a sufficient time allowed, and the opportunities are mani- 
 fold in which to discover a faith so easily found that 
 "the wayfarer, though he be a fool, need not err 
 therein." It is sad to think, to know, the many that 
 in the "rival churches" are accustomed to build large 
 hopes on small foundations, "trusting that all will come 
 right in the end." 
 
 We may live a good life by obedience to revealed 
 truth. We may not live a good life by obedience to 
 error; because, only those who believe rightly, can at- 
 tain that faith without which, it is impossible to please 
 God. It is obligatory on all, to believe the sum total 
 of revealed truth as taught by those having the divine 
 commission, whose voice is as the echo of the divine 
 Master's on high! 
 
 If there is any one thing that would give our ad- 
 versaries more comfort than another, it would be to 
 find that the Church had defined a doctrine in one 
 age which she had denied in another, thereby placing 
 her, as a teacher, on a level with themselves. But 
 search as they may, no such instance will be found, for 
 he who promised through the aid of the Holy Ghost 
 to keep the Church in all truth, is faithful to keep his 
 promises, and we shall never be obliged to spend our 
 time in a vain search after truth, the disappointments 
 and uncertainties of which amount almost to torture and 
 despair and leave us on the borderland of rank in- 
 fidelity. 
 
 The editorial columns of the Outlook for February 
 
46 Infallibility 
 
 14th, 1903, contain a most extraordinary article, enti- 
 tled "The New Religious Experience," which shows 
 how those who reject infallible teaching in religion, 
 drift into vague and vacillating habits of mind and be- 
 come possessed with strange hallucinations, and are ad- 
 dicted to that general "flabbiness" in their theology to 
 which one of their number has kindly called our at- 
 tention. 
 
 In this article, the surprising assertion that "faith in 
 God and in the divine life and law remains," is found 
 the only clear and definite statement, regarding faith, 
 in the entire article; and it serves as a striking illustra- 
 tion of the wonderful progress which protestantism has 
 made, during its brief existence, which enables the 
 putting forth of a dogmatic pronouncement with which 
 no one, not even a Mohammedan, could find fault. 
 
 This faith in God "is not the same faith. Is it richer 
 or poorer? stronger or weaker? clearer or more dim?" 
 As no answer has been given, we venture for the last 
 half of each query to say: it undoubtedly is. "But does 
 more of reverence in us dwell ?" Those protestants who 
 sometimes attend our services on great festivals, have 
 remarked that the advantage in this respect was with 
 us. "The music of mind and soul is in better accord." 
 This is superlatively practical, and in missionary work 
 among catholics, it would be well to call their attention 
 to it. 
 
 "The New Experience does not look out and up to 
 a King upon a great white throne, nor, to a divine 
 Man by the sea of Galilee; it looks within to the God 
 
Infallibility 47 
 
 who tabernacles with men." There is doubtless much 
 truth known to the Old Experience, which is unknown 
 to the "New." In the knowledge of the former, God 
 has not been dethroned but still continues the Great 
 Law-giver and Judge. Upon his throne he gives just 
 judgment and governs the world in equity. He has 
 not grown old and feeble, and is not too kind-hearted 
 to punish the sinner who breaks his law. He will re- 
 quire an accounting even for every idle word, and it 
 is now, as it ever has been, "a fearful thing to fall 
 into the hands of the Living God," for those who keep 
 not his commandments, obey not his law. 
 
 Upon the right hand of God the Father, sits the 
 divine Man of Galilee, who is the second Person of 
 the Blessed Trinity, true God and true Man; whose 
 divine and human natures are merged into one divine 
 Person, the Son of God, co-equal with the Father and 
 the Holy Ghost one God blessed forever. 
 
 The Old Experience "looked within to the God who 
 tabernacles with men" two thousand years nearly before 
 the New Experience declared it a recent discovery. 
 Throughout the Christian Era when devout souls in 
 Holy Communion received the Body and Blood of the 
 divine Son, they "looked within to the God who taber- 
 nacles with men," and in so doing found a divine peace 
 in the soul and a strengthening of the faith that, ordi- 
 narily speaking, only those can experience who receive 
 not the shadow, but the reality. 
 
 "If it is more difficult to believe in miracles, it is 
 less important if the extraordinary manifestations of 
 
48 Infallibility 
 
 God recounted in ancient history appear less credible, 
 the ordinary manifestations of God in current life ap- 
 pear more real. . . . All so-called natural phenom- 
 ena appear not less supernatural than the so-called mir- 
 aculous : the change of water into wine by the vineyard 
 not less than the similar change at the wedding feast." 
 
 It is not difficult for those who receive their faith 
 from an infallible authority, to believe in miracles ; and 
 the effort of this writer to discredit them, is to assert 
 that one of the principal means of propagating the 
 Christian religion in the first century the miracles of 
 our Lord and His Apostles were just so many separate 
 acts of fraud and deception! 
 
 The so-called laws of nature are put in operation by 
 the power of the Almighty, who can at will modify, 
 change, or suppress them altogether. If under favora- 
 ble circumstances we plant a grape vine, in a reason- 
 able time we may expect fruit which, if we desire and 
 have the knowledge necessary, we can manufacture into 
 wine. 
 
 At the marriage feast in Cana, the Blessed Virgin 
 being aware of the lack of wine, desired her divine Son 
 to supply that deficiency. Although the time when our 
 Lord was to begin his public ministry was not yet at 
 hand, still at the expressed wish of his Mother to 
 whom he could refuse nothing, he at the moment and 
 in direct opposition to the natural law established by 
 God, without the aid of time or the agency of the 
 vine, produced from a jar of ordinary water, wine that 
 had all the qualities of a right manufacture tempered 
 
Infallibility 49 
 
 by age. This was not a so-called miracle, but one in 
 fact and in truth. 
 
 St. Augustine in the fourth century says: "Who 
 draws up the sap through the root of the vine to the 
 cluster, and makes the wine, save God who, while man 
 plants and waters, gives the increase? But when at 
 the command of the Lord the water was made wine 
 with unwonted quickness, the Divine power was de- 
 clared, as even fools allow. Who in their wonted 
 fashion clothes the trees with leaf and flower save God? 
 Yet when the rod of Aaron the priest budded, the 
 Godhead, as it were, spake with doubting man." St. 
 Thomas Aquinas says: "Those are rightly termed mir- 
 acles, which are wrought by Divine power apart from 
 the order usually observed in nature." 
 
 "We believe less and less in the aphorism, The 
 kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent 
 take it by force.' ' The Old Experience can show, in 
 the early hours of morning, large numbers of catholics 
 who believe the entire Scriptures, and who are on their 
 way to Church to take the kingdom of heaven, by doing 
 violence to their natural love of luxury and ease, while 
 those of the New Experience are practicing their old 
 experience of lying snug and warm in their beds. 
 
 "Ecclesiastical authority is no longer recognized by 
 the New Experience. It is frankly disowned and de- 
 nied." At the commencement of our Saviour's public 
 life as a teacher, there were two things which stood 
 out clear cut and distinct from that of any teacher the 
 world had known. It was, that first "he taught as one 
 having authority," secondly, the power to work mir- 
 
50 Infallibility 
 
 acles to prove the divinity of his teaching. Both these 
 prerogatives the New Experience denies. 
 
 "A text of Scripture is no longer conclusive as to 
 doctrine; a precept of Scripture is no longer conclusive 
 as a command. The Bible is less looked upon as itself 
 the word of God." That a precept of Scripture capable 
 of being explained in four hundred different ways, "is 
 no longer conclusive" of anything, is a self-evident fact, 
 not a discovery by the New Experience. As it is evi- 
 dent that this new church of the Outlook Publishing 
 Company does not believe the Bible from not know- 
 ing how to use it it would be well to return it to the 
 Catholic Church, its rightful owner and infallible ex- 
 plainer. 
 
 We commend to the New Experience, an article from 
 a non-catholic writer who has "thought to have discov- 
 ered the right way of using the Bible. We agree with 
 him in everything except his part in the discovery. 
 1 "Any supernatural religion that renounces its claims 
 to an absolute Infallibility, it is clear can profess to be 
 a semi-revelation only. It is a hybrid thing, partly 
 natural and partly supernatural, and it thus practically 
 has all the qualities of a religion that is wholly natural. 
 In so far as it professes to be revealed, it of course 
 professes to be Infallible, but if the revealed part be 
 in the first place hard to understand and in the second 
 place hard to distinguish if it may mean many things, 
 arid many of those contradictory, it might just as well 
 have been never made at all. 
 
 20 William Hurrel Mallock. 
 
Infallibility 51 
 
 "To make it in any sense a revelation infallible to us, 
 we need a poiver to interpret the testament that shall 
 have equal authority with that testament itself. Simple 
 as this truth seems, mankind have been a long time in 
 learning it. Indeed, it is only in the present day that 
 its practical meaning has come generally to be recog- 
 nized. 
 
 "But now at this moment, upon all sides of us, his- 
 tory is teaching it to us by an example, so clearly that 
 we can no longer mistake it. That example is Protestant 
 Christianity, and the condition to which, after more 
 than three centuries, it is now bringing itself. It is at 
 last beginning to exhibit to us the true results of the 
 denial of Infallibility to a religion that professes to be 
 supernatural. It is fast evaporating into a mere natural 
 theism, and is thus showing us what, as a governing 
 power, natural theism is. 
 
 "Let us look at England, Europe and America, and 
 consider the condition of the entire protestant world. 
 Religion, it is true, we shall find in it, but it is a re- 
 ligion from which not only the supernatural element is 
 disappearing, but in which the natural element is fast 
 becoming nebulous. It is indeed merging into a religion 
 of dreams, and like dreams their outlines are forever 
 changing. There is hardly any conceivable aberration 
 of moral license that has not, in some quarter or other, 
 embodied itself into a rule of life, and claimed to be 
 the proper outcome of Protestant Christianity." 
 
 Our protestant friend has here given us words of 
 true wisdom, admirably expressed, which, without doubt, 
 he has thought out for himself without being in the least 
 
52 Infallibility 
 
 aware that this principle has been known and acted 
 upon by the Catholic Church since its establishment. 
 This Church is the only existing authority that has 
 claimed the right to infallibly declare the true mean- 
 ing of Holy-writ, and without which authority, the 
 Bible intended for our good, becomes a snare to the 
 feet. 
 
 In this New Religious Experience of the Outlook, 
 we find no definite and clear statement concerning any 
 doctrine of the Christian Religion. The greater num- 
 ber of its sentences begin with an if. "If there are 
 fewer religious excitements, there are more moral and 
 civic reforms. If the extraordinary manifestations of 
 God recounted in ancient history appear less credible, 
 the ordinary manifestations of God in current life ap- 
 pear more real. // we have ceased to follow the divine 
 Christ, we have more intimate fellowship with the hu- 
 man Christ." 
 
 Protestantism had its genesis in the principle that 
 justification was by faith alone; but now the antithesis 
 of the former view is averred, and what your faith may 
 be, is not important, provided you talk about civic 
 corruption and reform, and work for the betterment 
 of the tenement-house system of ventilation, and the 
 general improvement of the terrestrial heaven. In the 
 New Experience, there is no doctrine of the Trinity ; no 
 mention of the divinity of Christ ; no Holy Ghost ; no 
 miracles ; no sacraments ; no Bible except ancient his- 
 tory nothing in anyway appertaining to the Christian 
 religion, in the Outlook's New Experience. 
 
Infallibility 53 
 
 How very different all this in the Church of the Old 
 Experience ; that Church founded by God. That Church 
 which from the first institution of Christianity has 
 taught one faith only, considering well that as God is 
 infallible and immutable, so that faith which he has 
 revealed, must of necessity possess the same character- 
 istics. 
 
 Here as in a quiet harbor we have rest and peace. 
 Our ears are closed to the oft repeated cry : "Lo ! here," 
 science has discovered that which threatens to overturn 
 the Christian faith. "Lo! there," evolution has given 
 us new ideas about creation, faith, destiny. With all 
 these alarms sounding in our ears, yet we are unterri- 
 fied, for the faith once delivered to the saints is an 
 infallible faith revealed by divine authority. True in 
 the beginning, true it must always be, so long as God 
 sits upon his throne of truth, justice and equity, judg- 
 ing the world in righteousness. 
 
 Therefore no other argument is needed to prove pro- 
 testantism in the wrong, than their own confession that 
 they are fallible and that they change. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE PRIMACY OF PETER. 
 
 The wisdom resulting from experience has demon- 
 strated that every living body having a specific work 
 to do among men, must have a visible head. 
 
 While it is true that Jesus Christ is the King of 
 kings, the Governor of all nations and peoples, yet 
 he governs by visible agents. In the economy of na- 
 tions we see every government having a head, be it 
 emperor, president, or king. Every fraternal society, 
 every social club, has its presiding officer. No army 
 without a commander-in-chief ; no ship without its cap- 
 tain. The peace of families even requires that some 
 one should preside. x The Jewish Church had a su- 
 preme head in the high priest, whose decisions, prac- 
 tically infallible, were sometimes enforced under pain 
 of death. 
 
 The Founder of the Christian Church, before his 
 Ascension, working in harmony with these truths, pro- 
 vided a visible head for its guidance ; for, if a head 
 was necessary for the perfecting of order in these in- 
 stances, and in the Church of the Old Dispensation for 
 the better preservation of its unity and authority, it 
 must be equally so for the Church of the New Dis- 
 pensation, of which the Old was the type and figure. 
 
 As governments deprived of their head would, in a 
 
 i Deut. xvii. 
 
The Primacy of Peter 55 
 
 short time, become anarchical ; armies without a general- 
 in-chief become armed mobs ; ships without commanders, 
 sailing the seas the sport of varying winds and cur- 
 rents inviting shipwreck; so God's Church, without a 
 head to guide its course, from being the greatest factor 
 known in the solution of life's problems concerning our 
 future destiny would become the most conspicuous fail- 
 ure of all the failures named. 
 
 Among the disciples of our dear Lord's choosing was 
 one named Simon, a fisherman, to whom the Saviour 
 gave the name of Peter, signifying a stone or rock. 
 The divine Master, had upon one occasion declared that 
 stability in any structure was dependent upon a rock 
 foundation. What significance could be attached to 
 this name were the protestant theory the correct one, 
 it is difficult to imagine; but to the catholic, in view of 
 the subsequent action of our Lord, when turning to 
 Simon, he said : 2 "Thou art Peter," a rock, "and on 
 this rock I will build my Church," the significance of 
 Simon's new name stands out with startling boldness 
 on the sacred page. 
 
 Protestants have several theories by which to explain 
 away this unwelcome text; the one most relied upon 
 being, that the Church was built not on Peter himself, 
 but upon Peter's confession that Christ was the Son 
 of God. As there is no mention anywhere in the Bible 
 anent the building of the Church on Peter's confession, 
 and our esteemed adversaries decline to receive anything 
 
 2 Matt, xvi, 18. 
 
56 The Primacy of Peter 
 
 not contained therein, it would be of interest to know 
 whence they received their information. 
 
 While protestants profess to believe nothing outside 
 the Bible, they believe to a sufficient extent in themselves 
 regarding their ability to explain it. In the interests 
 of economy in time and thought, however, the larger 
 number prefer to rely upon their teachers; hence the 
 "Protestant Commentator" from whom, rather than 
 from the Bible direct, they receive their information. 
 
 Mr. Barnes in his protestant "Notes on the Gospels," 
 admits that the Church was built on Peter, and that 
 "a great many other opinions than this evidently the 
 true one have been sought by commentators because 
 the Church of Rome has abused it and applied it to 
 what was never intended," and were it not for that, 
 "no other meaning would have been sought for." As 
 there can never be but one true meaning to a text of 
 Scripture, may we, as a "Romanist," be allowed to 
 apologize for the bad conduct of the Church in so ex- 
 plaining the Bible as to make it necessary for protestant 
 commentators to wander from the ways of truth, in 
 which they so much delight to walk, and adopt untrue 
 methods in explaining the sacred text. 
 
 That the Church was built on Peter, the rock, as 
 emblematic of stability, and in contrast to the house 
 built upon the sand that in the first storm became a 
 ruin, is a perfectly reasonable conclusion and one that 
 would naturally be the first to occur to the mind. There 
 is no difficulty in understanding this text as far as 
 catholics are concerned, but were protestants to accept 
 its plain and obvious meaning, it would compel the 
 
The Primacy of Peter 57 
 
 acknowledgment of Peter's Primacy; they have, there- 
 fore, been obliged to seek "a great many other opin- 
 ions than this evidently the true one." 
 
 In the Syro Chaldaic tongue which our divine Lord 
 used, the word rock is repeated, therefore, the exact 
 words spoken to Peter were: "Thou art a rock and 
 upon this rock," etc. If according to our Lord's prom- 
 ise the gates of hell should not be able to overthrow 
 his Church, it must be owing to its rock foundation 
 which is here declared to be Peter. In this foundation 
 then lies the fullness of power, a power that Satan 
 himself cannot successfully strive against. 
 
 3 "The foundation upon which a perfect society rests 
 cannot be anything else than the supreme authority 
 which governs it. As it is to the character of its 
 foundation that a building owes its solidity, the close 
 union of its parts, and even its very existence, it is 
 likewise from the authority of Peter that the Church 
 derives her unity, her stability, and even her existence 
 itself." It was, therefore, no new doctrine suggested 
 by St. Ambrose (A. D. 397) when he averred that 
 "where Peter is there is the Church." 4 "Where the 
 Church is, there is Christ, her Founder; and where 
 Christ is, there is salvation; for as St. Peter himself 
 spoke, 5 'Nor is there salvation in any other. For there 
 is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby 
 we must be saved.' ' ; 
 
 As where Peter is, there is the Church, his Primacy 
 
 3 "Christian Apologetics," p. 463, Devivier, S. J. 
 
 4 Ibid. 
 
 5 Acts iv, 12. 
 
58 The Primacy of Peter 
 
 of honor and jurisdiction necessarily extends through- 
 out the civilized world. This was the reward given 
 Peter for his noble confession of faith, and in this 
 reward Christ's Church, in being provided with a head, 
 becomes the chief beneficiary. 
 
 Continuing, Mr. Barnes cites the fifteenth chapter 
 of Acts, to show that at a general council of the 
 Church, James's advice was followed instead of Peter's. 
 This is an unfortunate reference for the purpose. In 
 reading the chapter, the first thing of importance is 
 that Peter presided. Peter was also the first speaker. 
 Peter, according to Mr. Barnes, was the most "dis- 
 tinguished" one there. Peter authoritatively announced 
 the truth that circumcision had no place in the Gospel. 
 This ended the disputation. St. James echoed the sen- 
 timent without in any way changing Peter's decision. 
 Such general instructions as affirmed Peter's decision, 
 and further related to questions of discipline were em- 
 bodied in a short epistle. 
 
 Mr. Barnes also refers to Galatians ii, 11, where St. 
 Paul, "withstood Peter to his face because he was to 
 be blamed." While it is not unheard of several popes 
 having at times been admonished still it is not usual 
 certainly for an inferior to rebuke his superior, and, 
 therefore, it is here thought to be all the more worthy 
 of record that such was the fact. Had St. John, or 
 any other apostle beside Peter, been reproved, probably 
 no mention would have been made of it. 
 
 If Dr. Barnes could show that this rebuke was for 
 failure in teaching the faith, then he would have rea- 
 
The Primacy of Peter 59 
 
 son for saying that Peter was "not as catholics claimed, 
 infallible," but as this was a question affecting dis- 
 cipline only, no conclusions can be drawn against either 
 Peter's Primacy, or infallibility. 
 
 This commentator explains the nineteenth verse : "And 
 I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom." "This 
 means that He will make him the instrument of open- 
 ing the door of faith to the world, the first to preach 
 the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles. This was done. 
 The power of the keys was given to Peter alone solely 
 for this reason." 
 
 And this is all there is to this Gospel. "And I say 
 also unto thee, that thou art Peter a rock and upon 
 this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee 
 the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever 
 thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven ; 
 and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be 
 loosed in heaven." Sixty-six words here, require but 
 twenty-six words in explanation. What a disappoint- 
 ment that such wonderful words of our divine Re- 
 deemer, should, when explained, mean so little. 
 
 Like an accomplished artist in legerdemain, Mr. 
 Barnes here keeps the leading figures power and au- 
 thority in the twilight, turning the searchlight full 
 on the lesser truth that Peter was to be the first preacher 
 to Jews and Gentiles; for it was of little importance 
 except that our Lord willed to make Peter first in 
 everything whether Peter, or James, or John, was the 
 
60 The Primacy of Peter 
 
 first preacher, so long as the Gospel was preached and 
 souls saved. 
 
 The power of the keys is defined as simply to open, 
 which of course is the statement of a half-truth; in 
 this way he conveys, most shrewdly, the idea, that after 
 Peter had opened the door of faith, the keys would 
 be no longer useful to Peter, or any one else, it being 
 no part of the divine plan that the door of faith should 
 be closed to the world, and, therefore, having no fur- 
 ther use for the keys Peter naturally did not pass them 
 on to his successor. 
 
 The protestant theory of the Primacy is, that it did 
 not raise Peter above the other apostles, but was only 
 a permission that he should be the first to preach the 
 Gospel, as a personal favor for his prompt confession 
 of our Lord's divinity ; and, therefore, Peter had no 
 successors and the Church no head. Such a Primacy 
 as this would be but small honor to Peter, and as to 
 being of any practical value to the Church, it is diffi- 
 cult to understand in what it could consist. 
 
 The protestant theory, therefore, is clearly seen to 
 be a seeking for "other meanings than the true one," 
 to serve their purpose; knowing the admission of the 
 Gospel doctrine of the Primacy of Peter, to be true, 
 and that the Christian Church from the beginning had 
 a head, makes it clear that the "rival churches" who 
 had no head, can in no way be connected with the 
 Church which our divine Lord established. It is cer- 
 tain that the Catholic Church has been in t.he possession 
 of a head called the Pope, for a length of time which no 
 
The Primacy of Peter 61 
 
 one can determine if it did not come into existence with 
 Peter. 
 
 The protestant commentator Matthew Henry, in ex- 
 plaining the passage, "the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail," says : "This gives no security to any particular 
 church or church governors that they shall never err, 
 never apostatize or be destroyed; but that somewhere 
 or other the Christian religion shall have a being, 
 though not always in the same degree of purity and 
 splendor, yet so as the entail of it shall never be quite 
 cut off." 
 
 Mr. Henry here takes an exceedingly hopeful view; 
 his church is not preserved from error; it can apos- 
 tatize and it can very nearly be destroyed. What more 
 in the nature of consolation could any one desire? It 
 is surprising what solid comfort protestants enjoy in 
 the belief that their churches are fallible and may lead 
 them into error. 
 
 Professor Schaff takes the view that "the keys here 
 meant are the keys of the house steward, who under 
 the instructions of the master of the house, will admit 
 or refuse admittance to any whom his master may or 
 may not want in his household." The protestant com- 
 mentator Ahrens, explains that "the keys are those of 
 the different rooms of the house, and also where the 
 provisions are kept." 
 
 As we see the landscape dwindle to almost nothing 
 while looking through the large end of a telescope, we, 
 looking through protestant glasses, behold St. Peter 
 becoming a house steward, and the keys of the kingdom 
 
62 The Primacy of Peter 
 
 of heaven, the keys of the pantry where the provisions 
 are kept. Under the protestant custom of belittling 
 everything in the explanation, the power of the keys 
 is no longer worth mentioning but for the fact of the 
 record in the Bible of so trivial a circumstance! 
 
 The keys have always been regarded as emblematic 
 of authority, of power, and jurisdiction. Our Lord 
 said that "he had the keys of death and hell" to imply 
 that he had power and jurisdiction over them. Author- 
 ity can be delegated to another by the keys; thus the 
 owner of a house can let it to another, give up the 
 keys and with them his authority over it. 
 
 The great Head of the Church, in like manner at 
 his departure, gave to Peter and his successors if the 
 Church was to receive any lasting benefit from this 
 grant of power the keys of the kingdom of heaven, 
 and with them complete jurisdiction over it, promising 
 to ratify his sentence of admission to or exclusion there- 
 from, in the words 6 "whatsoever thou shalt bind on 
 earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou 
 shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 
 
 In the commentary on the last part of this verse, 
 Mr. Barnes endeavors to make the point that the word 
 whatsoever, in the sentence whatsoever thou shalt 
 bind, etc., refers to things, not persons, and was in- 
 tended to forbid the eating of things offered to idols, 
 circumcision, etc. In the Gospel according to St. John 
 it reads : 7 'Whose soever sins ye remit, they are re- 
 mitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they 
 
 6 Matt, xviii, 18. 
 
 7 John xx, 23. 
 
The Primacy of Peter 63 
 
 are retained." This text being in phraseology different 
 from that quoted by Doctor Barnes, proves disastrous 
 to his argument and shows that perhaps the protestant 
 Doctor was unfamiliar with the established rule among 
 commentators, that one text of Scripture may not be 
 so explained as to destroy its harmony with a similar 
 text relating to the same subject. 
 
 A short time before his passion, our Lord, address- 
 ing Peter, spoke these significant words : 8 "Simon, 
 Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he 
 may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee that 
 thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted, con- 
 firm thy brethren." Why should Satan desire to pos- 
 sess Peter, more than any other Apostle, if it were 
 not that he was the primate of them all? Satan had 
 failed when tempting our Lord, he yet hoped for suc- 
 cess with the next in authority, Simon Peter. 
 
 In the lists of the Apostles, Peter's name is invaria- 
 bly placed first. St. Matthew calls Peter the first Apos- 
 tle, but as he was not the first chosen, it could be only 
 for the Primacy that this could be true. Peter was re- 
 quested by our Lord to confirm his brethren, which 
 most certainly implies Primacy. 
 
 Peter was the one apostle to whom the Master most 
 often referred, as when saying: "Go tell the disciples 
 and Peter," "Peter, and they that were with him." 
 "And they said unto Peter, and the rest of the apos- 
 tles." It was Peter's barque which Jesus entered from 
 which to teach the multitude. It is to Peter the words 
 
 8 St. Luke xxii, 31-32. 
 
64 The Primacy of Peter 
 
 are spoken: "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt 
 catch men." In the Gospel of St. Matthew, the name of 
 Peter occurs twenty-four times, that of James and John 
 three times ; the other nine, once each, excepting Judas 
 who was prominent for his infamy. 
 
 Peter was the first apostle to work a miracle. In 
 choosing an apostle to take the place of Judas, Peter 
 presides and he alone speaks, the others obey. 
 
 At the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, "there was 
 much disputing" until Peter spoke, after which "all the 
 multitude held their peace." 
 
 When St. James was cast into prison, although he was 
 cousin to our Lord, it created little excitement ; but 
 when Peter was cast into prison, the Church was in 
 great consternation, and "prayer was made without ceas- 
 ing by the Church to God for him." The Church 
 might survive the loss of a distinguished apostle, but 
 when the head Shepherd was attacked, there was some- 
 thing out of the ordinary to cause grief and fear, for 
 with the loss of their head, the enemies of the infant 
 Church might hope to scatter and separate the members, 
 and thus through division conquer. 
 
 After our Savour's resurrection, he said to Simon 
 Peter, 9 "Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than 
 these ? He saith to him : Yea, Lord, thou knowest that 
 I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my lambs. He 
 saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou 
 me ? He saith to him : Yea, Lord, thou knowest that 
 I love thee. He saith to him : Feed my lambs. He 
 
 9 St. John xxi, 15-16-17. 
 
The Primacy of Peter 65 
 
 saith to him the third time. Simon, son of John, lovest 
 thou me? Peter was grieved because he said to him 
 the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said to him, 
 Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love 
 thee. He said to him : Feed my sheep." 
 
 In this bequest contained in the last Will and Testa- 
 ment of our divine Redeemer just prior to his ascen- 
 sion, he provides a Head Shepherd for his entire flock. 
 
 There were present at this time, Peter and all but 
 three of the apostles, but our Lord speaks to Peter 
 alone, referring to the other apostles as "these." In 
 order to impress more forcibly upon the minds of 
 Peter, "and those that were with him," the great im- 
 portance of the act which he was about to perform, he 
 repeats the question to Peter, three times, and after each 
 affirmative answer, repeats the words of the divine 
 commission to feed, to take care of, and to govern as the 
 Chief Shepherd, Christ's lambs; Christ's sheep; Christ's 
 entire flock. 
 
 In all Scripture, there is no more sweetly solemn 
 scene portrayed, than this, of their last meal together 
 by the limpid waters of Galilee, so short a time before 
 the Ascension morning. 
 
 In all Scripture, there is no prophet, apostle, bishop, 
 or priest, to whom such words were ever addressed as 
 these to Peter. 
 
 In all Scripture, no passage that needs less explana- 
 tion; so plain that he who runs may read. 
 
 Again, consider what has been said regarding the neces- 
 sity of a head for every living body; the significance of 
 the name given to Simon, followed by the declaration 
 
66 The Primacy of Peter 
 
 that upon this rock the Church is builded ; the power of 
 the keys ; the fact that Peter is seen to be the central fig- 
 ure and leading spirit of the College Apostolic, and that, 
 as a fitting climax, is here made the Head Shepherd of 
 Christ's whole flock; it is impossible to see how even the 
 most biased of readers can escape the conviction, that 
 these incidents in the life and ministry of Peter, all 
 agreeing so well with each other, and pointing in one 
 direction only, can fail to show as unerringly as the 
 needle the polar star, The Primacy of Peter. 
 
 In this connection also consider this accessory fact, 
 that the Catholic Church can show an uninterrupted 
 existence from the earliest centuries of Christianity, and 
 that she always understood this Scripture in this way, 
 and as proof that she did so understand it shows 
 throughout her whole life the possession of a head, in 
 the unbroken line of her Pontiffs, from Peter to 
 Pius X. 
 
 No fair and impartial minds reading intelligently the 
 Scripture and then turning their attention to the efforts 
 of the protestant commentators to explain it away, can 
 fail to see that in their belittling of the Sacred text they 
 are endeavoring to establish doctrines never heard of 
 until the advent of "The Great Reformation." How 
 beautiful by contrast seem the gates of that fair temple 
 "whose builder and maker is God ;" the infallible Church 
 which he declared should stand firm upon its founda- 
 tion for all time, no matter what varying winds of false 
 doctrine should blow, or evil passions of misguided men 
 threaten to overthrow, and so it has stood since the 
 Pentecostal fire descended upon the Apostles of the new 
 
The Primacy of Peter 67 
 
 Evangel of Light and Love, even to this day firm as 
 the Rock in its unchangeableness. 
 
 The bones of its martyred missionaries of many 
 orders, and in many centuries of time, lie on the shores 
 of the world's great lakes and rivers, in the forest 
 glades and on the green slopes by the sounding sea; 
 and are turning to dust in shady vales and on flowery 
 hillsides throughout all countries, among all nations, and 
 in all climes; their pattern and memory lost to all but 
 the God whose divine commission had sent them into 
 all the world to teach the nations. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 THE SUPREMACY OF THE POPES. 
 
 From the primacy of Peter, naturally follows the 
 primacy of Peter's successors, the Popes. It is impos- 
 sible to imagine any lasting good accruing to the Church 
 from the possession of a head through Peter's primacy, 
 if at his death this necessary authority should cease. 
 We need the court of final appeal at Washington now, 
 as much as when first instituted and why not the court 
 of final appeal of the Church which extends its life 
 and membership through all ages and into every quarter 
 of the civilized world? 
 
 Let us not ignore the past, but endeavor to find by 
 the light which history throws around the first ages of 
 the Church, if any circumstances can be found tending 
 to show a continuation of that authority, which has been 
 shown to be the prerogative of Peter. 
 
 We have given elsewhere that great word painting of 
 Macaulay's, in which he traces the dynasty of the Popes 
 down to the time when the Saintly Leo went forth to 
 meet the barbarian conqueror Attila, A. D. 452. As a 
 protestant writer, Macaulay found the safer course, after 
 tracing the Papal dynasty down to the middle of the 
 fifth century, to rid himself of so dangerous an incubus 
 to protestant literature by abruptly leaving it there, sus- 
 pended as it were in the fading light of an evening in 
 the "Dark Ages," as a tale half told, when he might 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 69 
 
 readily have finished a story so well begun by tracing its 
 history to the Chair of Peter, had it but served his pur- 
 pose so to do. 
 
 It is but natural, say our adversaries, that the City of 
 Rome, the great center of the Empire, in learning, and 
 the arts, the mistress of the world, ennobled by the lives 
 of St. Paul and the noble army of martyrs, whose souls 
 ascended from the Flavian Amphitheater to their Maker, 
 should have been the favored spot, where, under the 
 sheltering arms of emperors, who from persecuting had 
 learned to adore, should have grown, from small begin- 
 nings in usurpation, the Papal power. Little by little, 
 through long years of aggressive warfare upon their 
 weaker brethren, always seeking to wrest that authority 
 from the others which in the beginning had been com- 
 mon to all, and in the furtherance of this settled pur- 
 pose to become the masters of Christendom, x "with all 
 the shrewdness and pertinacity which has ever since 
 been their peculiar characteristic," when the roll-call of 
 our great enemy summoned one Roman Bishop, 
 strangely enough his successor pursued the same grasp- 
 ing policy until at last the shackles of their slavery were 
 securely fastened upon the bishops of the entire world. 
 
 Somewhat after this style our protestant friends are 
 accustomed to account for the rise and progress of the 
 Papal power. Mr. Ranke explains this momentous 
 occurrence by saying that, 2 "it was not long before the 
 Roman Bishops assumed the highest rank." Another 
 
 1 Rank6 "Hist, of the Popes," p. 20. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 19. 
 
70 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 Protestant writer, that, "gradually the Bishops of Rome 
 drifted into Popes." 
 
 Concerning this brief protestant account, it will be 
 pertinent to remark, that obedience to a power and 
 authority which is usurped, can seldom be acquired 
 without the force of arms, and such obedience which is 
 never sincere, can only be retained by the constant dis- 
 play of like power. The obedience which catholics 
 render to the Holy See, on the contrary, is so free, 
 voluntary and hearty, as to preclude the idea that the 
 Papal power is an assumption only. 
 
 Does it not seem that if at the beginning the apostles 
 were equal in authority, that at a later date it would 
 have been next to an impossibility to fasten upon them 
 the yoke of obedience to one of their number without 
 divine authority? 
 
 Christ, the divine founder of the Church, the corner 
 stone of the edifice, the ruler of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, the divine Shepherd of the flock bestows sep- 
 arately and individually upon one of his disciples his 
 own power, and calls him the rock of the edifice here 
 on earth (Matth. xvi, 18, 19): if He grants to that 
 disciple the special powers of the ruler, by handing to 
 him the keys; if He, as the Divine Shepherd, on the 
 eve of His ascension, commits the care of his whole 
 flock to that particular disciple with the power of ruling, 
 and of feeding (John xxi, 15, 16, 17) what, I ask, can 
 be more evident than that Christ is here constituting an 
 office, which is part of the very constitution of the 
 Church, the necessary condition of its stability, of its 
 strength, and of its unity? Hence, St. Peter was placed 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 71 
 
 by Christ's command on a wholly different footing from 
 all the other apostles, if the Pope, in the right of heri- 
 tage, or the successor of St. Peter, rightly claims to be 
 on a wholly different footing from all other Bishops. 
 He presides over the whole Church, the whole flock 
 of Christ, the faithful, the Priests, and the Bishops, 
 while each Bishop's jurisdiction is limited to the Priests 
 and faithful of his particular Diocese. It is true that, 
 as St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, ch. 2, v. 20, the 
 Church was built upon the Apostles, but upon the Apos- 
 tles as Christ ranked them, with Peter, their Prince at 
 their head, who is endowed by him with special pre- 
 rogatives, exclusively his own. And the Apostles 
 received a universal mission directly from Christ, nor 
 had any of them to apply to Peter for a mandate or 
 for authority, though their authority was bound up with 
 and dependent upon his own special supremacy. But 
 here we must have in mind the fact that, according to 
 the disposition and will of Christ, the prerogatives of 
 the Apostles such as universal jurisdiction and the gift 
 of infallibility ceased with their mortal career, because 
 they were personal. But the prerogatives of the Apos- 
 tolic Office residing in Peter could not, and did not, 
 cease with his life, because that Apostolic Office in him 
 was not merely personal, but was established by Christ 
 as an essential and a necessarily enduring element in the 
 very constitution of the Church. Hence that special 
 office, to be exercised by Peter's successors must last 
 as long as the Church herself will last, namely till the 
 end of time. Moreover, as individual Bishops, unlike 
 the individual Apostles, have not received from God a 
 
72 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 universal mission and jurisdiction in the world, hence 
 they cannot be independent from their divinely consti- 
 tuted Head and Prince, the successor of St. Peter, to 
 whom alone it belongs to determine the particular por- 
 tion of the whole flock, over which each bishop is to 
 exercise the power received from the Holy Ghost at his 
 consecration. (See the Truth of the Papal Claims by 
 Cardinal Raphael Merry Del Val.) Hence the Sover- 
 eign Pontiff, by assigning to each Bishop his special 
 diocese and thus determining his territorial jurisdiction, 
 does, in the hierarchical order, what political rulers do 
 with their subjects in civil matters. Thus in our country 
 the graduates from West Point and from Annapolis 
 receive from the Secretary of War, or from the Sec- 
 retary of the Navy their respective commission and 
 limited jurisdiction. And our judges, when elected by 
 a vote of the people, cannot exercise their office until 
 they are assigned by the State authority to some definite 
 district, outside of which they have no power to pro- 
 nounce any legal decisions or to enforce them. 
 
 Let us take a case in point. The Protestant Episcopal 
 Church has in every State one or more bishops. Some 
 of these bishops may have superior mental qualifications, 
 and in the larger and more populous dioceses a more 
 extended field of influence, but as to authority, they 
 have always been equals. Suppose now, that the bishop 
 of the city of New York, from his superior qualifications 
 and the greater importance of his diocese, should think 
 himself entitled to greater consideration, and his opin- 
 ions have more weight in council than those of his less 
 gifted brethren of the Episcopate. Having, perhaps, 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 73 
 
 obtained some concession so slight as to escape the vigi- 
 lance of his watchful fellow prelates, yet how long a 
 time must elapse before we should see the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in 
 communion with the See of Greater New York, pre- 
 senting cases on appeal from the judgment of the 
 bishops of the other dioceses to that Supreme See for 
 decision, and that not as a compliment to that See but as 
 that See's undisputed right? 
 
 It is of interest in this connection to note, that at a 
 council held in England in 1897, called the Pan- Anglican 
 Synod, and which included the Episcopalian Bishops in 
 the United States of America, the question was mooted 
 concerning the great benefit which would result to unity, 
 in the creation of the Anglican Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, as the Primate of the Church of England and the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. The 
 proposition was effectually frowned down by the bishops 
 from this country, who refused to part with any portion 
 of their accustomed authority in order that a bishop of 
 a foreign country might be exalted to a position above 
 them. 
 
 Human nature is credited with certain characteristics 
 which are unfailing; so in this spirited refusal of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Bishops, is seen the reason why 
 the Papal Dynasty did not originate in the subjugation 
 of the many by one, as protestants have assumed; had 
 this been the case, the two situations being similar, a 
 second Papacy could have as easily risen at this Pan- 
 Anglican Synod as the Papacy in the former instance. 
 
 The Synod failed to secure a pope, because the design 
 
74 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 was opposed to human nature, in that it necessitated 
 the giving up of that which was dear, by the many, for 
 the benefit of one. The Papacy, on the contrary, orig- 
 inated in the primacy of Peter at our Lord's command 
 to feed the sheep. It was not instituted for the benefit 
 of one, but for the benefit of many, that they might 
 be kept in unity and truth, in one fold under one 
 shepherd. 
 
 The protestant theory that it could have been possible 
 for a head to finally grow upon a body which had been 
 headless for centuries, is a defiance to the laws of nature 
 and without analogy in the world around us. That it 
 could have been possible for a man to have brought 
 under his authority all the bishops of the world, and so 
 intimidated or charmed them, that they, as history af- 
 firms, rendered everywhere the most willing obedience 
 when from the beginning they had, in every respect, 
 been fully his equals, is a tale which in its entire im- 
 probability puts to shame the efforts of the ablest 
 romancers of all time. On the other hand what more 
 natural than that the primacy of Peter, as seen in the 
 New Testament, should have its sequel in the Papal 
 Dynasty. The first is useless without the second, the 
 second impossible without the first. As in the separate 
 blocks of a mosaic but little beauty lies, and only when 
 each separate piece is placed in its intended position 
 the picture is brought to view, so these two doctrines, 
 when viewed together, show the reasonableness and 
 truth of both. 
 
 At about the time that Lord Macaulay finishes his 
 elaborate pen picture of the Papal supremacy in the fifth 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 75 
 
 century, we find the various Teutonic tribes forcing 
 their way into Gaul. The most prominent institution 
 which they met in that country and which challenged 
 their attention and won their admiration, was the Cath- 
 olic Church in communion with the Roman See. Guizot, 
 writing of this period says : "Populations endlessly dif- 
 ferent in origin, habits, speech, destiny, rush upon the 
 scene ; and in this moment the Christian Church pro- 
 claims most loudly the unity of its teachings, the univer- 
 sality of its law." 
 
 Clovis, king of the invaders, became a Christian and 
 Hassall informs us that 3 "the Franks in accepting con- 
 version, found strong support from the bishops and 
 from the Pope in all their undertakings." In A. D. 342, 
 the historian Socrates, writing of some bishops who had 
 been deprived of their Sees by the Arians and had 
 appealed to Pope Julius says : 4 "Accordingly they made 
 known their causes to the Bishop of Rome, but he in 
 virtue of the prerogative of the Church of Rome, for- 
 tified them with strongly worded letters, and sent them 
 back to the East, restoring each to his own See." 
 
 In the third century Natalius who had been made 
 a bishop of an heretical sect 5 "being touched by God's 
 grace, covered himself with sackcloth, and shedding 
 many tears, cast himself at the feet of Pope Zephyrinus, 
 and prayed to be received into the communion of the 
 Church, which request was granted." 
 
 6 "It was about the year 158 that the venerable Poly- 
 
 3 "The French People," p. 24. 
 
 4 Socrates, "Ecc. Hist," book ii, chap. 15. 
 
 5 "Ecc. Hist.." Eusebius, v, 28. 
 
 6 "Chair of Peter," Murphy, p. 74. 
 
76 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 carp, Bishop of Smyrna, a disciple of St. John, traveled 
 to Rome in his old age, to confer with Pope Anicetus 
 about the time of celebrating Easter." 7 "Even at this 
 early age, notwithstanding the difficulties and dangers of 
 traveling, it was customary for the clergy of remote 
 Churches to visit Rome and to confer with the Popes 
 on points of doctrine and discipline. By these means 
 uniformity was preserved." 
 
 "When in A. D. 96, there arose dissensions and divis- 
 ions in the Church at Corinth, Hegesippus informs us 
 that certain persons were deputed by the faithful to 
 represent the condition of affairs to the Roman Church, 
 and to request its interposition to put an end to the 
 schism. And it is worthy of note, that, although St. 
 John the Apostle was then living, the people of Corinth 
 did not apply to him, but appealed to the Roman See, to 
 exercise its authority in allaying the disturbances and 
 restoring peace to their Church." 
 
 Saint Clement, of whom Saint Paul speaks as "one 
 whose name is in the book of life," was the reigning 
 Pontiff at this time, and wrote 8 "a most powerful letter 
 from the Church which is at Rome to the Corinthians 
 re-uniting them in peace, and re-establishing their faith, 
 and the tradition which it had recently received from 
 the Apostles." 
 
 Clement succeeded Cletus in the Chair of Peter, and 
 before Cletus, Pope Linus, A. D. 67, who was the imme- 
 diate successor of Peter. Here by the testimony of the 
 early Christian Fathers, the finishing touches of Macau- 
 
 7 Ibid. 
 
 8 Irenaeus, "Adversus Haereses," iii, 3. 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 77 
 
 lay's great word painting of the Papal Dynasty, are 
 applied in tracing the line of Pontiffs to that disciple to 
 whom our adorable Lord gave the power of the keys; 
 the command to feed his flock like a shepherd, and the 
 injunction to confirm his brethren. 
 
 The opponents of our impregnable position, having no 
 countervailing allegation, must rely upon their unsup- 
 ported assertion that, "St. Peter was never in Rome." 
 
 The historian Gibbon says : 9 "One hundred years and 
 more after the glorious deaths of Saints Peter and Paul, 
 the Vatican and the Ostian Road were distinguished by 
 the tombs, or rather the trophies, of those spiritual 
 heroes. In the age which followed the conversion of 
 Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the generals 
 of armies, devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tent- 
 maker and a fisherman, and their venerable bones were 
 deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the 
 bishops of the royal city continually offered up the 
 unbloody sacrifice." 
 
 Again the same author says : 10 "On the same spot," 
 where St. Peter was crucified, "a temple, which far 
 surpasses the glories of the Capitol, has been since 
 erected by the Christian pontiffs, who, deriving their 
 claims to universal dominion from a humble fisherman 
 of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of the Caesars, 
 given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome, and 
 extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of 
 the Baltic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean." 
 
 9 "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap, xxviii. 
 
 10 "Decline and Fall R. E.," chap. xvi. 
 
78 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 That St. Peter was at Rome, the ancient Fathers 
 testify again and again. 
 
 The Anglican Bishop Pearson, A. D. 1613, says : 
 11 "When with such unanimity it is handed down to us 
 by tradition, from almost the beginning, that St. Peter 
 preached the Gospel at Rome, and suffered there, and 
 when no one has ever said that either Peter or Paul was 
 crowned with martyrdom anywhere else; when in fine 
 Christ himself signified that Peter was to be crucified; 
 I think we may safely attach our faith to this history. 
 For who would believe that so great an Apostle could 
 die so obscurely that no one should ever remember the 
 place in which he died? Who would believe, that, while 
 other regions claim their Apostles, no city, no region, 
 no church should affirm, that it had been ennobled by 
 the blood of Peter?" 
 
 The Christian Father Jerome says : 12 Simon Peter, 
 after presiding as Bishop of the Church of Antioch, and 
 preaching to those of the Circumcision ... in the 
 second year of Claudius, went to Rome . . . and 
 there, for five and twenty years, he held his Sacerdotal 
 Chair, until the fourteenth year of Nero, by whom being 
 crucified with his head downward, he was crowned with 
 martyrdom." 
 
 Says Father Murphy : 13 "The foundation of the 
 Church of Rome, and the establishment of his pontifical 
 chair there by St. Peter has been celebrated as a fes- 
 tival by the universal Church, from the earliest ages 
 
 11 Two Dissertations on the Successions of the First Bishops of 
 Rome, p. 42, Bishop Pearson. 
 
 12 "In Catalogo Scriptorium Ecclesiasticorum in S. Paulo." 
 is "The Chair of Peter," p. 63. 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 79 
 
 of Christianity. ... In the most ancient Roman 
 rituals is to be found the following prayer to be 
 recited on that day: O Almighty God who by an in- 
 effable Sacrament didst confer on thy Apostle Peter the 
 primacy of the city of Rome, whence Evangelical truth 
 might diffuse itself through all the kingdoms of the 
 world, grant, we beseech thee, that universal Christen- 
 dom may devoutly follow that which from his preaching 
 has spread all over the world." 
 
 The protestant Professor of History of Columbia Uni- 
 versity says : 14 "The Roman Church was the only one 
 in the West which could claim the distinction of having 
 been founded by the immediate followers of Christ, two 
 most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul. . . . There 
 had always been moreover, a persistent tradition, 
 accepted throughout the Christian Church, that Peter 
 was the first Bishop of Rome. The belief itself, whether 
 or not it corresponds with actual events, is indubitably 
 a fact, and a fact of the greatest historical importance." 
 
 It seems unnecessary to introduce further evidence 
 regarding St. Peter's residence and martyrdom in Rome. 
 There are those who are so permeated with prejudice 
 that the overwhelming testimony of history cannot move 
 them to a different understanding, but, for such, no 
 amount of proof would be adequate. 
 
 In tracing the line of succession down to Peter, that 
 the reader might not be wearied, all excerpts have been 
 greatly condensed. 
 
 In the first centuries the infant Churches, few in num- 
 
 14 "Hist. Western Europe," chap, iv, p. 49. 
 
80 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 bers and separated by distance, owing to the limited 
 facilities for traveling, generally communicated with the 
 Pope by letter. Later, when the Church outgrew its 
 former boundaries, it became necessary to resort to 
 Councils for the preservation of unity, and the adjudi- 
 cation of controversies in regard to faith and discipline, 
 which were likely to arise. 
 
 It is easy of comprehension that in the councils held 
 in different parts of the world, affecting often the most 
 vital principles of the faith, unity could only be pre- 
 served by an infallible court of appeal; for, if in the 
 councils held in widely separated provinces, and among 
 different nations, there should be as in fact was some- 
 times the case contradictory opinions set forth, nothing 
 but confusion would result, and councils from proving 
 a remedy, would but serve to aggravate the malady. 
 
 The Council of Nicaea, might thus see her decisions 
 reviewed by the later Council of Constantinople, and 
 that Council's decisions again changed by later councils. 
 So the faith would be one thing to-day and quite 
 another thing to-morrow, and the shepherd upon retiring 
 for the night, would be in doubt regarding the faith he 
 might be expected to preach on the morrow. 
 
 The necessity of a supreme head is here clearly 
 demonstrated, and as our Lord prayed for Peter alone, 
 that his faith might not fail as the supreme pastor 
 who was to feed the sheep and the lambs, shows that he 
 recognized this necessity and provided for it, and as his 
 prayers are always answered, it follows that Peter's 
 faith can never fail. 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 81 
 
 15 "St. Irenaeus, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, St. Augus- 
 tine all the Fathers point to the Chair of Peter, the 
 Apostolic See, as the center of unity, the keystone of 
 the arch of catholic faith, the divinely constituted 
 authority to whose arbitrament all should bow, whose 
 ruling all should unhesitatingly accept; and accordingly, 
 this doctrine has governed and shaped the proceedings 
 of councils from the early ages of Christianity down to 
 our times." 
 
 It was the established custom of the Church, in the 
 early centuries, as ever since, that the Pope's signature 
 was necessary to make valid the decisions of councils, 
 in the same manner as the enactments of Congress 
 require the signature of the President, before they 
 acquire the force of laws. 
 
 16 "In the year 416 were held the Councils of Carth- 
 age and Milevis, to condemn the heresy of Pelagius and 
 his disciple Coelestius, who denied the necessity of 
 Divine grace, and the existence of original sin. The 
 letters of these Councils to the Pope St. Innocent I, lay- 
 ing before him their proceedings, and requesting his 
 confirmation thereof, were drawn up by St. Augustine. 
 
 "In this letter the Fathers say: 'We have decreed, 
 that Pelagius and Coelestius, the authors of these opin- 
 ions, should be anathematized.' They do not proceed 
 further but leave the execution of the sentence, they 
 suggest, to the Supreme See, continuing as follows: 
 'Therefore Lord brother, we have deemed that this 
 affair should be made known to your Blessedness, in 
 
 is "Chair of Peter," Murphy, p. 86. 
 16 "Chair of Peter," p. 96. 
 
82 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 order that the authority of the Apostolic See may be 
 applied to our humble statutes, to secure the salvation 
 of many, as well as to correct the perversity of some.' 
 
 "In his reply, St. Innocent commends the action taken 
 by the Fathers, in which he tells them, 'You have fol- 
 lowed the ancient rule, which you know, has been always 
 observed by the whole world; namely, that all Eccle- 
 siastical affairs throughout the world are, by Divine 
 right to be referred to the Apostolic See ; that is to St. 
 Peter, the author of its name and honor.' The reply 
 of the Pope, thus confirming the proceedings of coun- 
 cils had then, and long before all the force and effect 
 of an edict or law of the Church." 
 
 In the second Council of Lyons in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury (1274), the following statement is found: "The 
 holy Roman See possesses full primacy and principality 
 over the universal Catholic Church, which primacy, with 
 the plenitude of power, she truly and humbly acknowl- 
 edges to have received from our Lord himself, in the 
 person of Blessed Peter, Prince or Head of the Apos- 
 tles, whose successor the Roman Pontiff is; and as the 
 Roman See, above all others, is bound to defend the 
 truth of faith, so also if any questions on faith arise, 
 they ought to be defined by her judgment." 
 
 In the interests of brevity, the larger number of cita- 
 tions from ancient authors have been discarded, but 
 the few employed, bearing upon this part of the sub- 
 ject, ought to suffice to show even the most prejudiced, 
 that the Roman See was in the beginning, as now, 
 the center of unity and authority, the natural sequence 
 of Peter's primacy. 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 83 
 
 You will search history in vain for an instance where 
 an appeal is taken from the Roman See to that of 
 Corinth, Alexandria, Jerusalem, or any other in exist- 
 ence. The appeal is always to, not from, the Roman 
 Church, which fact alone shows it to be the Supreme 
 Court of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Upon this subject our American Cardinal says: 
 17 "Thus we see that the name of the Pope is indelibly 
 marked on every page of ecclesiastical history. The 
 sovereign Pontiff ever stands before us as commander- 
 in-chief in the grand army of the Church. . . . Are 
 the Fathers and Doctors of the early Church consulted? 
 with one voice they all pay homage to the Bishop 
 of Rome as their spiritual Prince. Is an Ecumenical 
 Council to be convened in the East or West? the Pope 
 is its leading spirit. Are new nations to be converted 
 to the faith? there is the Holy Father clothing the 
 missionaries with authority, and giving his blessing to 
 the work." 
 
 Says the Rev. Thomas E. Cox : 18 "If we except two 
 or three out of two hundred and sixty Popes, what 
 an illustrious line of Pontiffs may we not contemplate! 
 In point of character the Papacy towers heaven-high 
 above any dynasty the world has ever seen. There 
 never was a body of men invested with power who 
 reflected more the spirit of God and less of human 
 weakness than the Popes." 
 
 If our adversaries contend that Papal supremacy has 
 been denied in every age, it may be answered so has 
 
 IT "Faith of Our Fathers," Gibbons, p. 142. 
 is "Pillar and Ground of the Truth," p. 110. 
 
84 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 the existence of God. There is no truth of history, or 
 science, or revelation, that has not again and again been 
 denied, but truth is still truth notwithstanding. 
 
 The standard writers of history in our language in 
 which history is not the chief object, but the exhibition 
 of the Papacy in the most unfavorable light, is the 
 object, are enabled through statements confirmatory of 
 former misstatements, to so lead the mind in their direc- 
 tion as to more safely reach the goal of their desires. 
 It is not in the bald statement of historical facts that 
 they teach their lesson and mislead the reader, but in 
 the deductions which, in pursuance of the one purpose, 
 they succeed in drawing from those facts, that they 
 captivate the reader and win for their opinions assent 
 and applause. 
 
 In protestant histories, the better to create an impres- 
 sion of perfect candor and fairness, the authors will 
 upon occasion spontaneously burst forth in high-sound- 
 ing periods of fulsome praise for that, which in the 
 main they so much affect to deplore and commiserate. 
 Thus Macaulay has written in the essay previously 
 quoted, many beautiful paragraphs, which, had he left 
 no contradictory writings to annul the force of, must 
 have seemed to leave him near, if not within, the very 
 entrance way to the kingdom. So, in the lines below, 
 Mr. Gladstone, by the grandeur of his theme carried 
 onward, upward and out of himself, and beyond the 
 narrow limits of his inborn prejudices, like the prophet 
 Balaam of old, pours forth in noble strains words of 
 praise which from his prominent position in the Angli- 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 85 
 
 can Church coupled with the fact of his declaration that 
 "a catholic to be loyal to his Church, must suffer the 
 forfeiture of mental and moral freedom," we know to 
 have been but an oratorical display. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone says : "The Catholic Church has 
 marched for fifteen hundred years at the head of civil- 
 ization, and has harnessed to her chariot, as the horses 
 of a triumphal car, the chief intellectual and material 
 forces of the world; her art, the art of the world; her 
 genius, the genius of the world; her greatness, glory, 
 grandeur and majesty have been almost, though not 
 absolutely, all that in these respects the world has had 
 to boast of. Her children are more numerous than all 
 the members of the sects combined ; she is every day 
 enlarging the boundaries of her vast empire; her altars 
 are raised in every clime, and her missionaries are to 
 be found wherever there are men to be taught the evan- 
 gel of immortality, and souls are to be saved. And 
 this wondrous Church which is as old as Christianity, 
 and as universal as mankind, is to-day, after its twenty 
 centuries of age, as fresh and as vigorous and as fruit- 
 ful as on the day when the Pentecostal fire was 
 showered upon the earth !" 
 
 "The Grand Old Man," here indulges in a strain not 
 entirely dissimilar to that of the other unwilling prophet 
 who, though hired to curse, was forced to say : 19 "How 
 beautiful are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, and thy tents, O 
 Israel!" 
 
 In the protestant history of the Papacy, its most dis- 
 
 19 Numbers xxiv, 5. 
 
86 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 interested actions will be ascribed to questionable mo- 
 tives. The Pope, according to these prejudiced writers 
 will be found to be ignorant, dull, turbulent, sly and 
 crafty, stubborn, obtuse, and above all arrogant. Here 
 is a sufficiently pleasing indictment against the old 
 gentleman who leads such a quiet stay-at-home life in 
 the Vatican; on whom the burden of the Church's 
 government presses down as with a mill-stone's weight. 
 The greatest Potentate on earth. The Vicar of Christ. 
 The prisoner of an earthly King! 
 
 Our adversaries are never weary of explaining how 
 impossible it is for citizens of a country to be sincere 
 in their allegiance to its authority, and at the same 
 time profess obedience to a foreign power. But our 
 civil allegiance is not divided, and the "Grand Old 
 Man" of the Vatican, is no more a foreigner to catholics, 
 than is Jesus Christ. 
 
 While it is possible to suppose a case wherein one's 
 duty to the spiritual power might conflict with that of 
 the civil, in which case it might be our duty to "obey 
 God rather than man," yet as such an unfortunate con- 
 tingency has never arisen in this country's history, we 
 might cease to feel alarmed on that account, and rather 
 seek to frighten ourselves at the thought of a more prob- 
 able impending danger in the destruction of our planet, 
 from force of contact with some wandering and irre- 
 sponsible comet. 
 
 The spiritual power, having no weapons but the spirit- 
 ual ones particularly of prayer, cannot well persecute the 
 civil power; the converse proposition not holding true. 
 Thus we have in history many instances of venerable 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 87 
 
 Pontiffs who were abducted and imprisoned by some 
 crafty monarch, and the property of the Church confis- 
 cated. The history of all nations abounds in such occur- 
 rences, as notably the English spoliation under Henry 
 VIII and later that of the Papal power in Italy, and 
 the wholesale plundering of the Church in Mexico, 
 France and Portugal. 
 
 Says Dr. Barry : 20 "The Church had gained her vast 
 dominions by the bequests of her grateful children. On 
 those riches Monarchs and nobles had ever looked with 
 covetous eyes. ... In the Middle Ages, that won- 
 derful machine of taxation did not exist. But dues, 
 charges, impositions, grew with the growth of a com- 
 plex society; and general causes contributed to make 
 the king a universal and odious tax-gatherer. In Papal 
 Bulls, no less than in English Charters, the claim of a 
 monarch to lay on exorbitant taxes, was condemned 
 under the same anathema which struck at piracy, or at 
 those who furnished arms to Saracens. 
 
 "But especially was it a crime to invade the patrimony 
 of the poor, with which church property was iden- 
 tified. Not that the clergy refused their gifts when the 
 country was in danger. They gave largely, but on the 
 higher ground of freedom not of legal necessity. Above 
 all, they did not wish to be confounded in one assess- 
 ment with lay folk, and thus abandoned to the mercy 
 of a power which, in pursuing its own designs, would 
 show them scant indulgence. The history of Europe 
 proves that they were not mistaken, Church property 
 
 20 "The Papal Monarchy," William Barry, D. D., p. 400. 
 
88 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 has been confiscated again and again to secular pur- 
 poses, on the plea of State necessity." 
 
 That the State owes its existence to God, and is 
 responsible to him for the exercise of its power, has 
 been recognized by all : yet since "The Great Reforma- 
 tion" has become seemingly little more than a sentiment 
 lightly held by the powers that be, and by succeeding 
 generations more and more, forgotten in the contem- 
 plation of that imposing pomp and dazzling light that 
 plays 'round earthly thrones and powers. Thus the 
 spiritual power is ignored, and in danger of being for- 
 gotten, and the Creator is found to be almost a super- 
 numerary in the world of his own creation. 
 
 Naturally, one of the guiding principles of protest- 
 antism is that of devotion to the civil power which was 
 so largely responsible for its existence. The pages of 
 protestant history, which contain records of contests be- 
 tween the Papacy and despotic and irreligious princes, 
 are so written that the "arrogant" Pope is always 
 engaged in "lording it" over some meek and innocent 
 defender of freedom and progress, and so ingeniously 
 worded for the purpose of exciting sympathy for the 
 wrong side as to rival the eloquence of Mark Antony 
 at the funeral of Caesar. 
 
 In a conflict between the two powers, it is the civil 
 power that is always right. Our esteemed adversaries 
 are not more ready to deny to the Pope infallibility, 
 than to assume it to be a prerogative of the civil 
 power. Thus protestantism, a child of the State 
 like the emblem of fidelity in the animal kingdom lies 
 prone at the feet of its master, content to regard the 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 89 
 
 kingdom of God as secondary to earthly thrones and 
 powers. There is no desire in all this to disparage, in 
 a degree however slight, the importance and dignity 
 of the civil power. The powers spiritual and temporal 
 are both indispensable and in efforts at good govern- 
 ment can accomplish most by working hand-in-hand. 
 That country is best governed by man, which is most 
 governed by God. 
 
 If our adversaries would but investigate in regard to 
 the many conflicts that have occurred between the Popes 
 and the civil power by the aid of reliable authorities 
 who write history in the interests of truth they would 
 notice that the Chief Shepherd stood on the side of 
 justice, mercy and truth ; the constituted defender of the 
 sheep against the ravenous wolves, in the shape of "arro- 
 gant" unprincipled and tyrannical kings. The kings of 
 catholic governments by the constitution of the State, 
 were as much the subjects of the Pontiff in spiritual 
 things as the humblest citizen; and the Pope who found 
 it necessary in the defense of his flock to excommunicate 
 a tyrannical oppressor of the sheep, did in that action 
 only his obvious duty. 
 
 Says Mr. Brownson : 21 "Has the Pope ever claimed 
 the right to absolve from their allegiance the subjects 
 of a legitimate prince, who reigns justly, according to 
 the laws and constitution of his state? Never. In every 
 such case he impresses upon his spiritual children the 
 duty of obedience. But the obligation between prince 
 and subject is reciprocal. If the subject is bound to 
 
 21 "Essays and Reviews," Brownson, p. 204. 
 6 
 
90 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 obey the prince, the prince is bound to protect the sub- 
 ject. . . . Government is instituted for the common 
 good, and the moment it ceases to consult the common 
 good, it forfeits its rights. . . . 
 
 "Now suppose the subjects of a prince, feeling them- 
 selves aggrieved, oppressed, complain to the Holy Father, 
 the judge recognized by both parties in the case, that 
 their prince has broken the compact, violated his oath 
 of office, and become a tyrant; suppose the Pope enter- 
 tains the complaint, and summons both parties in the 
 case, to plead before him, and, after a patient hearing, 
 gives judgment against the prince, declares him to have 
 forfeited his rights, and that his subjects are absolved 
 from their allegiance, what would there be in all this 
 to which reason could object? This is the kind of abso- 
 lution the Popes have granted, and never have they 
 deposed a prince or absolved his subjects, except in cases 
 similar to the one here supposed. He merely declares 
 the law, and applies it to the facts of the case pre- 
 sented. To deny the right to resist the tyrant is to 
 doom the people to hopeless slavery ; to assert it, and yet 
 leave to each individual the right to judge of the time, 
 the means and the mode of resistance, is disorder, no- 
 governmentism, the worst form of despotism. 
 
 "In the 'Dark Ages', men were able to avoid either 
 alternative. By recognizing the Pope as umpire, who, 
 by his character and position, as head of the Church, 
 which embraced all nations, was naturally, not to say, 
 divinely fitted to be impartial and just, they practically 
 secured the right of resistance to tyranny, without un- 
 dermining legitimate authority." 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 91 
 
 22 "Law, learning, science, all that we term civilization 
 in the present social condition of the European people," 
 says Mr. Lang a protestant writer "spring from the 
 supremacy of the Roman Pontiff and of the catholic 
 priesthood over the kings and nobles of the Middle 
 Ages. All that men have of civil, political and religious 
 freedom in the present age, may be clearly traced in the 
 history of every country to the working and effects of 
 the independent power of the Church of Rome over the 
 property, social economy, mind and intelligence of all 
 connected with her in the social body." 
 
 When a protestant has the courage to speak the 
 truth in this manly fashion, the fairy tales of "The 
 Great Reformation" concerning the Popes are seen 
 tumbling down like houses of cards at a breath. 
 
 Again the same author says : 23 "The Church of 
 Rome was an independent, distinct, and often an oppos- 
 ing power in every country to the civil power, a cir- 
 cumstance in the social economy of the Middle Ages, to 
 which perhaps Europe is indebted for her civilization 
 and freedom." 
 
 24 "From the fifth to the thirteenth century, the Church 
 was engaged," says Canon Farrar, "in elaborating the 
 most splendid organization, which the world has ever 
 seen. Starting with the separation of the spiritual from 
 the temporal power, and the mutual independence of 
 each in its own sphere, Catholicism worked hand-in- 
 hand with feudalism for the amelioration of mankind. 
 
 22 "Observations on Europe," p. 395, Laing, Scotch Presbyterian. 
 
 23 "Notes of a Traveller," Laing-, p. 194. 
 
 24 "The Victories of Christianity," p. 115, lect. iii. 
 
92 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 "Under the influence of feudalism slavery became 
 serfdom, and aggressive was modified into defensive 
 war. Under the influence of Catholicism the monasteries 
 preserved learning and maintained the sense of the 
 unity of Christendom. Under the combined influence 
 of both grew up the lovely ideal of chivalry, moulding 
 generous instincts into gallant institutions, making the 
 body vigorous and the soul pure, wedding the Christian 
 virtues of humility and tenderness to the natural graces 
 of courtesy and strength. 
 
 "During this period the Church was the one mighty 
 witness for light in an age of darkness, for order in an 
 age of lawlessness, for personal holiness in an epoch of 
 licentious rage." 
 
 Far better, it will always seem to those who think 
 rightly, to have retained this old Church founded by 
 the Roman See and which this witness declares to have 
 been "the one mighty witness for light in an age of 
 darkness," than to have substituted for it, one founded 
 in an age of comparative light, by a King in moral 
 darkness under the influence of "licentious rage." 
 
 Cardinal Manning says : "The supremacy of the ma- 
 terial over the moral order of the world has arisen from 
 the violation of the liberties of the Church of God. 
 There was a time when some of the greatest monarchies 
 had hardly a standing army; when the voice of the 
 Vicar of Jesus Christ sufficed to arbitrate in their con- 
 tentions. But now, more than four millions of men are 
 perpetually under arms, gazing in defiance and in fear 
 on each other's motions, waiting to ward or to strike 
 the first blow." 
 
The Supremacy of the Popes 93 
 
 What the English Cardinal here says, is but a simple 
 outline, a sketch, of present day conditions. Never 
 before were seen a like number of Peace Congresses. 
 Never before was good talk more widely indulged in. 
 In these great assemblies in the interests of the world's 
 peace, two things are noticeable ; first, that their deliber- 
 ations seem to reach their culmination in a more exten- 
 sive preparation for war ; second, that while in pre- 
 reformation days, whole nations respected Christ; and 
 they also respected Christ's Vicar sufficiently to obey 
 him, so that, through this agency, God in an especial 
 manner ruled the world; yet in these gatherings of rep- 
 resentative men, he who in the past could, by the force 
 of unarmed goodness alone, hurl tyrants from their 
 thrones, arbitrate the cause of nations and make all 
 respect the interests of right and justice, he, the Vicar 
 of the Prince of Peace, has no place assigned him in 
 these deliberations, and no request to favor the conclave 
 with his presence. 
 
 With all this talk of peace without mention of God 
 save in a casual way and in mere compliment as to an 
 absent power the armies of nations will still remain at 
 "attention" to every move of rival powers, ready to do 
 battle at the accidental discharge of a fire-arm, or the 
 rapid approach of a hostile biplane in the air. 
 
 That catholics in obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff 
 have not in the past failed to be patriotic, the names 
 that figure in the world's roll-call of battlefields, and 
 the green mounds on her many hill-sides sufficiently 
 attest. Temporal governments have recognized these 
 
94 The Supremacy of the Popes 
 
 facts, and may in time recognize that other fact, that 
 there can be no lasting world's peace where the 
 authority of God is not recognized as the most real, the 
 most indispensable, and the most patent of all facts ; and, 
 that to this human authority is entirely secondary and 
 subordinate. In an era when right makes might, we can 
 alone look for peace. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 1 "For where Peter is, there is the Church." 
 
 Papal Infallibility naturally follows as the result of 
 the infallibility of the Church. It would be impossible 
 to think of an infallible body as having a fallible head. 
 The head is the seat of intelligence for the whole body. 
 The infinite number and endless variety of motions 
 made daily by the body and its several members, result 
 from orders received directly from the head. In the 
 rapid transmission of these orders to the fingers 
 notably as in piano playing should any inaccuracy be 
 noticed the cause would be traceable to the transmitting 
 machinery, the nerves and muscles, the head would 
 always be right. 
 
 The infallible teaching of the Apostles and their suc- 
 cessors is maintained through union with the divinely 
 appointed head who was commanded to feed the sheep. 
 The doctrine of Papal Infallibility is as old as the 
 Church over which Peter presided, were it not so, it 
 could not have been defined in A. D. 1870, by the 
 Vatican Council, as no doctrine unknown to the Apos- 
 tles can later be made an article of faith. The many 
 texts of Scripture relied upon to prove the primacy 
 
 i St. Ambrose. 
 
96 Papal Infallibility 
 
 of Peter and the infallibility of the Church, are equally 
 serviceable in demonstrating the infallibility of the Popes. 
 
 Papal Infallibility is the accomplishment and ful- 
 fillment of God's Word and shows how the Scriptures 
 were understood in the ages prior to "The Great Re- 
 formation." The strained and far-fetched interpreta- 
 tions of these texts as found in "Barnes' Notes on the 
 Gospels," and those of other protestant commentators, 
 by the aid of private interpretations which the Scrip- 
 ture prohibits makes the divine Word to testify in 
 their behalf. 
 
 It was the understanding of the Fathers, writing in 
 the first centuries, that the prerogatives bestowed upon 
 Peter, were for his successors also, the gift of inspira- 
 tion excepted, that being necessary only for the writing 
 of the Word once for all. In the shepherd's case, how- 
 ever, there could be no long interregnum, it being 
 necessary that the sheep should constantly be fed upon 
 the pure Gospel. As a Gospel fallibly interpreted would 
 not be pure food but an adulteration, the divine assist- 
 ance of the Holy Ghost promised to blessed Peter, was 
 for his successors also, to enable them to feed the whole 
 of Christ's flock. 
 
 If God, for the purpose of revealing his Gospel, 
 could divinely inspire men, he could as well make them 
 infallible in their interpretation of it. The promise of 
 the Holy Ghost to keep the Church in all truth, is but 
 the promise of infallibility. When our brethren there- 
 fore deny infallibility they admit that they have no con- 
 nection with the Church of the Apostles. If the 
 
Papal Infallibility 97 
 
 protestant churches would make good their claim of "a 
 right to live," they should be able to show their pres- 
 ence and influence in the world's history all through 
 the ages in which an undivided Church, professing 
 infallibility, was everywhere dominant in the affairs of 
 men, and in teaching loyalty to Caesar, taught a more 
 exalted loyalty to Caesar's God. 
 
 Our friends should be able to show what countries 
 they civilized, what heathen tribes they converted to the 
 faith. They should show where they lay concealed for 
 centuries during which the Catholic Church was the 
 only light which shone in the surrounding gloom of 
 pagan darkness. They should tell where they were in 
 hiding when, in a turbulent and lawless age, the Papal 
 dynasty was resorting, through necessity, to the shield 
 and battle-ax of the warrior to defend the sheepfold 
 and drive those ravenous wolves, the Saracens, back 
 to their native deserts, and in many a glorious victory 
 preserving the Christian faith from utter annihilation ! 
 They should show what history gives us accounts of 
 protestant saints and martyrs, and what bard sings of 
 the glory of their achievements in converting nations 
 to the faith, in the ages that tell of an Augustine, a 
 Jerome, or a Gregory the Great. They should show 
 that they were present on the shores of Galilee when 
 our Lord commissioned Peter to feed the sheep. And 
 more than this : 2 "Let them," says Tertullian, in the 
 second century, "produce the origin of their church. Let 
 them exhibit the succession of their Bishops, so that 
 
 2 "Faith of Our Fathers," p. 70. 
 
98 Papal Infallibility 
 
 the first of them may appear to have been ordained 
 by an Apostle, or by an apostolic man who was in 
 communion with the Apostles." 
 
 Our friends of the "rival churches" can do none of 
 these things, and being at a loss how to claim an 
 existence from the beginning and a consequent par- 
 ticipation in the promises made in the Gospel to the 
 Church primitive, have been obliged to resort to the 
 ingenious, if not ingenuous, theory of an Invisible 
 Church! What! an invisible church to do a visible 
 work among men, to instruct, to guide, to reprove, con- 
 vert nations, civilize the world, fight the enemies of 
 the faith, defend the sheepfold, feed the sheep? Why, 
 our Lord's Church was likened to a city set upon a hill, 
 a light to the Gentiles, its ministers, a flaming fire 
 preaching salvation from its watch-towers, that all from 
 far and near might hear. 
 
 Had any adherents of this invisible church been 
 present in their unreal and invisible entity when Peter 
 was commissioned to feed the sheep, they must have 
 become visible long enough to have uttered a ringing 
 protest against the appointment. The concealment of 
 the protestant churches was complete for fifteen cen- 
 turies, and the resounding fearful cry from the Roman 
 Amphitheater of "the Christians to the lions," failed 
 to penetrate the confines of their abiding place. An 
 invisible church, with its invisible work, was not the 
 kind needed in those days. God's kingdom on earth 
 has a visible existence, because it has a visible work 
 to do. There is no record in history of so much as 
 one heathen nation, or even of one small island of the 
 
Papal Infallibility 99 
 
 seas, whose inhabitants were civilized by an invisible 
 church, and by it converted to Christianity. If then it 
 be true that 3 "by their fruits you shall know them," 
 the invisible church must be but a figment of the protest- 
 ant brain. 
 
 The promise of the Holy Ghost to the Church, could 
 have been made only to the Church then in existence. 
 Protestants were not then in existence and therefore 
 were not concerned with the promise. Furthermore 
 they show no fruits which result from the gift of divine 
 assistance, for they repudiate all connection with the doc- 
 trine of Infallibility, and have no experimental knowl- 
 edge of unity, which two are among the principal fruits 
 resulting from the presence of the Holy Spirit in the 
 Church. 
 
 In virtue of the divine assistance promised him in 
 Blessed Peter, the Roman Pontiff, when defining from 
 the Chair of Peter a doctrine concerning faith or morals, 
 is preserved from error. Any opinion which the Pope 
 may express verbally or in writing upon any subject not 
 connected with the two mentioned, would be valuable 
 only as his information upon that subject entitled him 
 to consideration as an authority. The opinions of a 
 judge, upon questions of law, when not upon the bench, 
 have no more judicial significance than those of any 
 other person. In like manner it is possible that in ex- 
 pressing his private opinion upon subjects regarding 
 faith and morals, a Pope may err. 
 
 Our Lord knowing well that as time in its onward 
 
 a Matt, vii, 16. 
 
ioo Papal Infallibility 
 
 march down the centuries, would carry farther and 
 farther away the scene of his life and sufferings from 
 the memory of succeeding generations of men, and that 
 doubt and unbelief would take possession of the mind, 
 and strange opinions the result in large part of pride 
 and conceit, come to dwell in the mind and usurp the 
 place of faith promised the Holy Ghost * "to teach all 
 things, and bring all things to mind." Our Lord fore- 
 told that 5 ravenous wolves would come in sheep's cloth- 
 ing false teachers who would pervert the faith of the 
 flock under the pretence of leading them into new and 
 greener pastures. What remedy would most naturally 
 occur even to the human mind in such a necessity? 
 Surely it would be to appoint a Chief Shepherd to feed 
 the sheep and to keep him by divine assistance in all 
 truth. In no other way could the sheep be so effectually 
 guarded from the figurative wolves of error, as by pre- 
 serving the Chief Shepherd from the possibility of teach- 
 ing it. 
 
 It was not an accident that our Lord whose prayers 
 were always heard 6 prayed for Peter that his faith 
 might not fail, but it was a part of the original design 
 for providing his Church with an unerring head. It 
 is well to keep in mind when reading history, that Popes 
 have been called upon at different times to act in a 
 variety of capacities. So when we read that in the early 
 Christian centuries, Popes, by common consent acted as 
 the arbiters between princes, hurled anathemas at here- 
 
 4 John xiv, 26. 
 
 5 Matt, vii, 15. 
 
 fi Luke xxii, 31-32. 
 
Papal Infallibility 101 
 
 tics, and laid under the ban of an interdict the domains 
 of some arrogant king; we must understand that in 
 all these and similar acts, there is no assumption of In- 
 fallibility, as the Popes in these instances acted in the 
 private capacities of doctors, sovereigns, or as arbi- 
 trators by request, in many ways rendering the greatest 
 service to mankind, discouraging the arbitrament of 
 arms, and preaching to the world the Gospel of Peace. 
 
 In the following hypothetical case, may be seen the 
 practical working of the Supreme Court of the Universal 
 Church, whereby she maintains in her decisions a per- 
 fect unity of belief among the numerous and diversified 
 nations of the earth. Let it be supposed that among the 
 believers of Catholic doctrine a diversity of opinion 
 should arise regarding some point of belief not yet 
 defined. The Pope very likely would obtain the opinions 
 of his cabinet of advisers, the Cardinals ; what views 
 the ancient Fathers had expressed would be carefully 
 noted, and such other means of enlightenment as the 
 Holy Ghost might suggest to the Pope's mind would be 
 made use of, as when of old the Apostles wrote, "it 
 seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." 
 
 If the subject under consideration was of sufficient 
 gravity and importance to make a definition necessary, 
 the Pope might call a Council of the Bishops of 
 Christendom; and the question be made the subject of 
 profound study and patient investigation by all, accom- 
 panied by the frequent offering up of the Holy Sac- 
 rifice with other prayers for divine guidance. Finally, 
 when having with such care and diligence made use of 
 every known means of enlightenment, the Pontiff, with 
 
IO2 Papal Infallibility 
 
 the promised aid of the Holy Ghost, announces, from 
 the Chair of Peter, his judgment to the Church Uni- 
 versal, his decision is Infallible. 
 
 The definition of faith, made with such care, while 
 its original scope may he enlarged upon and more clearly 
 brought out by succeeding incumbents of the Chair of 
 Peter, can never be reversed. Thus while the Church 
 may, and does grow, she can never change. The doc- 
 trines taught by the Apostles are the doctrines taught 
 to-day; and, because the teaching- of the Apostles was 
 infallible truth, no revision of their statements will be 
 witnessed in any coming age. The doctrine of faith 
 has not, says Leo XIII. "been proposed like a philo- 
 sophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, 
 but has been delivered as a divine deposit to be faith- 
 fully kept and infallibly declared." 
 
 The Church spares no pains to ascertain the will of 
 God to men. T "At the Council of the Vatican in 1870." 
 says Father Murphy, "there were seven hundred bishops 
 from all parts of the earth : the representatives of more 
 than thirty nations and of two hundred and seventy-five 
 millions of Christians. It was said to have been a sub- 
 lime spectacle to see the cardinals, primates, archbishops. 
 and bishops, for two whole hours moving up to the 
 throne to kiss the Gospel and openly make profession 
 of one common faith, in communion with the one Su- 
 preme Pastor and Teacher of all." 
 
 If with divine assistance, together with the combined 
 learning of such a number of eminent men with the 
 light of nearly twenty centuries of faith to guide them, 
 
 : "Chair of Peter." Murphy, p. 4 
 
Papal Infallibility 103 
 
 the true meaning of the Bible could not be found, it 
 woukl be strange indeed, and all the more so, when it 
 is seen with what ease and confidence supreme the 
 pious protestant cobbler on his bench, in virtue of his 
 own personal infallibility defines and defies dogmatic 
 truth with a recklessness inspired wholly by a lack of 
 knowledge of the subject; our wonder must increase 
 until the infallibility of the Pope seems but a cheap and 
 feeble imitation in comparison. 
 
 If inquiry be made of the past, the testimony in 
 favor of Papal Infallibility win be found in every age 
 to be conclusive in establishing it as a fact beyond dis- 
 pute. " At the Third General Council held at Ephesos, 
 A. D. 431, the Pope's legate declared, that "no one 
 doubted, nay that it was known to all ages, that Peter, 
 the Prince of the Apostles and foundation of the Church, 
 had received from Christ the keys of the kingdom, 
 and the power of binding and loosing, and that now 
 and ever he both lives and judges in his successors." 
 St. Leo I says: *"St. Peter ceases not to preside over 
 his own See; and unfailing he enjoys association with 
 the Eternal Priest; for that solidity which, when he 
 was made a rock, he received from the rock Christ, 
 has transmitted itself to his heirs.' 9 Tertuflian writing 
 in the second century says: ""Was anything hidden 
 from Peter, who was called the rock, on which the 
 Church was to be built, who obtained the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven, and the power of loosing and bind- 
 
104 Papal Infallibility 
 
 ing, in heaven and on earth ?" And again : 1X "If thou 
 thinkest that heaven is still closed, remember that the 
 Lord left the keys thereof to Peter, and through him 
 to the Church." 
 
 These excerpts from the Fathers show that what was 
 bestowed upon Peter, was for the good of his successors 
 as well and if "nothing was hidden from Peter," then 
 he must have known and taught the truth, the whole 
 truth and nothing but the truth, and therefore both he 
 and his successors were Infallible. 
 
 The belief of the Fathers was, that Peter was the 
 Prince of the Apostles, and the Head Shepherd of the 
 entire flock; that he occupied the Apostolic Chair at 
 Rome, the source of sacerdotal unity, with which Church 
 12 "the faithful everywhere were bound to agree," and 
 only those 13 "in communion with that Bishop, were in 
 communion with the Catholic Church." 14 "Therefore 
 you cannot deny," says St. Optatus in the fourth century, 
 "that you know that in the city of Rome was first 
 established by Peter the Episcopal Chair in which sat 
 Peter, the head of all the Apostles, . . . that in 
 this one chair unity might be preserved by all; but that 
 he should be a schismatic and sinner, who against this 
 one chair should set up another." 
 
 He then gives the list of the Roman bishops suc- 
 ceeding Peter to the then reigning Pope, and continu- 
 ing says that, 15 "the schismatics are outside the Catholic 
 
 11 Scorpiace, n. 10. 
 
 12 Irenaeus, "Adversus Haeresos," lib. iii, cap. i. 
 is St. Cyprian Epistola, 52. 
 
 1 1 Optati Milevitani Opera, lib. ii. 
 is Ibid., p. 49. 
 
Papal Infallibility 
 
 Church, because none of their bishops communicate 
 with the same Roman Chair;" and he alludes to the 
 keys given to Peter, "our chief, to whom Christ said 
 'I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, 
 and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.' 
 Whence is it, then, that you strive to usurp to your- 
 selves the keys of the kingdom, you who sacrilegiously 
 wage war against the Chair of Peter, by your presump- 
 tion and audacity?" 
 
 Here in the testimony of the Fathers of the first 
 ages of the Church, we have the complete refutation of 
 the errors of the protestant commentators, who tell us 
 that "Peter was not the prince of the Apostles ; that he 
 was never in Rome ; that Jesus had no thought of Peter's 
 successors;" that "he was never Bishop of Rome;" that 
 "he had no more to do with the founding of the 
 Church of Rome than St. Paul," and that it is altogether 
 a vain assumption, that the Church should need a head. 
 
 Now how are protestants able to efface from their 
 minds this authentic testimony of men living at the 
 time, who saw the foundation of the Church, assisted 
 in teaching its doctrines, and knew all about it there 
 was to know? By recourse to the Bible as each one 
 understands it, and which enables any proposition to be 
 proven from it that a controvertist may desire, and 
 which proof is in like manner susceptible of further 
 controversy by an opponent who has the same right 
 of private interpretation; thus preventing any dispute 
 concerning doctrine from ever receiving a definite 
 solution. 
 
 To whom should we go to find what the primitive 
 
106 Papal Infallibility 
 
 Church taught, but to the primitive Christians them- 
 selves? Their writings are ample and clear, and our 
 adversaries have ever professed a great respect for the 
 Church of the first five centuries, before what they call 
 the "great falling away and the advent of Popery." 
 But all these Fathers of these centuries, the venerable 
 Polycarp, pupil of St. John the Apostle, Augustine, 
 Cyprian, Jerome, Basil, all in their writings testify to 
 the supremacy and Infallibility of Peter and his suc- 
 cessors, and are incontrovertible witnesses against the 
 protestant theory and teaching. 
 
 The great protestant writer Leibnitz 16 says : "When 
 therefore Almighty God established his church upon 
 earth, as a sacred city placed upon a mountain, his 
 immaculate spouse, and the interpretress of his will, and 
 enjoined that throughout the whole world her unity 
 should ever be maintained, and ordered that she should 
 be heard by all under pain of being confounded with 
 heathens or publicans, it follows that he should establish 
 a mode by which the will of the church, the interpretress 
 of the Divine Will, might be known. And this was 
 "shown by the Apostles, who represented the body of the 
 church in the beginning. For they, the Council of 
 Jerusalem being assembled, explaining their decision said, 
 'It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.' 
 Nor did this privilege of the Holy Ghost assisting 
 the church cease on the death of the Apostles, but it 
 ought to endure to the consummation of the world, and 
 
 16 Leibnitz, dying in 1716, in his seventieth year, left this manu- 
 script written by his own hand. The original in Latin can be 
 found in the "Chair of Peter," by J. N. Murphy, p. 501-2. 
 
Papal Infallibility 107 
 
 in the whole body of the church it was propagated 
 through the bishops, as the successors of the Apostles. 
 
 "But as a council cannot continuously nor frequently 
 be held, for the bishops cannot often be absent from 
 the flocks over which they preside, and yet the church 
 should personally exist and subsist in order that her will 
 should be known, it follows, by the Divine law itself, 
 and by the very memorable words of Christ addressed to 
 Peter when he specially committed to him the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven, and likewise when three times 
 he emphatically commended to him his sheep to be fed 
 that it was insinuated and believed in the church, that 
 one among the Apostles and one successor of him among 
 the bishops, should be endowed with greater power, in 
 order that through him, as a visible centre of unity, the 
 body of the church might be bound together; the com- 
 mon necessity might be provided for; if indeed, a coun- 
 cil might be convoked, and when convoked, directed ; 
 and in the intervals of councils it might be possible to 
 take measures that the interests of the faithful should 
 not suffer. 
 
 "And when the ancients continuously hand down the 
 tradition that in the city of Rome, the capital of the 
 world, Peter the Apostle governed the church and 
 suffered martyrdom, and designated his successor, nor 
 did any other bishop ever come in that manner, we 
 acknowledge with good reason the Roman Bishop to be 
 the prince of the rest. Therefore this at least ought 
 to be certain, that, in all things which would not bear 
 the delay of a General Council, or are not sufficiently 
 important for a General Council, the Prince of Bishops, 
 
io8 Papal Infallibility 
 
 or the Supreme Pontiff, has meanwhile the same power 
 as the whole church ; that through him any one can be 
 excommunicated and restored, and that to him all the 
 faithful owe true obedience, of which the force goes 
 to the extent, that, as far as an oath is to be kept in 
 all things which can be observed with the safety of 
 one's soul, so also to the Supreme Pontiff, as the one 
 visible Vicar of God on earth, obedience is to be ren- 
 dered in all things, which we, examining ourselves, 
 judge can be done without sin and with a safe con- 
 science, so far that, in doubtful matters, other things 
 being equal, obedience is to be considered safer; and 
 this is to be done through love of the unity of the 
 church, and in order that we may obey God in those 
 whom he has sent. For we ought to suffer anything 
 more willingly, even with great loss to ourselves, than 
 be dissevered from the church and give cause for 
 schism." 
 
 17 "The doctrines of papal supremacy and infallibility," 
 says Sidney Smith, "are neither unreasonable nor ex- 
 travagant. If they are true, a means has been provided 
 of maintaining the Christian people in the bonds of unity 
 which is simple and easy of application, and at the same 
 time in harmony with the nature of man. If they are 
 not true the inevitable result must be what we find to 
 be in fact wherever the pope's authority is not acknowl- 
 edged ; indifferentism in place of a common faith ; in- 
 numerable schisms in place of sacramental inter-com- 
 munion, religious anarchy in place of ecclesiastical order. 
 There is then the strongest presumption that the system 
 
 ir Rev. Sidney F. Smith. 
 
Papal Infallibility 109 
 
 which the two doctrines represent is that which our 
 Lord established, since otherwise He would, have made 
 himself responsible for all the horrors which good people 
 deplore. This is the first conclusion which has been 
 arrived at. 
 
 "A second is that the evidence yielded by Scripture 
 and ecclesiastical history, when interpreted according to 
 the laws of right reason, points exactly in the same 
 direction. It shows that our Lord has ordained what 
 we should have expected him to ordain. These two 
 things, the presumption and the proof, should be con- 
 sidered together. Through their harmony each adds 
 strength to the other. They are like the strands of a 
 rope which gain strength from being intertwined. 
 
 "There is no desire on the part of catholics 
 to evade a single one of the difficulties which can be 
 brought against the doctrines and institutions they 
 believe to be divine. On the contrary there is the 
 greatest desire to deal with them all solidly and 
 thoroughly, so that every impediment may be cleared 
 away from the path of those who are anxious to find the 
 truth." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 As stated in chapter third, it is the infallible Church 
 which first claims our attention, and from which author- 
 ity later on we receive the complete Scriptures as the 
 divinely inspired word of God. The genuineness of all 
 written documents must be established by reputable wit- 
 nesses; it being an axiom of reason and law, that no 
 writing or book can authenticate itself. The only wit- 
 ness competent to prove the inerrancy of the Bible is 
 the infallible Church, which was, at least as far as the 
 New Testament was concerned, a prior fact in history. 
 
 The Bible, if received by protestants, must be accepted 
 upon the testimony of the witness known as the Catholic 
 Church. This Church, at the Council of Carthage in the 
 fourth century decided by the aid of the Holy Ghost, 
 promised by our Lord to keep the Church in all truth 
 which of the books of the Old Testament were Canon- 
 ical, and which of several Gospels and Epistles extant 
 in different parts of the world were inspired writings 
 and which were not. This decision was approved by 
 Rome. 
 
 In the Catholic Church the Bible has remained most 
 carefully preserved and honored as the Book of books, 
 the word of God, and whose pages since the art of 
 printing made it possible have been open to all, who 
 with due reverence desired to read them. 
 
The Bible in 
 
 "To the intent that none should have occasion to 
 misconstrue the true meaning thereof, it is to be thought 
 that, if all men were good and catholic then were it 
 lawful, yea and very profitable also, that the Scripture 
 should be in English, as long as the translations were 
 true and faithful. . . . And that is the cause that 
 the clergy did agree as it is in the Constitution Pro- 
 vincial, that the Bibles that were translated into English 
 before Wycliffe's days might be suffered; so that only 
 such as had them in handling were allowed by the 
 Ordinary and approved as proper to read them and so 
 that their reading should be only for the setting forth 
 of God's glory." 
 
 It will be noticed, in this ancient discourse, that there 
 must have been at this time some restrictions placed 
 upon Bible reading. Wycliffe had, with the assistance 
 of other reformers, made a translation of some parts 
 of the Bible, which, under the pretext of giving the 
 same to the people, was to be used in a warfare against 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 To deceive the simple and the unstable who, in their 
 composition and make-up, seem near akin to the 
 weather-cock that from its point of vantage changes 
 front with every passing breeze many novelties and 
 corruptions of the Sacred Text, had with great care, 
 been introduced. The pastors naturally forbade their 
 flocks not to read the Scriptures, but Wycliffe's false 
 translation of them. 
 
 From a mole-hill so small, protestants have sought to 
 build a mountain. There never was a time, when and 
 
ii2 The Bible 
 
 where, "men good and catholic," could not read the 
 Bible as much as they desired. 
 
 His Holiness Pius VI in a letter to the Archbishop 
 of Florence, says : "At a time that a vast number of 
 bad books, which grossly attack the Catholic Religion, 
 are circulated even among the unlearned, to the great 
 destruction of souls, you judge exceedingly well, that the 
 faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy 
 Scriptures : For these are the most abundant sources 
 which ought to be left open to every one to draw from 
 them purity of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate the 
 errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt 
 times." 
 
 In the fourth century, by order of Pope Damasus, the 
 Bible was translated by St. Jerome into Latin, which 
 language was then universal throughout the entire civil- 
 ized world. In England, we see in the eighth century 
 the venerable Bede, engaged in translating the Scrip- 
 tures into the Saxon tongue which was the language of 
 the country at that time. 
 
 1 We have seen that before Luther ever saw the light, 
 there were numerous translations of the Bible in the 
 German language. The library of the Paulist Fathers 
 of New York City contains a copy of the ninth edition 
 of the Bible in high German, profusely illustrated with 
 colored wood engravings, and printed by Antonius Co- 
 burger the year in which Luther was born. 
 
 "The Catholic Church has the highest reverence for 
 the Bible because it is the Word of God. By her laws 
 
 1 Introduction. 
 
 2 San Francisco Monitor, Mar. 19, 1898. 
 
The Bible 113 
 
 she obliges her clergy to study it. By the instructions 
 of Popes and Bishops she urges the laity to read it. 
 
 "The writings of her Saints and great teachers are 
 full of passages pointing out the priceless treasure we 
 possess in the Bible, and insisting on the duty of its 
 reverent study. The Catholic Church and only the 
 Catholic Church ever really taught the Bible to the 
 people, and for this purpose she employed painting, 
 poetry, music, sacred plays and the ceremonial of her 
 sacred services. By these means the people, very few 
 of whom could read, were made familiar with the 
 Bible story and teaching. The reformers swept away 
 all these things, and thus deprived the people of their 
 only means of becoming acquainted with the Word of 
 God. Hence the reformers instead of giving the Bible 
 to the people took it away from them. 
 
 "For twelve hundred years the Church never inter- 
 fered with the reading of the Bible, and when since 
 that time she has condemned particular translations, 
 it was because they were not the Word of God." 
 
 The labor bestowed upon the Bible, by the monks of 
 the first Christian centuries, in writing it word for word, 
 and by the committal of large portions of it to memory, 
 together with the fact that "they wrote and thought, 
 and talked in the very language of the Scriptures," 
 shows the value placed upon the Bible by the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 The theory of protestants that the Bible alone is the 
 rule of faith, seems not to square with the facts con- 
 cerning the Church's establishment. If we examine the 
 Scriptures with care, we cannot fail to reach the con- 
 
ii4 The Bible 
 
 elusion that our Lord did not intend his religion to 
 be exclusively a book religion. When our divine Master 
 had finished his earthly ministry, he ascended into heaven 
 without leaving so far as we know the smallest scrap 
 of his writing upon earth, but we do find the command 
 to teach all nations by word of mouth : than this, there 
 could be nothing more plain and direct. 
 
 The happy results attending the introduction of the 
 Christian religion, seem not to have been dependent 
 upon the reading of the Bible 3 "But in course of time 
 circumstances arose in which the Apostles thought it 
 necessary to commit portions of Christian revelation to 
 writing. Errors arose and these errors might be best 
 refuted by an Epistle; . . . Thus the books of the 
 New Testament were written as inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost. There is not the slightest ground for believing 
 that they were to contain all the truths of Christian 
 revelation, or that they were to take the place of the 
 living voice of the Church." 
 
 Protestants nearly go into convulsions at the thought 
 of believing anything not contained in the Bible, but 
 as St. John says, "the world itself . . . would not 
 be able to contain the books that should be written" 
 concerning those things which Jesus did ; then it follows 
 that the Bible does not contain the entire word of God. 
 And yet, of that portion of God's word contained in 
 the Bible, our friends are by no means panic-stricken at 
 the thought of "rejecting" many "hard and rigid" doc- 
 trines, which subject the natural mind of fallen hu- 
 manity to a yoke at once galling and distasteful, and 
 
 3 San Francisco Monitor, Vol. xlvi, No. 1. 
 
The Bible 115 
 
 the burden of which is the reverse of sweetness and 
 light. Though retaining the word in their articles of 
 belief, many protestants have if we may judge from 
 their backwardness in teaching it, practically banished 
 from their faith, as a grim specter of the past, the Bible 
 doctrine of hell. 
 
 Protestants read the command "confess your sins one 
 to another," and reply "who can forgive sins but God;" 
 as they seldom or never observe the command, their 
 objection must be regarded by themselves as conclusive 
 of the matter, yet this objection is identically the same 
 as that made by the Scribes, the sworn enemies of our 
 divine Saviour. Thus our friends quote the words of the 
 Scribes found in the Bible, in extenuation of their dis- 
 obedience of the Divine commands, also found in the 
 Bible. Not a few protestants are able to read that 
 "unless a man be born again of water and the Holy 
 Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," and 
 still not believe baptism necessary to salvation. 
 
 When Christianity was established and great numbers 
 were daily added to the Church "of such as should be 
 saved ;" the New Testament was as yet unwritten, which 
 shows that Christ's divinely commissioned teachers 
 could, without difficulty, teach the Christian faith with- 
 out a complete Bible. But even when the New Testa- 
 ment was finished, the work of multiplying copies by 
 the pen of the transcriber was necessarily so very slow, 
 that not one in a hundred of the Christians of the first 
 centuries in all human probability ever saw a Bible, 
 and among those who did, not one in a thousand could 
 
ii6 The Bible 
 
 have read it. These facts show conclusively that Chris- 
 tianity is not a book religion. 
 
 The conversion of the primitive Christians was 
 effected through the preaching of the Gospel by a 
 ministry divinely commissioned the proof of that com- 
 mission being the miracles wrought and by the efficacy 
 of the Sacraments of the Church which our Lord built 
 on Peter the rock ; and not by the reading of a book. 
 
 A dumb book can neither prove, or explain itself, 
 and can only be corroborative of the voice of the living 
 teacher. Those who wish to acquire a knowledge of 
 any art or science must depend chiefly upon oral instruc- 
 tion rather than the reading of many books, however 
 helpful they may be. 
 
 Whoever heard, for instance, of a great pianist, whose 
 proficiency was acquired without a teacher, simply by 
 the reading of books explanatory of the art; or of suc- 
 cessful schools, who, without teachers, relied upon text- 
 books solely? The teacher therefore is first, the text- 
 book secondary. 
 
 In the foundation of the Church is seen the preserva- 
 tion of the same natural order ; first the divinely com- 
 missioned ministry preaching the faith which they had 
 heard from the very lips of the divine Teacher, and 
 later on in the fourth century, that same divinely com- 
 missioned body of infallible teachers, deciding upon the 
 authenticity of the different books, and giving to the 
 world the entire Bible, whose claim that "all Scripture 
 is given by inspiration of God," is thus vouched for and 
 proven by God's infallibile Church the only competent 
 witness ; and the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is 
 
The Bible 117 
 
 therefore a fact. Without the testimony of the Church 
 to confirm our faith in the divine inspiration, the Bible 
 is of no more use to us than a bound volume of old 
 almanacs. 
 
 That the Bible separated from its rightful owner and 
 explainer becomes a blind leader of the blind, is evinced 
 by the loss of certainty in religious teaching by protest- 
 ants who so use it. As the Bible was in the early 
 centuries practically out of reach of the common people, 
 the theory that every one should read the Bible for 
 himself is, in view of this fact, but the acme of foolish- 
 ness. The Bible to be a reliable guide to all people 
 must be so plain and easy of understanding, that no one 
 could possibly mistake the meaning of a text, which 
 would cause them to receive error instead of truth. The 
 Bible is a book full of difficulties, and obscurities, not 
 only for the unlearned but for the learned who make 
 it their chief study. 
 
 St. Peter tells us that 4 "in the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 there are certain things hard to be understood, which 
 the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the 
 other Scriptures, to their own destruction." All are 
 familiar with the account in 5 Scripture, anent the Ethe- 
 opian, who, riding in his chariot, was reading the Bible, 
 whom the the deacon Philip seeing, asked the question 
 "thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou 
 readest? And he said, how can I, unless some one 
 show me?" Here the insufficiency of the Sacred book 
 
 4 Peter iii, 16. 
 r. Acts viii, 31. 
 
ii8 The Bible 
 
 without the voice of the living teacher is clearly shown, 
 and is in perfect harmony with Catholic teaching. 
 
 To our adversaries, as they ignore the voice of the 
 living teacher, whose right it is to explain, the Bible 
 has lost all definiteness in its teaching, and has be- 
 come a source from which an army of sects endeavor 
 to prove whatever opinions they may desire to enter- 
 tain. Says Cardinal Gibbons: "The Bible has become 
 in their hands a complete Babel. The sons of Noe 
 attempted in their pride to ascend to heaven by building 
 the tower of Babel; and their scheme ended in the con- 
 fusion of tongues. The children of the Reformation 
 endeavored in their conceit to lead men to heaven by 
 the private interpretation of the Bible, and their efforts 
 led to the confusion and the multiplication of religions." 
 
 Protestants claim that the Bible alone is their rule of 
 faith; but how do they know that they have a Bible? 
 To have faith in the Bible, they must have faith in the 
 Church in which they found it. If the monks, who 
 transcribed it, saw a necessity that it should bear 
 stronger testimony in favor of "monkish superstitions 
 and the arrogant claims of the Popes;" what more 
 natural than that something should be added or left out 
 in the furtherance of this object? 
 
 Our adversaries are not friendly to the Church that 
 decided what books should be considered the Bible, and 
 they have sometimes caricatured the monks who pre- 
 served it to posterity by the care and labor of their 
 lives. How they can receive a book from a source 
 so suspicious and be able to make an act of faith upon 
 it as the inspired word of God, it is not easy to see. 
 
The Bible 119 
 
 If it be urged that the great truths of the Bible, its 
 superiority over other books, its exalted and sublime 
 language, the veneration in which it has been held by 
 the entire world, together with the fact that it claims 
 that 6 "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," 
 are sufficient proofs of its inspiration; then it is denied 
 that these are proofs at all. 7 "If," says our Lord, "I 
 bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. . . . 
 But the ^works themselves, which I do, give testimony 
 of me." ' 
 
 Our Lord's word alone, was not depended upon as 
 proof, but he adduced his works as proof of his divinity. 
 It naturally follows that what the Bible says concerning 
 its inspiration, is no better proof, than was our Lord's 
 statement proof of his divinity. That the Bible claims 
 to be the inspired word of God, is no proof that it is 
 until the Scripture has been proven to be the Scripture 
 by a competent witness outside itself. This witness 
 has been shown to be the Catholic Church. It is com- 
 petent to bear witness to the inspiration of the Bible 
 because it is itself infallible, and, therefore, of equal 
 authority with the Sacred Writings which, by the aid 
 of the Holy Ghost, it collected and certified to. 
 
 8 "I would not believe in the Gospels," says St. Aug- 
 ustine, "if I were not moved to do so by the authority 
 of the Catholic Church." Protestants having rejected 
 the witness, have no means of knowing the Bible to be 
 the inspired word of God, indeed many modern protest- 
 
 e I Tim. iii, 16. 
 
 7 John v, 31-36. 
 
 8 St. Augustine (Contra Epis. Manich, Fund., n. 6). 
 
120 The Bible 
 
 ants as a natural consequence of this rejection, deny 
 both the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures. 
 Others differ widely regarding the genuineness of many 
 of its books; some do not recognize the Gospels of St. 
 Mark and St. Luke, because they were not among the 
 twelve Apostles. The "reformers" rejected as apocry- 
 phal seven books of the Old Testament. 
 
 9 "The book of Esther," says Luther, "I toss into the 
 Elbe I wish it did not exist; for it Judaizes too much, 
 and has in it a great deal of heathen naughtiness." 
 Again, that "the Epistle to the Hebrews is not by St. 
 Paul, nor any other Apostle at all, is shown by chapter 
 second verse third. It should be no stumbling-block if 
 there be found in it a mixture of wood, straw and hay." 
 Says the same authority: "The most learned and in- 
 telligent protestant divines here, almost all doubted or 
 denied the canonicity of the book of Revelation." 
 
 It is sad to witness the fate of these learned but un- 
 wise men who, in the pride and conceit of their hearts, 
 separated themselves from the witness and living teacher 
 of the Bible and were speedily carried by strange cur- 
 rents, and shivered into fragmentary sects, upon the 
 sunken rock of Private Judgment, doomed to endless 
 contention over the meaning of a Book to which they 
 had in their impatience thrown away the only key. 
 
 Here were men who from their youth had been 
 accustomed to the study and proper use of the Bible 
 who in a few years after casting off the reins of proper 
 authority had drifted out of sight of every landmark, 
 
 9 Edinburg Review, No. 121. 
 
The Bible 121 
 
 and had become certain of only one thing, and that was 
 doubt. 
 
 Instead of belief in the divine inspiration of the entire 
 Bible, disbelief in that doctrine though generally seek- 
 ing the veil of concealment was largely in the prepond- 
 erance, and it should create no surprise to hear their 
 successors in our own day boldly and frankly avowing 
 their entire disbelief in the infallibility of all Scripture. 
 
 An editorial in the New York Sun (1899) says: "The 
 Methodist Church was formerly distinguished by its un- 
 questioning faith in the Bible, but when the Rev. Dr. 
 Cadman, pastor of the Metropolitan Temple in this city, 
 declared recently before a great company of Methodist 
 ministers that 'the absolute inerrancy of the Bible is no 
 longer possible of belief among reasoning men/ he was 
 applauded. . . . and Dr. Lyman Abbott expressed 
 the frequent, if not the usual sentiment of Congrega- 
 tionalist ministers when he went even further in his 
 departure from the old theology." 
 
 Dr. Rainsford, one of Greater New York's greater 
 Episcopalian rectors says : "We cannot give an infallible 
 Bible, for the Bible is not an infallible book; but we 
 can give you a light unto your feet and a hope for your 
 lives." The New York Sun, comments as follows: "It 
 will be seen that in all this, there is no reference to 
 the Church as a divine institution, in which lives the 
 means of salvation for men. It is treated as a fallible 
 human institution, which commends itself to men as a 
 voluntary association simply of moral and religious use- 
 fulness to them. That there is any divine obligation 
 to join the Church and that its sacraments are a means 
 
122 The Bible 
 
 of salvation is not contended by Dr. Rainsford. With 
 all its faults, his argument is, the Church is a desirable 
 association for men, and attendance upon its services 
 is of moral advantage to them. ... So far as the 
 Bible is concerned, he gives men an example of denial, 
 by himself refusing to accept its infallibility." 
 
 Mr. E. H. Abbot, in the Outlook, says that "the 
 reason so many are not enrolled in the churches, is not 
 because they do not accept the authority of the Bible 
 but because, through the multiplicity of disagreeing in- 
 terpreters, they are confused in their minds as to ivhat 
 the Bible does definitely teach." 
 
 The right of private interpretation opens the Bible 
 to every one alike, to draw from it whatever opinions 
 may appeal to the individual fancy, or seem most suit- 
 able for contention in long and windy debate. Such a 
 use of the Bible, confuses the minds of honest enquirers 
 after truth by giving upon every subject most contrary 
 and diverse opinions, furnishing the careless and indif- 
 ferent with the best of excuses for their negligence. 
 The futile attempts to explain the meaning of an infal- 
 lible Book by a fallible authority, is destroying men's 
 respect for the Bible, and is causing the protestant shep- 
 herds, in the past the sworn defenders and glorifiers 
 of the "open" Bible, to head the procession of mal- 
 contents in an organized revolt against it. 
 
 The Jewish people in seeking a decision in any given 
 case were not accustomed to appeal to the written law. 
 The priests of the Levitical race were profoundly in- 
 structed in the Scriptures, they were the custodians and 
 judges of God's law, and to them, and not to the Book, 
 
The Bible 123 
 
 the people came for judgment, as we learn from the Old 
 Testament. 10 If thou perceive that there be among you 
 a hard and doubtful matter in judgment . . . thou 
 shalt come to the priests . . . and to the judge 
 . . . and they shall show thee the truth of the judg- 
 ment." And again : X1 "The lips of the priest shall keep 
 knowledge, and they (the people) shall seek the law at 
 his mouth." 
 
 The Jewish priests whose duty it was to 12 "search the 
 Scriptures" and give just judgment from the Book of 
 God's Law, failed in their task, and the Messiah in con- 
 sequence was not recognized at his coming. 
 
 The verse referred to in St. John's Gospel, is not a 
 command for all to "search the Scriptures," as at that 
 time only the Old Testament was in existence and very 
 few with the exception of the priests were in the pos- 
 session of that ; but it was addressed to the Pharisees, 
 in the nature of both an inquiry and a rebuke ; as though 
 he had said: "You have the Scriptures, and the same 
 are they that give testimony of me, how then do you 
 fail to recognize, and come to me for life everlasting?" 
 
 Everywhere under the old dispensation, and under 
 the new men were sent for a knowledge of God's law, 
 not to the book containing the law, but to the living 
 voice of the Church ; to the priests who were empow- 
 ered to explain and apply the law as the exigencies of 
 the case might seem to require. 
 
 The administration of human law, has always been 
 
 10 Deut. xvii, 8-9. 
 
 11 Mai. ii, 7. 
 
 12 John v, 39. 
 
124 The Bible 
 
 effected by a like principle. Wherever you find the 
 book of the law, you find there the judge of the law 
 also. Law books are useful ; courts indispensable. 
 
 Suppose, if you will, a contest arising between claim- 
 ants to a piece of real estate. Do the contestants meet 
 together, bringing such law books as may contain cita- 
 tions from similar cases, and quote from them, interpret, 
 argue and explain the meaning of the law and its appli- 
 cation to the supposed case? If we can imagine so 
 extraordinary a procedure, can we imagine such a thing 
 as a final agreement? But were an agreement to result, 
 would that constitute a legal settlement, and confirm 
 the title? Certainly not, the case would remain unde- 
 cided, for he only who is the legally appointed judge of 
 the law can decide a question of law. An attempt to 
 so use the text-books of the law in deciding a case 
 would be a misuse of a helpful assistant, and would 
 result in the miscarriage of justice, and in this particular 
 instance would show where two overconfident ones had 
 erred. 
 
 Is not this the way our protestant friends use the 
 Bible? 
 
 If we compare the divine with the human law, we 
 must observe the vast superiority of the former, as well 
 as the greater difficulty in its explanation. As far as 
 the authors are separated from each other, so also are 
 their works. 13 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts ; 
 nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord, for as the 
 heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways 
 
 is Isaiah Iv, 8-9. 
 
The Bible 125 
 
 exalted above your ways and my thoughts above your 
 thoughts." 
 
 Protestants take in their hands the Book of God's law 
 which they have obtained from a source they regard as 
 unreliable, and which should cause them to fear had 
 been corrupted ; knowing that the original is lost, and 
 that they have only a translation which may not be 
 correct; yet their rash confidence in the Book, is only 
 excelled by their rash confidence in their ability to 
 explain it. 
 
 The first reformers must have erred in their under- 
 standing of the law, if the present understanding of 
 it which has substituted good works for justification by 
 faith alone, is the correct understanding. But again if 
 the first reformers were right, then in just so much as 
 the moderns differ from them, the moderns are wrong. 
 
 If the first reformers understood the Bible, their 
 descendants should not find it necessary to disagree 
 with them. If the first reformers did not understand 
 the Bible, is it not reasonable to suppose that the 
 moderns, using the same principle of private interpre- 
 tation, might also fall into other and greater errors? 
 
 If A, B and C each explain a portion of the Bible, 
 and three different interpretations result ; where is 
 the word of God? It can be contained only in the 
 right interpretation. Is it certain that any one of 
 these explanations is the right one? If any of the 
 meanings is the right one, which one is it? There 
 being no authority among protestants to decide the 
 question, it follows that with them nothing more certain 
 than a conjecture can result. 
 
iz6 The Bible 
 
 As long as protestants are without a divinely ap- 
 pointed head, as a Supreme Court to render decisions 
 that shall be conclusive; as long as every one has equal 
 rights in explaining God's law, just so long will relig- 
 ious truth be for them unobtainable; just so long will 
 sects increase and faith become more uncertain, shift- 
 ing and nebulous, ending as dreams finally end, in 
 nothing. 
 
 Here, in strong contrast, the wisdom of those men- 
 tioned becomes apparent, for they sought only the ex- 
 planation of a human law, a law framed in their own 
 country and in their own day; they were conversant 
 with the exigencies that brought the law into being, 
 they may have been even among the number of those 
 who assisted in the framing of the law, and were fa- 
 miliar with its scope and design. The law, further- 
 more, was in the native language; little wonder then, 
 that confidence in their ability to understand and 
 make use of it, should have been born of all these 
 facts. They were wrong, but they had a hundred good 
 reasons why they should have been right, where those 
 who so use God's book of the Law, have one. 
 
 When, in a case at law, the jury retire to go over 
 the history of the case and weigh the evidence, etc., 
 preparatory to finding a verdict, it seems but natural that 
 they should have assistance in their task from the text- 
 book of the law. But this favor is not granted; the 
 jury receiving instructions not from the text-books of 
 the law, but from the living voice of the judge. For 
 it is a well known fact that a jury of self-constituted 
 judges, would argue and wrangle over the meaning 
 
The Bible 127 
 
 of the book, until the merits of the case would be 
 wholly lost sight of in the desire to come out best in 
 the argument ; which it may be supposed might become 
 as heated and acrimonious as a dispute among sectaries 
 concerning the right meaning of some text of the Bible. 
 
 It is easily seen that private judgment, as explana- 
 tory of the meaning of any book containing law hu- 
 man or divine, must necessarily be a failure, in that it 
 is conducive to strife and the greater confirmation 
 through the natural pride and obstinacy of the human 
 mind of those opinions which, from their long abiding 
 with us, are surrendered, if at all, under protest. The 
 unseemly quarrels and divisions among protestants, that 
 arise from the use of private judgment, are generally 
 seen to end where they began, without accomplishing 
 anything more than the rasping of the mind and temper. 
 
 Our friends make no mistakes regarding the use of 
 text-books either in school or in court; it is only in 
 their manner of using the Bible that they adopt a 
 governing principle unknown to the remainder of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Protestants have sought to explain the difficulty by 
 saying, that besides the written Word, there is an in- 
 ternal Word or guidance of the Holy Spirit, that en- 
 ables each earnest reader to discern the truth. In 
 thus providing each of their number with the gift of 
 infallibility, while denying immunity from error to the 
 Catholic Church, they escape one horn of the dilemma 
 to be impaled upon the other; for if there is such an 
 internal guide to the external Word, the only result 
 for which we could look, would be a perfect unity 
 
128 The Bible 
 
 in interpretation. But if the internal witness pro- 
 nounces from the mouths of a number of different 
 Bible readers, a number of contradictory decisions 
 upon the same text, it would appear that this new kind 
 of infallibility must be considered as a poor substi- 
 tute for the old. 
 
 If protestants have a guide of this description, what 
 is there to prevent catholics from having a similar 
 guide? As our internal spirit has given decisions quite 
 different from the protestant internal spirit, one of 
 these internal spirits must be the spirit of error. Now 
 as our spirit has led us to unity, which is most pleas- 
 ing to God, and the guiding spirit of protestants has 
 led them to withdraw from unity which is most dis- 
 pleasing to God, therefore, our internal spirit is the 
 Holy Ghost promised to the Church in the Gospel, and 
 the spirit that guides each individual protestant is the 
 spirit of error. 
 
 In contradistinction to the severe criticisms of so 
 large a portion of the Bible as shown in the writings of 
 the reformers, the catholic position is here stated by 
 Dr. Brann of New York: "The Bible is infallible, but 
 it is more: it is inspired. Infallibility is negative while 
 inspiration is positive. The former term implies free- 
 dom from error, while inspiration implies a direct action 
 of the Holy Ghost on the intellect and will of the 
 writer, suggesting to him what he shall write and 
 preserving him from error while he is writing, but at 
 the same time leaving liberty both as to his choice of 
 words and the style which he shall use. 
 
 "We hold that all parts of the Bible are inspired 
 
The Bible 129 
 
 from the first sentence to the last. Two General Coun- 
 cils, the first at Trent in the sixteenth century, and 
 the other the Vatican Council of 1870, have decided 
 this. Catholics who would hold any doctrine different 
 from this would be put out of the Church. The primary 
 author of the Bible is the Holy Ghost, the secondary 
 authors are the men, whose names have come down to 
 us attached to the different books. The style is dif- 
 ferent and the words are their own." 
 
 An editorial from the New York Sun serves to illus- 
 trate the relative position of catholics and protestants 
 concerning faith in the Bible. "It may be assumed that 
 because of the now assured withdrawal of Dr. Mc- 
 Giflfcrt from the Presbyterian Church, the case of heresy 
 against him, as appealed to the General Assembly by 
 the Rev. Dr. Birch, will be dismissed. So long, how- 
 ever, as in Presbyterian pulpits and theological sem- 
 inaries there still remain many who are in sympathy 
 with him, the controversy is bound to crop up again, 
 unless that Church virtually abandons its position as to 
 the Bible. 
 
 "If Dr. Briggs and Dr. McGiffert had to leave of 
 their own motion to escape being put out, what con- 
 sistency is there in these others remaining? The Roman 
 Catholic Church has condemned Dr. Mivart promptly 
 and emphatically because of teachings which are gener- 
 ally akin to those of the "higher critics" of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. Will, then, the General Assembly 
 leave the championship of Scriptural infallibility to the 
 Church of Rome alone, though the sole basis upon which 
 protestantism rests in avowedly the Bible? 
 
130 The Bible 
 
 "The Pope, in his Encyclical on Scripture in 1893, 
 declared that 'all the books which the Church receives 
 as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, 
 with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost/ 
 and that 'inspiration is not only incompatible with error, 
 but also excludes and rejects it as absolutely and neces- 
 sarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the Supreme 
 Truth, can utter that which is not true.' . . . The 
 position of Rome as to the Bible, is unequivocal. So 
 also is that of Protestantism, so far as concerns its 
 formal and authoritative standards of faith ; but while 
 Roman Catholicism commands the layman Dr. Mivart 
 to render obedience to its dogma under pain of excom- 
 munication and eternal damnation, Protestantism retains 
 in its ministry and as teachers of theology many men 
 whose teachings openly contradict its standards. 
 
 "Does not this, then, leave the Roman Catholic Church 
 the sole champion of Scriptural infallibility? 
 
 "Of course, a law amounts to nothing, becomes a mere 
 dead letter, unless it is enforced. And is it not a very 
 remarkable situation? Protestantism, the great dis- 
 tinguishing feature of which is reliance on the authority 
 of the Bible above and without any other, surrenders 
 the keeping of the infallibility of that authority to the 
 Church against which it protested and from which it 
 separated in the sixteenth century as a fountain of 
 religious error." 
 
 A representative English Church writer says : 14 "The 
 distinction between Anglicans and those who continue to 
 look to the Holy See for their centre, is not that we 
 
 i "England and the Holy See," Spencer Jones, M. A. 
 
The Bible 131 
 
 have antagonisms and contradictions and that they have 
 none; no, the mark of distinction between us is, that 
 whereas disputations upon important if not fundamental 
 truths come at length to some termination in their case, 
 they seem never to do so in ours." 
 
 What is this but a frank admission regarding the 
 necessity of a judicial head for the settlement of con- 
 troversies ? 
 
 The protestant divine S. E. Herrick has well said : 
 15 "Men may get out of their interpretation of the Bible 
 . . . false deductions as to duty and life." The Rev. 
 Dwight A. Jordan, a protestant writer says : "Discus- 
 sion of the Bible as literature may have some modicum 
 of value for preachers' meetings, while as a species of 
 ecclesiastical mental gymnastics they may serve a minor 
 purpose. The maximum effect is to make of some, per- 
 haps many, not too well qualified men, self-determining 
 judges of what is really the word of God. In this way, 
 they becloud the mind and weaken the faith, never too 
 strong, of the great masses both in and out of the 
 Church, till faith is practically paralyzed, and excuses 
 are plentifully supplied for lax interpretations and loose 
 deductions, which strike at the vitals of the whole 
 Christian scheme." 
 
 Why should our friends find it necessary to longer 
 remain in a church that, according to its own teachers, 
 is engaged in undermining the faith of its members? 
 The Bible, God's word, as understood by God's Church, 
 is peerless among books, confirming the faith. Our 
 brethren with halting steps and many wistful glances 
 
 15 "Some Heretics of Yesterday," p. 233. 
 
132 The Bible 
 
 backward for encouragement to the dictum of the re- 
 formers are slowly making the, to them, unwelcome 
 discovery that the Bible as each one understands it, is 
 a pronounced failure as a light to the feet, a guide to 
 the faith, and a hope for our lives ; but as an incentive 
 for promoting strife and division, it alas! has no equal. 
 
 At an Anglican Church Congress not long since 
 16 "The Rev. Edgar Gilson, prebendary of Wells and 
 Chaplain in ordinary to the King, compared the Bible 
 to Shakespeare's mythical character of Macbeth 'around 
 which Shakespeare built up a great human document,' 
 so other writers he averred took up certain fabled inci- 
 dents and built around them the great truths which 
 made religion what it is. The clergy were wrong in 
 going on teaching the Bible in the old way. Sir A. 
 Short, master at Harrow, said he believed the majority 
 of school teachers adopted an uncandid attitude before 
 the Bible class, which was morally unwholesome and 
 scientifically incorrect.' It was stated in this Congress 
 that the Bible could not longer be regarded 'as the 
 standard of morals!' The Bishop of Derry reminded 
 the congress that 'all revelation is progressive.' The 
 Canon of Ely boldly declared that 'all parts of the 
 Bible must not be regarded as being equal/ >: 
 
 It is the boast of protestantism that it never stands 
 still; what they believe to-day will most likely be 
 changed to-morrow, and change, with them, is synony- 
 mous with progress, improvement, advancement. As 
 our adversaries in the past abused the Church, from 
 which they took the Scriptures, so now their descend- 
 
 16 London Press. 
 
The Bible 133 
 
 ants are busily engaged in abusing the Scriptures which 
 they took from the Church. It is to be supposed that 
 in due time the world will be informed concerning the 
 new standard of morals set up by Anglicans in place 
 of the old which they have discarded. 
 
 Protestants may long continue to profess belief in 
 the Bible, but will it not be that Bible which the "Out- 
 look" preaches, that the Anglican clergy spoke of at 
 their Congress, and which the Boston Congregationalist 
 recently mentioned when it said that "even if a minister 
 did doubt the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the rite of 
 ordination should not be denied him." Everywhere 
 "the trend of modern thought" among the "rival 
 churches" is strongly toward the eradication of the su- 
 pernatural from all Scriptural interpretations, and the 
 reducing of all religion to the bare level of human 
 reason and philosophy. 
 
 In the year of Grace 1911, was witnessed in the city 
 of St. Francis, by the sea, a great protestant demonstra- 
 tion in which was carried by thousands of stalwart 
 men in procession "the open Bible," that effective 
 slogan of protestantism used as a protest against the 
 "supposed closed Bible" of the Catholic Church. This 
 religious procession had little or no resemblance to the 
 processions of catholics, the serious earnestness and 
 decorum of which were supplanted by a spirit pro- 
 nouncedly humorous, as shown in the delegation from 
 a metropolitan city of the East, whose big base drum 
 was supplied with a vocal accompaniment in the words: 
 "Beans, beans, Boston baked beans!" 
 
 A brief season had elapsed since this display of 
 
134 The Bible 
 
 enthusiasm for the "open" Bible, when the Pacific The- 
 ological Seminary a name implying great extent of 
 domain, if not like breadth of mind and spiritual dis- 
 cernment imported from Yale University a distin- 
 guished Professor who, according to the press notices, 
 is "the author of several treatises on the Bible, and 
 declared to be one of the foremost authorities on Scrip- 
 tural history in the United States !" 
 
 This certainly is no scant praise, and as the Bible 
 procession has led the way in pointing out the price- 
 less benefits that since it has been open to all all 
 have received, we may expect from this new light of 
 the East, that climax of wisdom which will result in 
 the further deepening of the good impressions already 
 received concerning it. The public press, however, 
 brought the surprising information that the inerrancy 
 of the Bible specifically in its records of miraculous 
 manifestations had been boldly denied by the most 
 learned Professor of Yale, in an attempt at reasoning, 
 the fallacy of which dispenses us from any attempt at 
 comment being as it is perfectly apparent to even the 
 most ordinary minds. 
 
 This is an "opening" of the Bible on the Pacific coast 
 under the auspices of the Pacific Theological Seminary, 
 who presumably stands sponsor for the theories ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 To-day, our friends exalt the Bible, and proclaim it 
 their only rule of faith ; to-morrow, they mercilessly 
 dissect and discredit it. A fitting parallel to this in- 
 constancy is found in the Gospel. When our Lord was 
 
The Bible 135 
 
 entering Jerusalem, on one occasion, he found his path- 
 way strewn with the palm branches of victory, and 
 heard the resounding cry of the multitudes, of hosanna 
 to the Son of David ; which on the morrow was changed 
 to, crucify him, away with this fellow from the earth. 
 
 While protestants are seen applying the test of a 
 "higher criticism" to the Bible, which is but the natural 
 growth and expansion of those practices of unbelief 
 which the reformers at first applied to certain parts 
 of the Bible which by the aid of reason alone they failed 
 to understand, and which their successors are now ap- 
 plying to all parts of the Bible which contain any refer- 
 ence to the supernatural we see in happy contrast the 
 Catholic Church professing the same faith and rever- 
 ence for the Bible which she in the earliest Christian 
 centuries truly professed, and which profession of faith 
 no succeeding century ever has or ever will see the 
 shadow of a turning from. 
 
 The Catholic Church is ever patient with her unde- 
 vout and careless children, always praying, always hope- 
 ful for the reformation of their lives, but when they 
 essay to reform the faith because of their indifference 
 and failure to live up to it, then it must be said that 
 the Church has no further patience with them; for the 
 Household of Faith can never change her doctrines 
 until perhaps the coming of the day when the Almighty 
 shall condescend to change his plan and purpose in the 
 ruling of the universe to correspond to the dictates and 
 criticism of his creatures. 
 
 The creature however wise in seeking to teach a 
 
136 The Bible 
 
 faith of his own making, instead of receiving, with the 
 meekness of a little child that which from the begin- 
 ning was made for .him, is but attempting the work of 
 the Creator, and from being as he thinks the greatest, 
 becomes according to the Gospel the least among men. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 Among the departures of the "reformers" from the 
 faith of their fathers, the change of belief in the Real 
 Presence to that of belief in an unreal presence in 
 the Eucharistic Feast, forms one of the most radical 
 of their denials of the ancient belief and practice. This 
 act may be likened to the casting away of the kernel of 
 the nut, while with scrupulous care the outside shell is 
 retained. The Real Presence in the Sacrament of the 
 Altar, is, to those of the household of faith, what the 
 sun is to the planetary system; the source and center 
 of light, warmth and life, without which the soul of 
 religion is wanting, the reality is gone, and Christianity 
 is deprived of what has been truly called the magnet 
 of souls. 
 
 Our divine Lord, as a fisher of men, was desirous 
 of drawing rather than driving men to embrace the 
 truth ; for, as truth is antagonistic to error, it requires 
 care in its presentation that a spirit of opposition be 
 not aroused in the minds and wills of those whose bene- 
 fit is sought. Accordingly the Master is seen going 
 about doing good; his miracles resulted in the amel- 
 ioration of human ills, and his gentleness and sympathy 
 for all, the ease with which the poor and humble might 
 approach him, together with the dignity of his bear- 
 
138 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 ing, the loftiness of his theme, and the authority of 
 his teaching, combined to draw all hearts to him. 
 
 At a time when the attention of a large and increas- 
 ing number was directed to the new doctrines, and 
 when success for the same seemed almost assured, the 
 onward movement suddenly received a decided check, 
 and an adverse current set in. This change of feeling 
 was occasioned by that astonishing declaration found 
 in the Gospel of St. John : * "I am the living bread 
 which came down from heaven. If any man eat of 
 this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I 
 will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. . . . 
 Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink 
 his blood, you shall not have life in you." 
 
 This unlocked for declaration must have seemed to 
 those intending converts as though the sky had fallen 
 on them. To their bright hopes succeeded grief and 
 disappointment and the dispelling of their dreams, that 
 grace and truth, and the new commandment of love 
 emphasized by the Master, would find their happy 
 consummation in mitigating the sterner rigors of the 
 law that came by Moses. Bitter the disappointment at 
 the statement of a doctrine so shocking to the finer 
 sensibilities, and so difficult of belief. A hard saying 
 truly, and one that might well suggest the question, 
 that shows beyond question, that all who heard under- 
 stood the words in their literal sense, "How can this 
 man give us his flesh to eat?" (John vi, 53.) 
 
 The great Teacher looked about him at the havoc 
 his words had wrought, as a captain might view his 
 
 i John vi, 51. 
 
The Holy Eucharist 139 
 
 ship dismantled by the gale, and see it being carried to 
 destruction on the thundering surges of a rock-bound 
 coast, without making an effort to stay the work of 
 the devastating sea. He saw his new followers in 
 whose constancy he had indulged such hopes, turn their 
 backs upon him and depart. Singly, and in small com- 
 panies, they went leaving only his original number 
 the Twelve Apostles ! 
 
 Hasten O Shepherd! to bring back these, who, but 
 for this hard saying, would now be thy sheep. Explain 
 the meaning to be figurative, and see their joy at the 
 good news, and witness their speedy return! But our 
 divine Master, who was willing to die for the disap- 
 pointed ones, was unwilling to make the desired ex- 
 planation, and the hard saying remained a hard saying 
 to the captious ones, as well as to countless souls who, 
 since "The Great Reformation," have taken like offense 
 at these words of the divine Master. With the saving 
 of souls as his chief object, and realizing the turning 
 of the tide against him, yet to the Twelve he simply 
 says, "Will you also go away?" He allows all to go 
 away, who did not give in their adhesion, and at once 
 believe him on his word. Can we possibly imagine 
 that, if he had been speaking all the time in figures, 
 and they had misunderstood him, he would permit 
 them to incur the ruin of their soul for their refusal 
 to believe imaginary doctrines, which he never meant 
 to teach them? 
 
 As his earnest gaze is turned to where he sees in 
 the sunshine and shadows of the ages to come, the 
 Catholic Church, teaching to the many millions yet 
 
140 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 unborn, that when there in Capharnaum he said these 
 words, he meant what he said. 
 
 More than this ; he saw that in taking him at his 
 word, and in acting upon this belief, each and every 
 catholic through all time would join in that highest 
 act of worship, adoration to what four out of the five 
 senses would recognize as common bread and wine! 
 He saw that if in all the acts of adoration paid to the 
 Sacred Host on numberless altars, were each to be 
 an idolatrous act, his own plain words would be the 
 cause of every one of them; and that in founding a 
 religion for the extinction of idolatry among the 
 heathen, he had made the most effective preparation 
 possible for its perpetuity through all time. 
 
 And with all this ever present in his mind he gave 
 no word of explanation, and it seems the more strange, 
 as it was the Master's custom to explain himself fully 
 that none might be in doubt concerning his doctrine. 
 But where has it been shown that our Lord explained 
 to his disciples or to anyone, that when he said "this 
 is my body," he meant this is not my body? 
 
 When using figurative language, it is necessary either 
 to employ figures which are familiar or make such ex- 
 planations in regard to unusual figures as will preclude 
 any misunderstanding arising from their use. In the 
 Semitic languages, there was a common metaphor in 
 use regarding the eating of human flesh, by which was 
 meant to derogate or calumniate another. The Psalm- 
 ist David says : 2 "Whilst the wicked draw near against 
 me, to eat my flesh." Meaning, when my enemies draw 
 
 2 Ps. xxvi; Prot. ver. xxvii. 
 
The Holy Eucharist 141 
 
 near to traduce and vilify me. The same figure is 
 employed by Job, who, in answering his comfortless 
 comforters, says : 3 "Why do you persecute me as 
 God, and glut yourselves with my flesh?" If the divine 
 Saviour used a figure; as understood by the Jews, the 
 saying "he that eateth me shall live by me," would 
 mean, he that calumniates and traduces me, shall live 
 by me. It is evident then, that if the language was 
 figurative, it was not the usual and commonly under- 
 stood figure ; but one different in its meaning, and one 
 which it was for his interest to explain. 
 
 Our divine Lord made haste to explain the figure 
 regarding the leaven of the Pharisees, by which the 
 disciples had understood him to mean bread; by ex- 
 plaining that it was their doctrine to which he had 
 referred. He had been equally diligent in efforts to 
 disabuse Nicodemus of his error anent the new birth, 
 explaining that his language was figurative and re- 
 ferred to a birth by water, and the Holy Ghost. 
 When the Jews asked: "How can this man give us his 
 flesh to eat?" Does our Lord explain that they were 
 not to literally eat his flesh, but only in a figure? No, 
 not at all, but he makes a solemn and emphatic af- 
 firmation: "Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you 
 eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, 
 you shall not have life in you." If our Lord had used 
 a figure, there would have been a hundred reasons to 
 one why he should have here explained himself, rather 
 than in the other instances. 
 
 We have several passages in the New Testament, 
 
 3 Job xix, 22. 
 
142 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 where our Lord meant to be taken figuratively, and 
 the Jews wrongly took his words, in their crude, literal 
 sense, and consequently objected to his doctrine. We 
 find in every instance, without exception, that he cor- 
 rects them, and tells them in plain language that he 
 did not mean in those instances to be taken literally, 
 but in a figurative sense. But in our case, that is when 
 announcing himself as the true spiritual food of our 
 soul, he stands to his words, repeats again and again 
 the obnoxious expressions and requires his hearers to 
 believe them. Hence we must conclude that our blessed 
 Saviour intimated no correction because the Jews had 
 understood him right by taking his expressions to the 
 letter, as they were to be really understood. 
 
 It is evident from the answers, objections, and their 
 subsequent conduct, that all who heard our Saviour's 
 words, understood him to mean what he said; for, it 
 could by no means be regarded as a "hard saying," that 
 they were occasionally to eat a piece of bread in mem- 
 ory merely of the speaker's death. No ; the offence 
 came with the literal meaning. Again in this chapter 
 our Lord says: "Your fathers did eat manna in the 
 desert, and are dead. ... If any man eat of this 
 bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will 
 give, is my flesh," etc. If then the heavenly manna 
 was intended to preserve the earthly life only, and 
 "the living bread," to give life everlasting; this latter 
 bread must be infinitely superior to the former. But 
 if this last named bread is, as protestants say, only 
 commemorative bread, and not that bread which our 
 
The Holy Eucharist 143 
 
 Lord said was his flesh ; then it can in no way compare 
 with that miraculous food sent from heaven. 
 
 The objections which protestants urge against the 
 literal meaning of these texts, are precisely the same as 
 those made by the Jews, and both spring from the 
 same source; the lack of faith. Forgetting that God 
 is Almighty, they ask, "how can he give us his flesh 
 to eat?" "O ye of little faith"; you see the rising sun 
 gild mountain peaks and pour its flood of light over 
 the valley below, painting the lily and the rose, and 
 awakening to life a new day out of yesterday's to- 
 morrow ; you see new life spring up on plain and 
 mountain-side, see rivers broad and deep on their wind- 
 ing way to the sea ; the "mighty stars of hammered 
 gold" that stud the firmament; all floral life and forest 
 trees ; these be the voiceless preachers that lift up 
 holy hands proclaiming Omnipotent, the power that 
 called them into being. Yet man, hearing this grand 
 symphony of all nature's praise, alone desires to qualify 
 his belief as to the infinitude of God ! 
 
 There is only one thing which God cannot do, and 
 that is what involves a contradiction as the simultaneous 
 existence and non-existence of a thing. Of such things, 
 as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, instead of saying that 
 God cannot do them, we should rather say that they 
 cannot be done. Now no man, philosopher or critic, 
 has been able to prove that the prodigy of transubstan- 
 tiation involves a contradiction, namely, a feat which 
 not even divine Omnipotence can accomplish because 
 intrinsically absurd. 
 
 While our Lord did not explain away the evident 
 
144 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 meaning of his words which on the contrary he re- 
 iterated to an unusual extent and explained clearly in 
 the sixty-third verse of this chapter: "If then you shall 
 see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" 
 By the miracle of his future ascension Christ meant to 
 prove his omnipotence, and consequently the power of 
 doing what the change of the elements of bread and 
 wine into his body and blood implied, namely, the ex- 
 ercise of omnipotence. To prove an invisible prodigy, 
 that of transubstantiation, he appeals to a visible miracle 
 that of his miraculous ascension, both requiring divine 
 omnipotence for their performance, as if he had said: 
 "When you will see me ascend to heaven by my own 
 inherent power, a proof of my divinity, you will believe 
 more firmly in my power to do what I at present an- 
 nounce to you." 
 
 "It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth 
 nothing; the words that I have spoken to you, are 
 spirit and life." These words show, that as our divine 
 Master would ascend into heaven in plain sight, with 
 his live body perfect and entire; therefore they were 
 not to eat his dead flesh in the usual manner in which 
 flesh is eaten to sustain life, for such an eating of his 
 flesh would indeed profit nothing, as he came to give us 
 eternal life, and the flesh of the Son of Man was given 
 to preserve the divine life in the soul. As our Lord 
 said that the bread which he gave was his flesh, it is 
 clear that the flesh of the Saviour of mankind was to 
 be eaten not in a gross and common, but in a heavenly 
 manner, under the form and appearance of bread and 
 wine ; for the divine Son, was declared by the Father, 
 
The Holy Eucharist 145 
 
 to be a Priest forever according to the order of Mel- 
 chisedeck, who offered bread and wine." 
 
 "The bread which I will give is my flesh," etc. In 
 the Eucharistic feast, the recipients eat not the dead 
 flesh which would profit nothing, but with a most sin- 
 cere and lively faith, the living flesh with the soul and 
 divinity of the Giver, and which constitutes the living 
 and heavenly bread, which if a man eat, "he shall live 
 forever," and without which "you shall not have life in 
 you." Those who have no life in them are as dead as 
 those intending disciples who were so quick to take 
 offence, were discouraged at the smallest obstacles, and 
 who failed to appreciate the dignity and beauty of a 
 mystery so great, a mystery which contradicts the evi- 
 dence of the senses indeed, but not the power of God 
 who made the senses. 
 
 It is the teaching of the Church that immediately at 
 the words of consecration by the priest, there no longer 
 remains bread and wine, there having been effected by 
 the power of the Almighty, a change of the bread and 
 wine into the Body and Blood of our divine Lord, the 
 appearance of bread and wine alone remaining. This 
 change the Church calls Transubstantiation. 
 
 Upon this doctrine, the reformers and their descend- 
 ants, have waged perpetual warfare, holding that its 
 failure to agree with reason, and the evidence of the 
 senses, discredits it in the eyes of the learned. 
 
 Mr. Barnes, in his notes on this Gospel, gives voice to 
 the general complaint in these words : 4 "Nothing can 
 possibly be more absurd than to suppose that when our 
 
 4 Barnes's Notes, p. 259. 
 
146 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 Lord instituted the Supper, and gave the bread and wine 
 to his disciples, they literally ate his flesh and drank his 
 blood. Who can believe this? There he stood, a liv- 
 ing man his body yet alive his blood flowing in his 
 veins ; and how can it be believed that this body was 
 eaten and this blood drunk? Yet this absurdity must 
 be held by those who hold that the bread and wine at 
 the communion are 'changed into the body, blood, and 
 the divinity of our Lord.' So it is taught in the decrees 
 of the Council of Trent ; and to such absurdities are men 
 driven when they depart from the simple meaning of 
 the Scriptures, and from common sense." 
 
 The objection here brought out, is the assumed ab- 
 surdity of the doctrine, and its lack of common sense. 
 In this statement Mr. Barnes has stated the protestant 
 position carefully and well. The goodly number of 
 volumes written by this distinguished divine repose in 
 dignity upon the shelves of countless village libraries 
 and in many thousand homes throughout the land, they 
 have perhaps in their day done more than the works 
 of most protestant writers in stigmatizing as absurd and 
 foolish the teachings of the Catholic Church. "Who 
 can believe this?" Who can believe this "absurd" doc- 
 trine, this challenge to reason and common sense? 
 
 The doctrine of transubstantiation was not considered 
 "absurd" to a degree sufficient to discourage belief in it 
 by the masses throughout the world, up to the age of 
 unbelief called "The Great Reformation." The noble 
 army of martyrs that suffered under the Roman Em- 
 perors believed this doctrine. Bishops and priests 
 throughout the world believed it. Popes and councils 
 
The Holy Eucharist 147 
 
 taught it. The first Archbishop of Canterbury whom 
 our Anglican friends delight to honor taught this doc- 
 trine. The monks who suffered spoliation and death, in 
 the English inquisition, all believed this "absurd" doc- 
 trine. The Greek Church has always believed it, as 
 have the other Oriental sects that once enjoyed com- 
 munion with the Roman See. English Catholics were 
 denied all positions of trust under Government because 
 they believed in transubstantiation. There are protest- 
 ants even who do not wholly recognize its "absurdity." 
 
 Lord Macaulay says : "When we reflect that Sir 
 Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt 
 whether the doctrine may not triumph over all opposi- 
 tion. More was a man of eminent talents. He had all 
 the information on the subject we have, and while the 
 world lasts any human being will have. We are there- 
 fore unable to understand why Sir Thomas More's 
 views regarding transubstantiation may not be believed 
 to the end of time by men equal in abilities and intellect 
 to Sir Thomas More." 
 
 Let us now inquire whether our senses, our reason, 
 and our common sense, are competent guides to the 
 great truths of religion. It has long been a custom 
 among mankind to eat bread and drink wine, and by 
 what may be called a natural transubstantiation agree- 
 able to God's laws, this bread and this wine are changed 
 into flesh and blood. While this action may have been 
 going on before our eyes, have our senses been aware 
 of the change? Does not the grass grow, the plant bud 
 
148 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 and blossom at our feet, and the separate acts and 
 movements of the change escape our notice? 
 
 Ask the physician who has dissected the human form, 
 at what stage in the progress of the work his reason 
 and common sense informed him that he had reached 
 the exact location of the soul? And yet our faith, in 
 the existence of the soul, is not dampened by the fact 
 that its existence cannot be demonstrated by the aid of 
 the senses. Mr. Barnes, in his desire to eradicate a 
 Catholic doctrine, has had recourse to the favorite 
 weapon used by the rationalists in their efforts to de- 
 stroy the Christian faith by denying the authority of all 
 Revelation from God, and a reliance upon reason alone. 
 
 We find on experience that men rejecting one or 
 other of the dogmas of the Catholic Church will seek 
 to justify that position on the two following grounds : 
 ( 1 ) They will tell us that they cannot accept, for instance, 
 the Church's teaching on the Eucharist, because it in- 
 volves an unfathomable mystery, utterly unintelligible 
 and incomprehensible to their reason. (2) They refuse 
 to believe in that dogma because the evidence in its 
 support is insufficient, and incapable of bringing convic- 
 tion to any prudent man. 
 
 The absurdity of the first plea is made apparent when 
 we recall the fact that to reject all mystery is, in sober 
 truth, to reject all knowledge, and to deny the incom- 
 prehensible, because incomprehensible, is to deny all the 
 most necessary and universally accepted truths in nature, 
 such as our own existence, birth, growth and faculties 
 (whether of body or of soul), all of which involve 
 mysteries, which no man living is competent to solve. 
 
The Holy Eucharist 149 
 
 Indeed, there is not a grain of sand, a drop of morning 
 dew, a film, a particle of dust, but contains marvels 
 and mysteries enough to crush out all men's assumption 
 of profound knowledge, and to bring the proudest scien- 
 tist down upon his knees in wondering admiration and 
 prostrate prayer. God in his wise and benign providence 
 has surrounded us with mysteries in the order of nature 
 to pave the way to and facilitate our belief and accept- 
 ance of the mysteries of grace. 
 
 Secondly, as to the alleged insufficiency of the evidence 
 brought by theologians to prove the truth of the Real 
 Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, we must bear 
 in mind the following remarks: When a man, such as 
 Mr. Barnes, objects to the truth of transubstantiation 
 because no ocular or experimental proof can be brought 
 to support it, he tacitly assumes that the only evidence 
 of any value is that which is intrinsic, experimental, 
 subject to the testimony of the senses. Whoever holds 
 this view ignores the self-evident fact that truth may be 
 arrived at by two perfect distinct routes. In other 
 words, we may ascertain truth by actual experiment and 
 personal investigation, but we may also receive it on 
 external authority. Although the second method is es- 
 sentially different from the first, yet, it is not on that 
 account less reliable. Indeed, there are cases in which 
 it is far more so. All that is required in this order 
 of truths is that the authority, we appeal to, should pos- 
 sess both knowledge and veracity. Now what is our 
 authority regarding all articles of faith, that of Holy 
 Eucharist included? It is evidently that of Christ him- 
 self, the eternal Son of God, who certainly possessed the 
 
150 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 knowledge of the Sacraments he himself instituted, and 
 such a veracity as will render our belief and submission 
 eminently reasonable. Moreover, it must be noted that 
 of the truths, facts and events forming the subject of 
 man's knowledge by far the greatest number can be 
 known only through the testimony of competent authori- 
 ties and witnesses. Such are the facts of history and 
 the data of the extensive field of natural sciences, which 
 few can verify for themselves and must consequently 
 accept on the testimony of others. Religious truths and 
 the dogmas of faith generally do not admit of being 
 proved in any other way. Thus it is intrinsically im- 
 possible to demonstrate mathematically or experimentally 
 or by personal observation the power of sacramental ab- 
 solution, or the spiritual effects of baptism, or the truth 
 of the real presence of Christ in Holy Eucharist. The 
 only demonstration, of which they are capable, is that 
 of appeal to competent authority, which in all truths of 
 the supernatural order is the testimony and authority of 
 God himself, who revealed them. Hence to reject super- 
 natural mysteries because they are incomprehensible to 
 human reason we have already shown to be absurd ; 
 but to reject them because we cannot apply to them ex- 
 perimental methods is more absurd still. (See "Faith 
 and Folly," by Monsignor Vaughan.) 
 
 When the Almighty made a small portion of the 
 earth's surface into the flesh and blood of our first par- 
 ents, must it not have been a change of one substance 
 into another? Would Mr. Barnes, and other rational- 
 ists, consider the record of the occurrence comprehensi- 
 ble by the aid of reason and common sense? Is it more 
 
The Holy Eucharist 151 
 
 difficult of comprehension, more absurd, that he who 
 could change the common earth into flesh and blood, 
 could by the same Almighty power change bread and 
 wine into flesh and blood? And yet Mr. Barnes be- 
 lieves the first, and derides the second. Surely this must 
 be strange reasoning, most uncommon sense! 
 
 It may occur to our friends to raise a further ob- 
 jection. "If it be admitted," say they, "that the Al- 
 mighty can change bread and wine into the Body and 
 Blood of Christ, by what right do your priests essay 
 to do the work of the Creator?" As his agents, by his 
 command ; even as 5 Moses and Aaron turned a rod 
 into a serpent, and a serpent into a rod; and turned 
 the rivers into blood in the land of Egypt. If a man 
 under the Old dispensation could by the assistance of 
 God do these works, why not a man under the New 
 dispensation, with like assistance, turn wine into blood? 
 Having brought these considerations to the reader's no- 
 tice, let us pass to the institution of this great Sacra- 
 ment of love, on the eve of our Redeemer's Passion. 
 
 As in the common law the greatest value is placed 
 upon an ante-mortem statement, so here "in the valley 
 of the shadow of death," as he was about to lay down 
 his life for us all, we may expect that every declaration 
 will be in language clear and plain, that no contention 
 over the meaning may arise in future time. 
 
 Here our divine Lord makes his last Will and Testa- 
 ment, here he bequeathes to us his Body and his Blood. 
 Now surely our dear Lord knew what he wished to 
 give us. He had stated many times, that it was his 
 
 5 Exodus iv. 
 
152 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 flesh and blood that he was to give for the life of the 
 world. "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my 
 blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up at 
 the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood 
 is drink indeed." And again, "for this is my blood of 
 the New Testament." How was it possible for any one 
 to speak more plainly in making their last Will, than is 
 here spoken? It has been shown how our Lord ex- 
 plained all this, that there might be nothing repulsive 
 to his children, by showing how they were to eat his 
 flesh and drink his blood unto life everlasting, under 
 the appearance of bread and wine! What a loving 
 thought; that having gone up where he was before, 
 yet on every Christian Altar in the world, the loving 
 Saviour still tabernacles with men. 
 
 Bread and wine were never figures of our Lord's 
 body and blood. It was the Old Law that dealt in 
 figures, in the New Law we have the reality; but if 
 bread is a figure of his body, we have instead of the 
 reality, but the substitution of one figure for another. 
 Bread and wine rather than being symbolic of the suf- 
 ferings and death of the Redeemer, are properly the 
 emblems of feasting and joy. 
 
 In the Syro-Chaldaic language which our Lord spoke, 
 there are forty or more words that mean, to represent; 
 if then the Master had not meant literally "this is my 
 body," knowing that the Catholic Church laboring under 
 the mistake of a literal interpretation of his words, 
 would teach millions of souls a gross error, is it not 
 strange that he should neglect to set us right, when we 
 
The Holy Eucharist 153 
 
 think how easy in his language it was to say instead of 
 "this is," this represents, my body? 
 
 It is now time to inquire what the teaching and 
 practice of the Apostles concerning this doctrine was, 
 for if they taught that it was bread and wine only that 
 was given and received in the Sacrament of the Altar, 
 that must have been the correct teaching. The Apostles, 
 taught by our Lord and commissioned by him to teach 
 all nations, must have known all there was to know 
 about it. 
 
 At the assembling of the Church at Corinth, a letter 
 was read from the Apostle Paul, in which these words 
 occur : 6 "The chalice of benediction which we bless, 
 is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And 
 the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of 
 the body of the Lord? . . . For I have received of 
 the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the 
 Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, 
 took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said: Take 
 ye, and eat: this is my body which shall be delivered 
 for you: this do for the commemoration of me. In 
 like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, say- 
 ing: This chalice is the New Testament in my blood: 
 this do ye, as often as you shall drink it for the com- 
 memoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this 
 bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death 
 of the Lord, until he come. Wherefore whosoever shall 
 eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworth- 
 ily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 
 But let a man prove himself; and so let him eat of that 
 
 o I Cor. x, 16, and xi, 23-29. 
 8 
 
154 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 bread and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth 
 and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment 
 to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord." 
 
 As our Lord in the Gospel, gave no hint of a figure 
 used, so here the apostle quotes from the same without 
 giving the slightest intimation to show that it was not 
 meant literally, but at the close of the quotation gives 
 the sentences that show beyond question that it was so 
 meant; for it is not understandable that in the first 
 place, bread and wine could be received by the faithful 
 unworthily ; and in the second place by so doing become 
 guilty of the body and blood of the Lord! 
 
 Here another glorious opportunity was given to cor- 
 rect a misapprehension, and teach the Church at Corinth 
 that they were to rely upon a figurative interpretation 
 of the Saviour's words, and understand once for all 
 that, "this is my body," means, this is not my body. 
 But what does the Apostle say? He cautions them 
 against receiving this august Sacrament unworthily by 
 failing to discern therein the body and blood of the Lord. 
 Now how could they be considered reprovable for not 
 discerning that which was not there? 
 
 The Apostle instructs them to make all possible prep- 
 aration for the reception of the Blessed Sacrament by 
 7 "proving themselves," which proving was necessarily 
 the examination of their consciences and confession of 
 their sins, no other "proving" being conceivable. So 
 they proved themselves lest by an unworthy communion 
 they should eat and drink judgment to themselves, by 
 
 7 I Cor. xlii, 5. 
 
The Holy Eucharist 
 
 their failure to discern the body and blood of the Lord 
 present in the Sacrament. 
 
 The protestant commentators are especially desirous 
 of making a part of the truth concerning the Eucharistic 
 Feast, the full measure of it. 8 "In remembrance of 
 me," "This expresses the whole design of the ordinance. 
 . To recall in a striking and impressive manner 
 the memory of the Redeemer." 
 
 It is an old habit with our protestant friends, this 
 retiring to the background those subjects which to them 
 are painful, and concerning themselves only with those 
 that are comforting and agreeable. 
 
 The fact that the Eucharist is a commemorative feast, 
 does not in anyway militate against those most solemn 
 asseverations of our Lord, before quoted, concerning the 
 presence of his flesh and blood in the Sacrament. 
 
 Mr. Barnes explains the twenty-sixth and twenty-sev- 
 enth verses. "For as often as ye eat this bread." 
 9 "This is a direct and positive refutation of the papists 
 that the bread is changed into the real body of the 
 Lord Jesus. Here it is expressly called bread bread 
 still, bread after the consecration. Before the Saviour 
 instituted the ordinance he took 'bread' it was bread 
 then : it was 'bread' which he 'blessed' and 'brake' ; and 
 it was bread when it was given to them. Paul still 
 calls it bread, and shows thus that he was a stranger to 
 the doctrine" of Transubstantiation. "Had the papal 
 doctrine . . . been true, Paul could not have called 
 it bread. The Romanists do not believe that it is bread, 
 
 8 "Barnes' Notes," I Cor., p. 234. 
 
 9 "Barnes" Notes," Cor. xi, pp. 234-235. 
 
156 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 nor would they call it such ; and this shows how need- 
 ful it is for them to keep the Scriptures from the peo- 
 ple, and how impossible to express their dogmas in the 
 language of the Bible. Let Christians adhere to the 
 simple language of the Bible, and there is no danger of 
 falling into the errors of the papists." 
 
 It cannot be true, that what our divine Saviour gave 
 to his disciples saying: "Take eat," was bread, because 
 he distinctly said it was his body. Not a figure, "but 
 this is my body." Not in this, or with this, but "this 
 is my body," and what is this but Transubstantiation in 
 the simple language of the Bible? 
 
 It cannot be true, as Mr. Barnes says, that "Roman- 
 ists" do not call the Blessed Sacrament bread, for they 
 often do. Our divine Redeemer spoke of himself as 
 bread, and we may follow his example. Common bread? 
 Oh! no, Mr. Barnes, certainly not; but the bread of 
 life not material life but the life of the soul. This is 
 the bread which came down from heaven, the bread 
 which was the flesh of the Son of man, such as St. 
 Paul warns the Corinthians against receiving unworthily, 
 not discerning the body of the Lord. This the Blessed 
 Sacrament is the bread which if a man eat he shall 
 never hunger, and to which is attached the promise of 
 a glorious resurrection at the last day. This is the bread 
 which is his flesh, given for the life of the world, and 
 which if you eat not, you have no life in you, for as 
 common bread is the life of the body, so this bread which 
 is the Redeemer's flesh, gives life to the soul. 
 
 The Blessed Sacrament is also often spoken of as 
 bread, because it was bread before consecration, and 
 
The Holy Eucharist 157 
 
 after- consecration retains the appearance and likeness 
 of bread; as a person after baptism retains his features 
 and general appearance, and is easily recognized by all 
 who knew him before; but if the sacrament has been 
 rightly administered and received, a wonderful change 
 has been wrought, a vessel of wrath having become one 
 of election. There has been a new birth, he appears 
 to be the same person, but in reality he is a new crea- 
 ture in Christ; he is not the same as before, although 
 he looks the same and answers to the same name. 
 
 This Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is a divine 
 Mystery which if man's reason could fathom with its 
 rod and measuring line, it would be man's reason no 
 longer. We should all be Gods. 
 
 That the rationalist who professes to believe only that 
 which he can understand, should reject this Mystery, 
 creates no surprise, but that Christians, who believe the 
 Mystery of the Incarnation, and so many others equally 
 incomprehensible to reason, should reject this Sacra- 
 ment so full of consolation and refreshing sweetness ; 
 the source of the soul's very life; the well-spring of all 
 Christian graces; the bread of heaven that gives life to 
 the world this, indeed, is surprising! 
 
 So prominently was the doctrine of the Real Presence 
 taught and practiced in the early Church, that the first 
 annalists tell us how the heathen, having become aware 
 that the Christians in the catacombs practiced some 
 mysterious rite, in which flesh was eaten and blood was 
 drunk, in their ignorance and hatred of the new re- 
 ligion, so misrepresented what they had heard, as to 
 turn it into a tale which afterwards proved a factor 
 
158 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 in accounting for the persecutions under the Roman 
 Emperors, namely, that the Christians met secretly and, 
 causing a child to be killed, eat its flesh and drank its 
 blood. 
 
 According to Cardinal Gibbons, 10 "St. Ignatius, a 
 disciple of St. Peter, speaking of a sect called Gnostics, 
 says: 'They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, be- 
 cause they confess not that the Eucharist is the flesh of 
 our Saviour Jesus Christ.' St. Justin, Martyr, to the 
 Emperor Antoninus, writes in the second century: 'We 
 do not receive these things as common bread and drink ; 
 but as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by the 
 word of God, even so we have been taught that the 
 Eucharist is both the flesh and the blood of the same 
 incarnate Jesus/ Origen in the third century writes: 
 'If thou wilt go up with Christ to celebrate the Pass- 
 over he will give to thee that bread of benediction, his 
 own body, and will vouchsafe to thee his own blood/ 
 St. Cyril in the fourth century says: 'He himself hav- 
 ing declared, This is my body, who shall dare to doubt 
 it? And he having said, This is my blood, who shall 
 ever doubt, saying: This is not his blood? ... In 
 the type of bread is given to thee the body, and in the 
 type of wine is given to thee the blood, in order that 
 having partaken of Christ's body and blood thou might- 
 est become one in body and blood with him. For thus 
 also do we become Christ-bearers ; his body and blood 
 being diffused through our members. Thus do we be- 
 come according to the blessed Peter, partakers of the 
 divine nature/ '' 
 
 10 "The Faith of Our Fathers/' p. 339. 
 
The Holy Eucharist 159 
 
 Saint Augustine in the fifth century says : "The 
 bread which you see on the altar, after being sanctified 
 by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, 
 after being sanctified by the word of God, is the blood 
 of Christ." "It is indeed," says St. Ambrose, "a mar- 
 velous thing that God rained down manna for the 
 fathers, and that they were fed with daily food from 
 heaven. Whence it is said, 'Men eat the bread of 
 angels.' And yet all who eat that bread died in the 
 desert. But this food which thou receivest, this living 
 bread that cometh down from heaven, supplies us with 
 the substance of eternal life; and whosoever shall have 
 eaten this living bread shall never die; and it is the 
 body of Christ," that is, shall live forever in the glory 
 of the risen body according to these words of Christ: 
 "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath 
 everlasting life and I will raise him up in the last day." 
 John vi, 64. Cardinal Gibbons says : "The Fathers 
 of the Church, without exception, re-echo the language 
 of the Apostle of the Gentiles, by proclaiming the Real 
 Presence in the Eucharist. I have counted the names 
 of sixty-three Fathers flourishing between the first and 
 the sixth century, all of whom proclaim the Real 
 Presence, some by explaining the mystery, others by 
 thanking God for it, and others by exhorting the faith- 
 ful to its worthy reception." 
 
 That the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eu- 
 charist was the doctrine taught by the Apostles and 
 their successors in the first centuries, these few extracts 
 from their writings show. That the same doctrine 
 was taught throughout the course of Ages, the pages 
 
160 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 of the historian containing the records of how bishops, 
 priests and people died martyrs for the truth of it, 
 sufficiently attest. 
 
 Had the protestant doctrine of a simple commem- 
 orative feast been the one taught in the beginning, the 
 ease with which it could be understood, and practiced, 
 would have made the work of changing the belief of 
 Christians from an easy to an hard saying with the 
 attendant humiliating requirement of a full confession 
 of their sins in the work of "proving themselves, "- 
 extremely difficult and highly improbable. Men are not 
 pleased with the thought of taking up new burdens, but 
 are easily reconciled to the laying down of the old. The 
 theory of protestants that Catholic doctrine is the out- 
 come of many additions to the more simple faith of the 
 earlier centuries is, for the reasons given, a theory 
 adverse to the natural sequence of events in the his- 
 tory of mankind. 11 As in the beautiful garden of Para- 
 dise, God walked and talked with man ; as in the Ark 
 of the Covenant he dwelt to be the comfort of his 
 chosen people, the wise counselor of his servant Moses ; 
 as from the mercy-seat he gave just judgment, and 
 from the cloud that hid His face the majesty of his glory 
 shone; so in the New Covenant under the sacramental 
 veils which hide the brightness of that face we may 
 not look upon and live; the Real Presence, on the 
 mercy-seat in the tabernacles on our altars, waiting our 
 pleasure to give us all that God has to give, even him- 
 self; is the most consummate expression of compas- 
 
 11 See Chap. II. 
 
The Holy Eucharist 161 
 
 sionate love, that in the ages past has marked the 
 dwelling on earth of God with men. 
 
 In the Old Covenant, God is present with his chosen 
 people as the Great Lawgiver, the Counselor, the 
 Judge; but in the New Covenant, he gives us himself 
 entire in the Sacrament of the altar, and takes up his 
 abode within us in the most perfect and loving union 
 with our frail and mortal flesh. He is therefore more 
 truly Emmanuel in the New Covenant than in the Old. 
 In this way the superiority of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion in its bringing mankind to a chosen and more in- 
 timate union with God, is clearly discernible. On Cal- 
 vary's height upon the altar of the cross our divine 
 Lord gave his life once for us all, but on our altars he 
 daily dies a mystic death, that we may have our "daily 
 bread," the "bread of benediction," the "bread which 
 is the flesh of the Son of man," by which we live, 
 without which we die. 
 
 It is the Real Presence, on our altars, that makes 
 our Churches a very heaven upon earth; the home 
 of the poor and distressed, the magnet that draws our 
 willing feet to the heavenly portals. It is the Real 
 Presence, that makes the distinguishing difference be- 
 tween the behavior of catholics and protestants in 
 church. It is the Real Presence that has caused many 
 a protestant to confess to an unaccountable feeling of 
 solemnity and peacefulness in our Churches, even as 
 the disciples journeying by the way felt their hearts 
 burn within them as they talked with Jesus but knew 
 him not. 
 
 Protestants cannot remain oblivious of the fact that 
 
162 The Holy Eucharist 
 
 our Church doors stand invitingly open from early 
 morning till late at night, every day in the year, and 
 have often expressed the desire that their churches 
 might be kept open as well; but apart from the senti- 
 ment and the better ventilation of the house, it is not 
 easy to see in what the advantage could consist. The 
 protestant indeed will maintain that his church is the 
 House of God, but if you press him upon the subject, 
 he will take refuge in the general and manifest truism, 
 that God is everywhere. If by chance the protestant 
 should enter the sacred edifice belonging to his sect, 
 upon a week-day, the probability is, that the empty "aud- 
 itorium" would offer him no suggestion as to the pro- 
 priety of removing his protestant hat. 
 
 It is the Real Presence, in God's House, that induces 
 men, in the hurry and bustle of life, as they pass by, 
 to lift the hat and bend the head; and those at leisure 
 to visit the August Prisoner of Love upon the altar. 
 It is the Real Presence within that keeps our church 
 doors always open, and brings some quiet worshiper 
 every hour; while in contradistinction, the bolted and 
 barred temples of the unbelievers in God's word, the 
 rejectors of the sweetest mystery of the faith, the Real 
 Presence, stand silent, vacant, and lone. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 OF COMMUNION IN ONE KIND. 
 
 It has always been the belief of catholics, that in 
 receiving the Holy Eucharist, our divine Lord is received 
 whole and entire under either species, as it is impossible 
 to conceive of Christ as being divided, or the living 
 flesh being separated from its natural and proper pro- 
 portion of blood. The clergy when offering the sacrifice, 
 receive in both kinds, but not otherwise. Our Lord 
 said: I am the living bread, etc. If " any man eat of 
 this bread he shall live forever, and again: He that 
 eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. Here all 
 the efficacy of the sacrament is attributed to its recep- 
 tion under one kind. The command of our Saviour: 
 Drink ye all of this, was given not to the people in 
 general, but to the Apostles in particular. The protest- 
 ant Leibnitz says : 1 "It cannot be denied that Christ 
 is received entire by virtue of concomitance, under each 
 species ; nor is his flesh separated from his blood." 
 
 2 "It is true that our Lord said to the people : Unless 
 ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, 
 ye shall not have life in you! 9 But this command is 
 literally fulfilled by the laity when they partake of the 
 consecrated bread, which, as we have seen, contains 
 Christ the Lord in all his integrity. Hence, if our 
 
 1 Systema Theol., p. 250. 
 
 2 "Faith of Our Fathers," p. 344, Gibbons. 
 
164 Of Communion in One Kind 
 
 Saviour has said: Whoso eatcth my flesh and drinketh 
 my blood, hath everlasting life; He has also said: The 
 bread which I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the 
 world. The charge of withholding the cup comes with 
 very bad grace from protestant teachers, who destroy 
 the whole intrinsic virtue of the Sacrament by giving 
 to their followers nothing but bread and wine. The 
 difference between them and us lies in this, that under 
 one form we give the substance while they under two 
 forms confessedly give only the shadow." 
 
 3 "It is admitted, that, from the earliest time, down 
 to the twelfth century, the laity as well as clergy, when 
 they assisted at the public and solemn celebration and 
 were admitted to communion, generally received under 
 both kinds. But, during the same period, there seems 
 never to have been any positive ecclesiastical precept 
 to do so, prior to the law passed by Gelasius; for to 
 infants, we often read that the communion was given, 
 sometimes under one species, sometimes under both; 
 again in times of persecution, or under difficulties, such 
 as the Ascetics labored under, or when long journeys 
 were undertaken, the consecrated bread was permitted to 
 be carried away from the church, for private com- 
 munion; the same was taken to the sick who com- 
 municated of the Eucharist that was reserved for their 
 use; where there was a repugnance to the taste of wine, 
 the bread also was given alone; and finally there is 
 evidence to show, that even in the public and solemn 
 administration of the Eucharist, it was in some parts 
 
 3 "Faith of Catholics," p. 377. 
 
Of Communion in One Kind 165 
 
 at least of the church optional to receive under one kind 
 or under both. 
 
 "It may then, it seems, be said, the faithful in the 
 times of ivhich we are speaking, generally received under 
 one kind alone; while the priesthood, to whom the com- 
 mand of Christ, Do this for a commemoration of me, 
 we believe solely applies, when employed in the duty 
 of their sacred function, received under both species. 
 The completion of the mysterious institution demanded 
 this. But many abuses and accidents, through care- 
 lessness or incaution, happening in the distribution of 
 the consecrated wine; and the use of the consecrated 
 bread alone, on so many occasions being permitted; and 
 the belief that Christ was wholly present under both 
 species authorizing the practice; the primitive rite grad- 
 ually subsided and communion in one kind, even in pub- 
 lic, very generally prevailed." 
 
 It was not until the fifteenth century when the dis- 
 ciples of John Huss declared the necessity of receiving 
 in both kinds, that a law was made that the laity and 
 popes, bishops and priests also except when celebrating 
 Mass, should receive in one kind only. 
 
 Our protestant friends, actuated by the kindest feel- 
 ings towards us, offer their sympathy and condolence 
 for the loss of the cup; but while they are so particular 
 about the cup, they seem not over particular in regard 
 to the contents of the cup; some using wine and some 
 raisin water, 4 and an English traveler in far away Bur- 
 mah saw in a mission protestant church, Bass's pale ale 
 used at the communion service. In some countries 
 
 4 N. Y. Independent, Sept. 21, 1876. 
 
1 66 Of Communion in One Kind 
 
 where the grape is not cultivated it is often difficult, 
 and always expensive to procure wine suitable for church 
 use at the altar. 
 
 The Catholic Church is supposed to possess something 
 like two hundred and seventy-five millions of adherents. 
 It would be a very low estimate to put the number of 
 communions made during the year at two each for 
 this number, but even this would amount to five hun- 
 dred millions! It is the custom of some catholics to 
 receive communion every day, a larger number every 
 week and on holy days, and a very large number indeed 
 once a month. The number of communions therefore 
 each year throughout the entire world, would, could 
 they be known, seem almost fabulous, and the incon- 
 venience and expense attending the furnishing of wine 
 for such a host would be something enormous. 
 
 It often happens that in our large churches in cities, 
 many hundreds come to communion at a single Mass ; 
 to provide all with individual cups, would be well-nigh 
 impossible and quite absurd, and for all to drink from 
 one cup, highly insanitary if not positively repulsive. 
 
 However, as the custom of some churches of the 
 Eastern Rite is to receive under both kinds ; should 
 any good reason for the same practice by the church 
 at large be ultimately found, a like practice might, as 
 has been the case in the past be permitted or enjoined ; 
 but the faith, that Christ, whole and entire is present as 
 truly under one kind as both, is not and never can be 
 subject to revision. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 
 
 With God's great searchlight turned upon them, our 
 first parents sadly realized that, in their fatal sin of 
 ambition, they had lost primeval innocence, their Cre- 
 ator's love, and Eden. The earth, for them, cursed and 
 given to the bringing forth of thorns and thistles; the 
 legacy left posterity, sin and death. 
 
 We may well imagine the grief that bowed them to 
 the ground as clad in skins, the emblems of their fall, the 
 troublesome disguises of their shame, the father and 
 mother of our race, driven by the Angel of the Flaming 
 Sword, went forth from the shining gates of paradise. 
 
 We may well imagine too that their sorrow was not 
 entirely the result of God's judgments upon them, the 
 cursing of the earth; the sweat of toil; the exile from 
 Eden ; but was largely in the consciousness of their 
 ingratitude to their Creator, and they were forced to 
 acknowledge that in justice they should offer their lives 
 as a sacrifice for their sin. But an offended God 
 desired the love, not the death of his children ; so here, 
 at the first shedding of tears on earth, God's mercy 
 abounds. For though sin had come into the world, and 
 death by sin, yet a way of escape for the penitent sinner 
 had been found through faith in a Redeemer to come. 
 To keep constantly before the sinner's mind his obli- 
 gations to the Redeemer, who, by his vicarious suffer- 
 
168 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 ings was to purchase pardon and by his obedience give 
 to God honor far in excess of that dishonor wrought 
 by the fall, Sacrifice was instituted. 
 
 The innocent lamb, sacrificed on the altar, was under- 
 stood to be the figure of the spotless Lamb of God 
 offered on the altar of the cross for the sins of the 
 whole world. Thus the looking forward to a promised 
 Redeemer, and the acknowledgment that the Creator was 
 the Supreme Lord of all and the Sovereign Master of 
 life and death, were among the chief intentions of all 
 sacrifices under the Jewish law. To these intentions 
 present in all sacrifices were added offerings of im- 
 petration, thanksgiving, and satisfaction for sin. 
 
 The Old Testament Scriptures are filled with accounts 
 of sacrifices offered for these various intentions. We 
 find Cain and Abel offering sacrifice to God in this 
 early stage of the world's history. The patriarch Noe, 
 when leaving the ark, offered sacrifice in thanksgiving 
 for his deliverance from the flood. * Judas Machabeus 
 offered sacrifice for the souls of those slain in battle. 
 2 Job offered burnt offerings for the sins of his children. 
 In short the whole world, even the heathen, having 
 preserved some traditions of the primitive practice, sacri- 
 ficed to their gods. "You may find," says Plutarch, 
 "cities without walls, without literature, and without 
 the arts and sciences of civilized life; but you will never 
 find a city without priests and altars, or which has not 
 sacrifices offered to the gods." 
 
 Thus sacrifice has always been regarded by all nations 
 and peoples excepting Mohammedans and protestants, 
 
 1 Mach. II, xii, 43. 
 
 2 Job i, 5. 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 169 
 
 as the highest act of worship possible for man to 
 offer his Maker. 3 "It was God who prescribed all the 
 rites and ceremonies in that solemn act of public wor- 
 ship. God commanded that a lamb should be sacrificed 
 every morning and evening. On the Sabbath and on 
 festivals, more abundant sacrifices were offered. . . . 
 Whenever an Israelite committed a sin he was bound 
 to confess and to offer sacrifice. The sinner led to the 
 priest the animal destined for sacrifice. He laid his 
 hand upon the head of the victim, to acknowledge 
 before God that this innocent animal was to bear his 
 sins and to die in his place. The animal was then 
 slain by the priest, and its blood poured about the 
 altar. This kind of sacrifice was not only to atone for 
 sin, but also to obtain favors from God, or to thank him 
 for favors received. As sacrifice was instituted by God 
 in the very beginning for the most sacred ends, it was 
 never to cease so long as human beings remained on 
 earth." 
 
 The Jewish sacrifices were intended as a temporary 
 institution only ; not the real thing as ' "it was impos- 
 sible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away 
 sin," but they were figures of the real thing, and the 
 Jewish sacrifices of the old law all pointed to the one 
 great sacrifice of the new law, "the Lamb of God who 
 taketh away the sins of the world." It was intended 
 that the priests and the sacrifices of the old law, should 
 disappear at the coming of the priests and the sacrifice 
 of the new law, for they were promises fulfilled, figures 
 succeeded by the reality ; as mists that obscure the moun- 
 
 3 "Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," Muller, p. 133. 
 
170 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 tain peak, and as shadows of the vale that wait but to 
 vanish at the coming of day. So at the time that our 
 divine Saviour came upon earth, and offered himself a 
 bloody sacrifice upon the cross, the Jewish sacrifices 
 were abolished and their priesthood disappeared from 
 earth, because it was no longer necessary or pleasing to 
 God that they should be continued. See Malachias I, 
 v. 10-11. 
 
 Our Lord came not to destroy the law of sacrifice 
 which he had instituted, and which was the highest act 
 of worship known to the world; but rather to fulfill it 
 by substituting the real victim, even himself, for the 
 former figures. It had been made known by the 
 prophets that God, wearied by the sins of his chosen 
 people, would turn to the Gentiles. 4 "And I will have 
 mercy upon her that was without mercy ; and I will 
 say to that which was not my people, Thou art my 
 people: and they shall say, Thou art my God." 
 
 That the Jewish priesthood would one day be super- 
 seded by a priesthood of the Gentiles, is foretold by the 
 prophet Isaiah. "I will send of them that shall be 
 saved to the Gentiles. . . . And I will take 
 of them to be priests and Levites, saith the Lord." 
 That there should be a perpetual sacrifice offered by the 
 priests, here mentioned, we learn from another prophet. 
 5 "For from the rising of the sun even to the going 
 down, my name is great among the Gentiles ; and in 
 every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my 
 name a clean oblation : for my name is great among the 
 Gentiles saith the Lord of hosts." 
 
 4 Hosea ii, 23-24. 
 
 5 Malachi i, 2. 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 171 
 
 What was this pure sacrifice, this clean oblation, that 
 was to be perpetually offered in every place? There 
 were from the beginning two kinds of sacrifices offered, 
 and two different orders of priests. The priesthood of 
 Aaron had to do exclusively with animal sacrifice, while 
 the priesthood of Melchisedech offered bread and wine. 
 Our divine Saviour was 6 "called by God a high-priest 
 according to the order of Melchisedech," and as we see 
 he offered bread and wine. Further than that, he united 
 in himself the two kinds of the priesthood before men- 
 tioned by offering himself, being both priest and victim, 
 under the appearances of bread and wine, and on 
 the day following, in a bloody manner as in the priest- 
 hood of Aaron. 
 
 But as a priest according to the order of Melchisedech, 
 he was a priest forever, and the sacrifice of the clean 
 oblation was to be offered perpetually in all places 
 throughout the world; therefore we find our blessed 
 Lord saying, on the night in which he was betrayed, "do 
 this for a commemoration of me," as if he had said: 
 What you have seen me do in the consecration of the 
 bread and wine whereby they became my flesh and 
 blood, that also do, and continually offer up in an un- 
 bloody manner, not a different but the same sacrifice 
 that shall be offered once, in a bloody manner on the 
 altar of the cross. 
 
 That the Apostles, as here instructed, continued at 
 all times to offer the holy sacrifice which they called the 
 Mass and which was a representation of Christ's pa&- 
 sion and death, there is abundant evidence to show in 
 
 e Heb. v, 10. 
 
172 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 the Scriptures, the writings of the Fathers, and in the 
 liturgies of the first Christians. We read in the 7 Acts 
 of the Apostles that as Saul and others "were minister- 
 ing, (in the Greek sacrificing) to the Lord and fasting, 
 the Holy Spirit said," etc. 
 
 St. Paul declares that 8 "we have an altar, whereof 
 they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle." 
 Now the only possible use for an altar is to offer sac- 
 rifice upon, and the only sacrifice that could be offered 
 under the new law, was that of the body and blood of 
 Christ according to the order of Melchisedeck. This 
 same apostle also says : 9 "For the priesthood being 
 translated, it is necessary that a translation also be 
 made of the law." That is for a changed priesthood, 
 a new law of sacrifice. The priesthood of Aaron hav- 
 ing been superseded by the priesthood of Melchisedech, 
 instead of animal sacrifices we have the sacrifice wherein 
 bread and wine are changed into the body and blood 
 of Christ. 
 
 St. Paul quoting from the Psalms, calls our Lord 
 10 "a priest forever according to the order of Melchis- 
 edech." Why priest if not because he offered sacrifice, 
 and what sacrifice did he offer other than himself? He 
 is a priest forever, because the sacrifice of the new 
 law is perpetual. His priesthood is of the order of 
 Melchisedech, because he offers up that bread and wine 
 which the sacrifice of that priest prefigured. 
 
 St. Justin of the second century writes : " "On the 
 
 7 Acts xiii, 2. 
 
 8 Heb. xiii, 10. 
 
 9 Heb. vii, 12. 
 
 10 p s . cix, 4. 
 
 11 Apo. i, n. 65, 67. 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 173 
 
 day called 'Sunday,' there is an assembly in one place 
 of all who live in the cities or country, and the Acts 
 of the Apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are 
 read as long as circumstances permit. Then when the 
 reader has ceased, the one who presides delivers a dis- 
 course, in which he reminds and exhorts to the imita- 
 tion of the good things. We then all rise together and 
 pray. Our prayer being finished, we embrace one 
 another with the kiss of peace. Then to him who pre- 
 sides over the brethren is presented bread, and wine 
 tempered with water; having received which, he gives 
 glory to the Father of all things in the name of the 
 Son and Holy Ghost, and returns thanks in many 
 prayers. These offices being duly performed, the whole 
 assembly, in acclamation, answers Amen. 
 
 "Then the ministers whom we call deacons, distribute 
 to each one present a portion of the blessed bread and 
 wine. Some is also taken to the absent. This food 
 we call Eucharist, of which they alone are allowed to 
 partake who believe in the doctrines taught by us and 
 have been regenerated by water for the remission of sin, 
 and who live as Christ ordained. Nor do we take 
 these gifts as common bread and common drink, but as 
 Jesus Christ, made man by the word of God, took flesh 
 and blood for our salvation in the same manner we 
 have been taught that the food which has been blessed 
 by the prayer of the words which He spoke, is changed 
 into the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus, and 
 it is thus that we are nourished by his flesh and blood. 
 
 "The Apostles in the commentaries written by them, 
 which are called Gospels, have declared that Jesus so 
 
174 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 commanded when, taking bread, having given thanks 
 he said: 'Do this in commemoration of me; This is 
 my body/ In like manner taking the cup, and giving 
 thanks, he said; 'This is my blood;' and that he distrib- 
 uted both to them only." 
 
 St. Cyprian in the third century, calls the Mass "an 
 everlasting sacrifice." St. Augustine in the fourth cen- 
 tury, speaks of the Mass as 12 "a true and august sac- 
 rifice," and that it has supplanted all former sacrifices. 
 13 "Old things," he continues, "have passed away, and 
 new things have been made in Christ, in such a way 
 that altar has yielded to altar, bread to bread, lamb to 
 lamb, blood to blood." St. John Chrysostom in the fifth 
 century says : 14 "Jesus Christ has ordained a sacred 
 rite and changed the sacrifice, and instead of the slaugh- 
 ter of animals, has commanded himself to be offered up." 
 
 The Catholic Church has defined this truth in her 
 Councils. Thus the Fathers of the Council of Trent 
 in the twenty-second session spoke as follows: "For 
 as much as, under the former Testament according to 
 the testimony of the Apostle Paul, there was no perfec- 
 tion because of the weakness of the Levitical Priest- 
 hood, there was need, God, the Father of mercies so 
 ordaining, that another Priest should rise, according to 
 the order of Melchisedeck, our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 might consummate, and lead to what is perfect, as many 
 as were to be sanctified. . . . He offered up to God 
 the Father his own body and blood under the species 
 of bread and wine: and under the symbols of those 
 
 12 De Civit. Dei, xx. 
 
 is Ep. xxxvi, ad Casulanum. 
 
 14 J. X. Horn. 24, in I Cor. 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 175 
 
 same things, he delivered (his own body and blood) to 
 be received by his Apostles, whom he then constituted 
 priests of the New Testament : and by those words : 'Do 
 this in commemoration of me,' he commanded them and 
 their successors in the priesthood to offer (them) even 
 as the Catholic Church has always understood and 
 taught. And this is indeed that clean oblation, which 
 was prefigured by various types of sacrifices during the 
 period of nature, and of the law ; in as much as it com- 
 prises all the good things signified by those sacrifices, 
 as being the consummation and perfection of them all." 
 
 These quotations which could be multiplied at will 
 show how the Jewish sacrifices were succeeded by the 
 sacrifice of the new law, of the Lamb of God offered 
 once only on the altar of the cross, after the manner 
 of the priesthood of Aaron, for the salvation of the 
 world, and afterward is offered daily, a clean oblation 
 upon air Christian altars after the manner of the priest- 
 hood of Melchisedeck, to keep in a most realistic man- 
 ner the mind of the sinner fixed upon the great sacrifice 
 of the cross, from which, in the water and the blood, 
 flowed the world's salvation ; in this manner keeping 
 his sufferings and death as in a panoramic view before 
 our eyes ; and bringing himself to us, and us to him in 
 the closest and most heavenly of unions. 
 
 In the sacrifice of the new law, the heavenly Victim 
 is offered up in acknowledgment of our entire sub- 
 jection and dependence upon him; in impetration for 
 grace and all desired blessings ; in atonement for sin 
 and in thanksgiving for favors received; which are the 
 four great intentions for which sacrifice was instituted 
 
176 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 in the beginning of the world. In this way is the new 
 law seen to be the fulfillment of the old, and not its 
 abrogation. 15 "We deem," says Father Mtiller, "this 
 sacrifice so fully sufficient and so perfect that, whatever 
 is afterwards added, has been instituted to celebrate 
 and to apply its virtue." 
 
 If the sacrifice of the cross is all sufficient say our 
 friends what need of the sacrifice of the Mass? God 
 knowing so well our proneness to forget his works of 
 mercy toward us, must in some way constantly keep 
 before us a reminder of the sufferings and death of 
 his Son. As by the symbolical sacrifices of the old law, 
 he kept before the sinner his need of the great expiatory 
 Victim of the future, so now must the sinner be kept 
 in mind that this Victim has really come, suffered and 
 died for us, and that this greatest of all truths might 
 not in all the ages to come lose its force and directness 
 or be shrouded in mist as past history God willed that 
 this commemoration be perpetually made. 
 
 The merits of Christ's sacrifice on the cross are of 
 incalculable value; a mine of inexhaustible riches, suf- 
 ficient for every human soul; but, as a reservoir of 
 water sufficient for a city's need, in order to be of the 
 greatest benefit to all must be carried in pipes to the 
 house of each consumer, so must the all sufficient merits 
 of the Redeemer's sacrifice be applied to each individual 
 soul. On the cross the sacrifice is in general and for 
 all alike, and in that as it is historic, and separated from 
 us by ages seems at a distance; but in the sacrifice of 
 
 15 "The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," p. 165. 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 177 
 
 the Mass, the Victim is near to us, and each one pres- 
 ent can truly say, he is our very own. 
 
 16 "But of all proofs," says Cardinal Gibbons, "in 
 favor of the apostolic origin of the sacrifice of the 
 Mass, the most striking and the most convincing is 
 found in the liturgies of the Church. The liturgy is a 
 collection of the authorized prayers of divine worship. 
 These prayers are fixed and immovable. Among oth- 
 ers, we have the Liturgy of Jerusalem, ascribed to the 
 Apostle St. James ; the Liturgy of Alexandria, attrib- 
 uted to St. Mark the Evangelist, and the Liturgy of 
 Rome referred to St. Peter. There are various others 
 accredited to the Apostles or their immediate successors. 
 It is a remarkable fact, that all these liturgies, though 
 compiled by different persons, at different times and in 
 various places and in divers languages, contain, with- 
 out exception, in clear and precise language, the pray- 
 ers to be said at the celebration of Mass ; prayers in 
 substance the same as those found in our prayer-books 
 at the Canon of the Mass. 
 
 "We cannot account for this wonderful uniformity, 
 except by supposing that the doctrine respecting the 
 Mass was received by the Apostles from the common 
 fountain of Christianity Jesus Christ himself." 
 
 The Roman Liturgy attributed to St. Peter, in the 
 excerpts here given is almost identical, word for word, 
 with the prayers used in the Church to-day; and they 
 are as follows : "Wherefore O Lord, we beseech Thee 
 graciously to accept this oblation of our bounden serv- 
 ice, . . . which oblation do thou, O God, we be- 
 
 16 "Faith of Our Fathers," Gibbons, p. 358. 
 
178 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 seech thee, vouchsafe to make in all respects, blessed, 
 approved, ratified, reasonable, and acceptable, that it 
 may be made unto us the body and blood of thy most 
 beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 After the consecration : "Wherefore, O Lord, we thy 
 servants . . . offer unto thy glorious majesty of 
 thy gifts and presents, a pure host, a holy host, an im- 
 maculate host, the holy bread of eternal life, and the 
 chalice of everlasting salvation. Upon which vouchsafe 
 to look with a propitious and serene countenance, and 
 to accept them as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the 
 gifts of thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our 
 patriarch Abraham, and that which thy high priest Mel- 
 chisedeck offered to thee, a holy sacrifice an immacu- 
 late host. . . . May this commixture and consecra- 
 tion of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
 to us that receive, unto eternal life." 
 
 Bowing with great reverence before the Blessed Sac- 
 rament he says: "Lamb of God who takest away the 
 sins of the world, have mercy on us. ... Let not 
 the participation of thy body, O Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, be to 
 my judgment and condemnation, but through thy mercy, 
 may it be available unto me for the safeguard and cure 
 of mind and body." 
 
 At the communion the celebrant says thrice, "Lord, I 
 am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof, 
 but speak the word only, and my soul shall be healed." 
 In the giving as in the receiving of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, the priest declares it to be "the body of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 179 
 
 So it is, that in the same words used by the Apostles 
 themselves, the holy sacrifice of the Mass the clean 
 oblation has always been and is at this day through- 
 out the civilized world daily offered up from the rising 
 of the sun unto the going down of the same, and the 
 prophecy of God by Malachi is fulfilled in the Catholic 
 Church alone. 
 
 In the English Inquisition and in time of persecution 
 in Ireland, Germany, France and other countries, so 
 firmly was the faith in the holy sacrifice of the Mass 
 held and practiced, and so completely dominated by it 
 were the hearts and minds of the people, that the only 
 expedient that could tear them from it, was the whole- 
 sale destruction aided by the despotic arm of the law 
 of Catholic Altars. 
 
 In concluding this chapter, let us briefly contrast the 
 radical difference between the interior decoration and 
 general appearance of a temple or house of God where 
 the sacrifice of the Mass is unknown, and the one where 
 sacrifice is the highest act of worship practiced. Should 
 a catholic by any chance enter a protestant church, he 
 would quite likely be standing opposite a large organ, 
 easily the most conspicuous object present. In front of 
 this great instrument, the next objects claiming atten- 
 tion are a luxurious looking sofa, a desk or stand of 
 sufficient size to hold a large "Open Bible," and a glass 
 for water. Aisles radiate from, and seats converge to, 
 this center of attraction, the arena, so to speak, where 
 weekly occur those friendly contests between the sister 
 arts of Oratory and Music. Not always, but often, all 
 
180 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
 
 emblems of the Christian religion are absent. An an- 
 tiquarian odor characteristic of places seldom used per- 
 vades the place, showing that the church of the "Open 
 Bible" is also the church of the closed doors. The 
 seats and backs of the pews are nicely cushioned, with 
 a kind regard for the comfort of those who may, in 
 view of the attractions offered on the bill-board out- 
 side, condescend to patronize the place. It is all very 
 decorously decent and proper, and shows the purpose 
 of its use, which is that of an "Auditorium" a place 
 in which to see and hear. 
 
 The protestant, who through curiosity may enter a 
 Catholic Church, will notice indications of constant use, 
 as though the people had been there. The floor shows 
 wear from the many feet that daily pass up and down 
 the aisles. The seats, without upholstery, look bare 
 and plain ; a thoroughly democratic appearance quite 
 the opposite of its aristocratic neighbor prevails in this, 
 the only Church in the world where before God's Altar 
 the beggar is the equal of the king! The visitor will 
 also see some worshiper present and take notice of the 
 reverent behavior of all who pass in or out. 
 
 The very walls and windows, no longer dumb stone 
 and glass, have been transformed into voiceless preach- 
 ers of Scripture truth and catholic faith, by the aid of 
 that hand-maid of religion sacred art. Here will be 
 seen verified the statement of St. Paul, before referred 
 to, as the High Altar is easily recognized as the most 
 prominent and beautiful object within; and as we have 
 seen there never has been a time since Christianity 
 
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 181 
 
 came to save the world, when Christ's Church, had not 
 Christ's Altar within it, where in the tabernacle, be- 
 neath the sacramental veils, the Lord of Glory sheds a 
 holy peace on all around. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. 
 
 1 "The thief upon the cross did not dare to say 'Re- 
 member me in thy kingdom/ until he had by means of 
 confession laid down the load of his sins. Seest thou 
 how great a thing confession is? He confessed and 
 opened paradise, he confessed and took so much bold- 
 ness of speech as to ask for a kingdom for his theft. 
 . . . If he vouchsafe to us his mercy ... let 
 us not be ashamed to confess our sins, for great is the 
 strength of confession, and abundant its power. For lo! 
 even this man confessed and found paradise opened." 
 
 Although our divine Master's delight was to be with 
 the children of men, to heal the sick, give sight to the 
 blind, and loose the tongue of the dumb, yet he dis- 
 played more power in healing the diseases of the soul 
 stained with sin than in curing the ills of the body. 
 
 2 "Thou shalt call his name Jesus," says the angel to 
 St. Joseph, "for he shall save his people from their sins." 
 It was sin which our Lord came to save us from. 
 When out of compassion he was pleased to minister to 
 bodily ills ; with the cure effected, we hear also the 
 sweet words of pardon, "Son, be of good heart, thy 
 sins are forgiven thee." (Math, ix, 2.) 
 
 After the brief term of his public ministry which 
 
 1 St. John Chrysostom. 
 
 2 Matt, i, 21. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 183 
 
 closes with the Ascension, are we to hope that some 
 provision has been made whereby Christ's forgiveness 
 of the sinner may be as fully assured to him as when 
 in person he pronounced the words, "Thy sins are for- 
 given thee" ; or must the soul forever dwell in tortur- 
 ing fear and doubt, that knows no definite answer? 
 Saint Paul says : 3 "God hath reconciled us to himself 
 through Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of 
 reconciliation . . . For Christ, therefore, we are 
 ambassadors; God, as it were exhorting through us." 
 Which may be stated thus: God sends Christ, Christ 
 sends us as his agents to reconcile sinners in his name. 
 As it is customary for those whom necessity or pleas- 
 ure calls to distant lands to appoint some one to act for 
 them in their absence, so it is done here. * "As the 
 Father hath sent me, I also send you. . . . Whose 
 sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and 
 whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." In 
 other words, I am about to ascend up to where I was 
 before, I can no longer continue to personally assure 
 and pronounce each penitent sinner's pardon; but so 
 long as sin is in the world, so long will the sinner for 
 his encouragement and comfort, need the same assur- 
 ance of my forgiveness, that you have received from 
 me while present with you. I therefore appoint you 
 as my agents to perform this work for me; whoever 
 shall confess their sins to you, you shall by the aid of 
 the Holy Ghost whom you now receive, be constituted 
 their judges in my place, and your judgment on earth 
 
 311 Cor. v, 18-20. 
 4 John xx, 21-23. 
 
184 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 I will ratify in heaven on behalf of all truly repentant 
 sinners. 
 
 5 "In every system of worship," says the historian 
 Lingard, "the means of atonement for sin must form 
 an essential part. The first professors of the Gospel be- 
 lieved that the Messiah, by his voluntary sufferings had 
 paid to the divine justice the debt contracted by human 
 guilt, but at the same time they taught that the appli- 
 cation of his merits to the soul of man was entrusted 
 to the ministry of those to whom he had imparted the 
 power of binding and loosing, of forgiving or retaining 
 sin. To exercise with discretion this twofold jurisdic- 
 tion it was necessary to learn the prevarications and 
 dispositions of the penitent, and from the earliest ages 
 we behold the faithful Christian at the feet of his con- 
 fessor, acknowledging in public or private, the nature 
 and number of his transgressions. With the doctrine 
 of the Gospel, the practice of confession was introduced 
 among the Saxons by the Roman and Scottish mission- 
 aries. They were taught to consider it not merely as 
 a pious observance, which depended on the devotion 
 of the individual, but as an indispensable obligation, 
 from which nothing could release the sinner but the 
 impossibility of th'e performance. The law by which 
 it was enforced was construed to extend to every class 
 of Christians: to bind the highest ecclesiastic no less 
 than the meanest layman. The sinner who was desirous 
 to regain the favor of his offended God, was directed 
 to approach the feet of his confessor with humility and 
 compunction, and after professing his belief in the prin- 
 
 5 "Anglo Saxon Ch.," Lingard, p. 124. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 185 
 
 cipal truths of Christianity, to unfold all the crimes with 
 which he had contaminated his conscience, by deed, by 
 word, or by thought. To conclude this humiliating 
 ceremony, he declared his determination to amend his 
 life, and adjured his confessor to bear testimony to 
 the sincerity of his repentance in the day of judgment." 
 
 The two excerpts that follow, are from the homilies 
 of the Saxon Church: "The Holy Scripture frequently 
 teaches us to flee to the medicine of true confession of 
 our sins ; because we cannot otherwise be healed, ex- 
 cept we confess with sorrow what we have unright- 
 eously done through negligence. All hope of forgive- 
 ness is in confession. Confession with true repentance 
 is the angelic remedy for sins." And again, "Truly no 
 man will obtain forgiveness of his sins from God, un- 
 less he confess to some of God's ministers and do pen- 
 ance according to his judgment." 
 
 All necessary information regarding Confession can 
 be found in a small Catechism. Those who have an 
 intimate acquaintance with the practical workings of 
 the sacrament in restraining mankind from wrong doing, 
 are loud in their praises of it, while those who have 
 never tried it and as a consequence are not qualified 
 to judge, cannot say enough in disparagement of it. 
 Our friend Mr. Barnes, in the echoing of protestant 
 sentiment against the practice, exceeds the limits of 
 good taste in the plainness of his language. Mr. Barnes 
 says : 6 "The practice of auricular confession is evil, 
 and only evil and that continually. Nothing gives so 
 much power to a priesthood as the supposition that they 
 
 6 Com. Epist. St. James v, 16. 
 9 
 
1 86 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 have the power of absolution. . . . The thought 
 which but for the necessity of confession would have 
 vanished at once; the image which would have departed 
 as soon as it came before the mind, but for the neces- 
 sity of retaining it to make confession these are the 
 things over which a man would seek to have control, 
 and to which he would desire to have access, if he 
 wished to accomplish villainy. . . . Nothing proba- 
 bly under the name of religion has ever done more to 
 corrupt the morals of a community than the practice 
 of auricular confession." 
 
 When this eminently pious and learned man had 
 completed this arraignment of those Christians who, 
 like himself, minister in things divine, he doubtless sur- 
 veyed his work with honest pride. Here is seen in 
 this explanation of Holy Scripture, the partisan image 
 which protestantism has conjured up to frighten its 
 adherents. 
 
 An architect must not only study the theory of build- 
 ing which he finds in the text-books of his profession, 
 but if he would avoid mistakes that would expose him 
 to the criticism of ordinary workmen, he must, as well, 
 be familiar with the practical details of construction. 
 The protesant doctor, seemingly unaware of this com- 
 monplace wisdom, has evolved a theory upon a subject 
 regarding the practical workings of which he was a 
 stranger, and it is not surprising that, under the cir- 
 cumstances, he should have blundered. 
 
 Doctor Barnes is in error regarding the necessity of 
 keeping undesirable thoughts before the mind for fear 
 they may be lost, mislaid or forgotten before the time 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 187 
 
 arrives for confession; for, were any of these acci- 
 dents to happen, the penitent not being able to recall 
 the thoughts mentioned, could not, of course, confess 
 them, and, as no rule of the Church requires impossi- 
 bilities, he would in that fact find his exoneration. It 
 is thus that the best of theories often fail when a 
 practical demonstration is sought for. 
 
 No catholic is required to disclose all that passes 
 through his mind to his confessor. In the number 
 however vast or varied of bad thoughts that some- 
 times float through the minds of us poor mortals, un- 
 sought and unwelcome; thoughts that come and go as 
 the winds of autumn blow dried leaves and dust and 
 rubbish here and there, which find no lodgment and no 
 resting place ; undesired visitants, sad reminders of our 
 nature since the fall from innocence in paradise; not 
 one of these pernicious thoughts are of necessity to be 
 mentioned in confession. But on the contrary, those 
 evil thoughts that come to stay because they are wel- 
 come visitors, and are retained in the mind for the 
 pleasure they give; these must be sincerely repented of, 
 and confessed with great humility and a firm resolution 
 to offend no more. 
 
 Sinful thoughts are the parents of sinful actions ; the 
 confession of sinful thoughts is the axe laid at the root 
 of the tree. It is difficult to imagine how a more effect- 
 ive cure could be devised for sins of this nature, than 
 the practice of Confession. The overwhelming sense 
 of shame that must attend the recital of such infrac- 
 tions of the moral code would naturally serve to deter 
 one from a repetition of so serious an offence. It is 
 
i88 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 an old saying, that "those who frequent the confes- 
 sional, flee from vice." 
 
 Protestants often make the objection that confession 
 of sin leads to its more frequent committal, but why 
 in reason this should be the case, it is difficult to con- 
 jecture ; but if true, those converts to the Christian 
 faith who came to the apostles 7 "confessing and de- 
 claring their deeds," only made a bad matter worse, in 
 taking a step that would only lead to greater prevarica- 
 tions in the end. Ananias and Sapphira also were right 
 in not making a truthful confession to the Apostle 
 Peter, for fear of its bad effect upon their morals later 
 on! 
 
 8 "Confess therefore your sins one to another," is un- 
 derstood by protestants as inculcating mutual confession, 
 the reciprocal disclosure of such small faults as tend 
 to no particular disgrace, and which are perhaps already 
 known. Doctor Barnes in explaining this Scripture 
 says: "As mutual confession is here enjoined, a priest 
 would be as much bound to confess to the people as the 
 people to the priest. No mention is made of a priest at 
 all or even of a minister of religion as the one to whom 
 the confession is to be made." 
 
 "Confess therefore your sin one to another." (St. 
 James v, 16.) The expression one to another cannot 
 mean that if lay persons confess their sins to other lay 
 persons, they have the power of conferring sacramental 
 absolution, that is the forgiveness of sin, for this power 
 Christ gave only to his Apostles to be transmitted to 
 their successors. 
 
 7 Acts xix, 18. 
 
 8 Epist. St. James v, 16. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 189 
 
 One of the rules that should guide us in the inter- 
 pretation of passages of Scripture referring to the same 
 doctrine, but involving some obscurity, is as follows: 
 The obscure passages are made clear by the parallel 
 quotations conveying the same truth or fact in plainer 
 language. Hence, if the above text of St. James is set 
 side by side with that of St. John's Gospel, ch. xx, vv. 
 22, 23, all difficulty disappears and the fact remains 
 established that the power of sacramental absolution is 
 exclusively proper of the priesthood according to divine 
 institution. 
 
 If, however, the text of St. James is taken as mean- 
 ing a voluntary accusation of a penitent to a lay per- 
 son, then it would be a simple act of humility, pleasing, 
 no doubt, in God's sight but utterly devoid of all sacra- 
 mental character, though it may greatly contribute to 
 excite the sinner to true contrition, and thus dispose 
 him to a valid absolution from the priest. 
 
 Let us examine this Scriptural text, commencing at 
 the fourteenth verse, when we may the better be able to 
 determine if Mr. Barnes has been quite fair. The three 
 verses, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth inclusive, 
 evidently refer to one occasion. In the fifteenth verse, 
 the object of the confession of sin is shown to be that 
 of obtaining forgiveness for the same, from the priests 
 of the Church, whom we find in verse fourteenth 
 had already been called in. 
 
 The impartial reader will be likely to conclude that 
 when the sick man, realizing that he was in great dan- 
 ger, called in the priests of the Church, it was not that 
 the priests should confess their sins to him, but that 
 
190 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 he, feeling the coming on of that long night, in which 
 no man can see to work, was anxious only about his 
 own sins, and desired to improve the remaining hours 
 of his day in making a good confession of them to 
 God's ministers to whom it was declared by the Saviour 
 of men : 9 "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are for- 
 given them ; and whose sins you shall retain, they are 
 retained." 
 
 The protestant Doctor seeks to show that confession 
 is properly made for trespasses against our neighbor, 
 to our neighbor. "None but he who has been wronged 
 can pardon an offence." Therefore the priest has 
 nothing to do in the matter. It was a sad mistake that 
 Dr. Barnes did not go to confession, before he wrote 
 so much about confession. If we can imagine such a 
 circumstance as occurring, it must have been something 
 like this : "Reverend Father, I accuse myself of hav- 
 ing offended against Charity, by stating in my books, 
 many things derogatory to the Catholic Church, her 
 priests and people, and regarding the truth of which I 
 was not sufficiently informed to pass judgment upon." 
 We may also imagine the Father Confessor as saying 
 in reply: "My son, in doing so irreparable an injury 
 to thousands of your fellow Christians by the unfounded 
 assertion that by a sacrament of the Church, her priests 
 and people are alike demoralized, you have also con- 
 mitted a mortal sin against God. You have broken that 
 commandment which says : 10 'Thou shalt not bear false 
 witness against thy neighbor.' Go now and ask forgive- 
 ness as far as possible, of those whom you have in- 
 
 s St. John's Gospel xx. 23. 
 10 Exodus xx, 16. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 191 
 
 jured, and in making your retraction as broadcast as 
 your accusation, do all that is possible to restore the 
 reputation of those whom you have defamed. Then 
 come again and if we think your repentance is sincere, 
 we will give you absolution and a penance in proportion 
 to the gravity of your offense." 
 
 11 "The priest," as Doctor Milner says, "being vested 
 by Christ with a judicial power to bind or to loose, to 
 forgive or to retain sins, cannot exercise that power 
 without taking cognizance of the cause on which he 
 is to pronounce, and without judging in particular of 
 the dispositions of the sinner especially as to his sorrow 
 for his sins, and resolution to refrain from them in 
 future: now this knowledge can only be obtained from 
 the penitent's own confession. From this it may be 
 gathered whether his offenses are those of frailty or 
 malice, whether they are accidental or habitual ; in which 
 latter case they are ordinarily to be retained, till his 
 amendment gives proof of his real repentance. 
 
 "Confession is also necessary to enable the minister 
 of the sacrament to decide whether a public reparation 
 for the crimes committed be or be not requisite; and 
 whether there is or is not restitution to be made to the 
 neighbor who has been injured in person, property, or 
 reputation. Accordingly, it is well known that such 
 restitutions are frequently made by those who make use 
 of confession, and very seldom by those who do not 
 use it." 
 
 In the confession of sin, the object sought to be 
 attained is God's forgiveness : mutual confession such as 
 
 11 "End of Controversy," p. 272. 
 
192 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 Doctor Barnes supposes, failing in this object would be 
 useless, in fact worse than useless ; for it is well known 
 that where sins, especially of a grave nature, are made 
 public, as in the daily press, where each disgraceful de- 
 tail is brought to light, such scandalous publicity but 
 serves to incite the degenerate who from failure to 
 become famous, are for notoriety sake willing to be- 
 come infamous. 
 
 The protestant Doctor triumphantly exclaims : "Who 
 can forgive sins but God?" True; but has not God 
 promised to ratify the decisions of his ministers, in the 
 words "whose sins you forgive they are forgiven"? 
 
 It is apparent from the declaration of St. Peter, in 
 the Acts of the Apostles, that 12 sins committed before 
 baptism are remitted in that sacrament. Now, if through 
 the sacrament of baptism administered by a priest, comes 
 remission of sins, why not the remission of sins com- 
 mitted after baptism by the absolution of the priest? 
 The latter case presents no greater difficulties to the 
 understanding than the former, the forgiveness of sin 
 being obtained in both cases by the acts of God's minis- 
 ters who were commissioned and sent into the world 
 for the purpose of reconciling sinners to God. 
 
 Here it is well to remark incidentally that our sep- 
 arated friends, the protestant ministers, those at least 
 who still believe in the efficacy of baptism, when ad- 
 ministering that rite to adult converts, who are likely to 
 be guilty of some grievous sin, actually blot out those 
 sins along with the original stain and thus exercise that 
 very power which they deny to the catholic priests. 
 
 12 Acts ii, 38. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 193 
 
 In the words of St. John : 13 "If we confess our sins, 
 he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 
 and to cleanse us from all iniquity." Is it not an in- 
 dubitable fact that 14 "many that believed came and 
 confessed" to the apostles "and showed their deeds 
 and burned their bad books"? Is it not a fact 
 then, that like baptism and the other sacraments of the 
 Church, auricular confession was established by the 
 apostles, and that it has always been practiced in the 
 Church which our Lord founded and promised to abide 
 with until the consummation of all things? 
 
 If confession, with its attendant self examinations 
 and sense of humiliation and shame when anything of 
 a grievous nature is to be confessed was not obliga- 
 tory from the beginning, does it seem reasonable that 
 this burdensome yoke could afterward have been im- 
 posed without remonstrance upon the Church through- 
 out the world? 
 
 Search the pages of ecclesiastical history up to the 
 apostolic age, and ascertain if not at the beginning 
 when it was that the whole world first became enamored 
 with the idea of confessing to a priest. It was not at 
 the reformation period, for we find Henry VIII, writ- 
 ing in defense of it, not as an innovation, but as having 
 been long established: the Council of Trent in the same 
 century calls it also a venerable institution. 
 
 The Fourth Council of Lateran, in the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century, made a regulation that the peo- 
 ple should confess their sins at least once a year. Our 
 protestant friends have thought to find here the origin 
 
 is I John i, 9. 
 
 i* Acts xix, 18-19. 
 
194 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 of confession, and have stated that Sacramental Con- 
 fession was never required in the Church of Rome 
 until the thirteenth century. But there is nothing in 
 the fact that the Council named, fixed a time limit for 
 complying with the obligation, to show that they were 
 originating a doctrine. 
 
 Historian Lord has also found the origin of Confes- 
 sion ; it was in the reign of Pope Innocent III ; elected 
 A. D. 1198. 15 "It was this Pope who instituted auricu- 
 lar Confession, and laid the foundation of a more dread- 
 ful despotism in the form of inquisitions." 
 
 It will be necessary for protestants to find still an- 
 other date, as in the Synod of Liege, A. D. 710, in 
 words almost identical with those of the former coun- 
 cil, the people were required to confess their sins at 
 the least once a year to an authorized priest. In Eng- 
 land and Ireland Auricular Confession is found in ex- 
 istence as early as the sixth century, but no record of 
 its first introduction has been discovered. 
 
 This Sacrament could not have been introduced in 
 the fourth century. The Nestorians and Eutychians 
 separated from the Catholic Church in the fourth cen- 
 tury; there are numbers of these sects in existence in 
 Persia, Abyssinia, and the western coast of India, and 
 all these Christians practice Auricular Confession. 
 
 We now come to the first ages of Christianity, the 
 period when our adversaries unite in the admission that 
 the Church of our Lord's founding was without "spot 
 or wrinkle." In this halcyon age, before man felt it 
 his right to improve upon God's work, all believed; 
 
 is "Beacon Lights," Vol. ii, p. 269. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 195 
 
 later with the loss of unity men began to doubt, until 
 with the advance of time the haze of uncertainty has 
 filled the air where all before was clear, and from out 
 the mist we hear the sounds of acrimonious disputings 
 and denials of the faith. 
 
 Before all this heat, and dust, and war of words arise, 
 let us consult the writings of the first teachers of the 
 faith once delivered, as we rise a little while before day 
 to enjoy the first sweet hours of morning, and calm the 
 perturbations of a restless night in breezes of refreshing 
 and delightful coolness. 
 
 Tertullian, who lived in the age just subsequent to 
 that of the apostles, writes : 16 "If you withdraw from 
 Confession, think of hell-fire, which Confession extin- 
 guishes." Next in order writes Origen who advises 
 the sinner 17 "to look carefully about him in choosing 
 the one to whom he is to confess his sins." St. Basil, 
 in the fourth century, says : 18 "It is necessary to dis- 
 close our sins to those to whom the dispensation of the 
 divine mysteries is committed." St. Jerome, in Letter 
 122, written A. D. 408, "insists that Confession and 
 penance must precede the reconciliation of the prodigal, 
 which the Church pronounces in the name of God." 
 Says St. Augustine : 19 "The remission of sins is the 
 loosing. For what would it have profited Lazarus that 
 he came forth from the tomb unless it were said to, 
 'loose him and let him go.' . . . This taketh place 
 in the heart of the penitent: when thou hearest a man 
 
 16 Lib. de poenit. 
 
 IT Horn. 2 in Ps. xxxvii. 
 
 is Rule 229. 
 
 19 Psalm ci. 
 
196 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 is sorry for his sins, he hath already come to life: when 
 thou hearest him by confession lay bare his conscience, 
 he is already drawn forth from the tomb, but he is not 
 as yet loosed. When is he loosed and by whom is he 
 loosed? 'Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth Christ 
 saith shall be loosed in heaven.' Forgiveness of sins 
 may justly be granted by the Church ; but the dead man 
 himself cannot be aroused to this except by the Lord 
 speaking within him. 20 "In the year 428, Augustine 
 wrote to Bishop Honoratius, urging the clergy of his 
 diocese to remain with their flocks during the persecu- 
 tions which had just broken out. 21 'If the ministers of 
 God be not at their posts at such a time, how great 
 perdition overtakes those who depart this life either not 
 regenerated (in baptism) or not loosed from their sins.' 
 This surely reveals the true mind of Augustine. He 
 wished none to die without baptism. He wished no 
 baptized person guilty of sin to die without the priestly 
 absolution. 
 
 "This power to absolve from sin is recognized by 
 all the Fathers, as an endowment of the Christian 
 priesthood. It is something to be remarked also that 
 this authority to absolve was not debated by the different 
 heretics of that early day. The Montanists and the 
 Novatians of the third and later centuries were fanatical 
 in their rigor. They opposed granting absolution to 
 Christians guilty of certain heinous sins, but they did 
 not question the right of absolution itself. In like man- 
 ner the Donatist followers falsely declared that absolu- 
 
 20 San Francisco Monitor. 
 
 21 Epist. 228. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 197 
 
 tion would be invalid if the priest pronouncing it were 
 himself burdened with sin. Each of these heretical 
 bodies questioned the application of the absolving power 
 in certain circumstances. Not one of the three denied 
 that Christ delegated the power of forgiving sins." 
 
 Did space allow, like excerpts from the writings of 
 the Fathers, of the first five centuries, could be pro- 
 duced in great number; they settle the question beyond 
 a doubt for all whose prejudice is not invincible: but 
 for those who read in God's Word : "Whose sins you 
 the apostles forgive, they are forgiven them: and 
 whose sins you shall retain they are retained." "Con- 
 fess therefore your sins one to another." "And many 
 that believed came and confessed to the apostles and 
 showed their deeds," etc., and yet they deny that the 
 necessity of Confession is taught in the Bible. For 
 such indeed no amount of testimony would be deemed 
 conclusive. 
 
 In their efforts to prove auricular Confession an in- 
 vention of man having no connection with the first ages 
 of faith, our adversaries dwell largely upon the fact 
 that Confession in the beginning was public, and that 
 when public confession ceased, private confession took 
 its place. In the work of misleading the mind of the 
 inquirer, nothing is more efficacious than the statement 
 of a half truth, it wins its way by its seeming respecta- 
 bility, and thus does more damage to the cause of truth 
 than an out-and-out lie. Quoting from a protestant 
 writer as a case in point : * 2 "Soon after the abolition of 
 public confession by an extremely natural transition, 
 
 22 "Ecclesiastical Records," Hart, p. 322. 
 
198 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 auricular or secret confession succeeded into its place." 
 What an extremely natural, easy and respectable way 
 of accounting for the introduction on earth of this yoke 
 of the Gospel. It required no assistance from pope, or 
 prelate, for its institution, no date even is necessary in 
 the chronicling of this important happening to all man- 
 kind; it floated in as fog drifts in from the sea, "by an 
 extremely natural transition" ! 
 
 The half truth here is, that public confession was 
 practiced in the beginning. The whole truth is, that 
 both public and private confession were practiced in 
 the beginning. Private confession preceded public con- 
 fession, it was obligatory upon pope, prelate, priest, and 
 people alike. Public confession by advice of the con- 
 fessor only. Origen in the third century speaks of 
 this custom : 23 "And should he the physician decide 
 your disease to be such that it ought to be declared 
 and cured publicly before the congregation of the 
 Church, that others may be thereby edified, and you 
 more easily healed, this must be done only after much 
 deliberation and the prudent advice of such a physician." 
 
 Public confession, as made in the hearing of a num- 
 ber of people (e. g., a congregation) differs from pri- 
 vate or secret confession, which is made to the priest 
 alone, and is often called auricular, i. e. spoken into the 
 ear of the confessor. Though Christ did not forbid that 
 any one, in punishment of his crimes and for his own 
 humiliation, should confess his sins publicly, still this 
 has not been commanded by divine precept and it has 
 long ceased to be practiced. It is therefore Catholic 
 
 23 2 Horn, on Psalm xxxvii. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 199 
 
 doctrine, first, that Christ did not prescribe public con- 
 fession, salutary as it might be, nor did he forbid it. 
 Second, that secret confession, sacramental in character, 
 has been the practice of the Church from the earliest 
 days. (See Catholic Cyclopedia, Vol. XI, p. 625.) 
 
 24 "The reformers," says the San Francisco Monitor, 
 "rejected five of the sacraments. Among those cast 
 aside was Penance. Though trying to retain Confes- 
 sion as a balm for the soul, the sacramental nature of 
 the act was denied in the strongest language. But it is 
 not in the words of the original reformers that we must 
 look for the source of our modern protestant diatribes 
 against the practice of confession. 
 
 "In 1661 Jean Daille, a Calvinist theologian, pub- 
 lished in Geneva a work entitled De Sacramentali seu 
 Auriculari Confessione. In this volume he gave thirty 
 more or less specious reasons to show that auricular 
 confession as practiced by the Catholic Church was 
 something unknown to the church of antiquity. This 
 volume of Daille's has been the foundation and ground- 
 work of the later protestant theological treatment of 
 penance. It was the basis even of Bingham's lengthy 
 treatise on the matter in Book XVIII of his Christian 
 Antiquities, and through this open spirit of bias, what 
 is otherwise an erudite work, is irreparably spoiled. In 
 short the abuse of confession by almost every protestant 
 writer who has touched on this subject from the raving 
 pamphleteers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 down to their more pretentious American successor, 
 
 24 San Francisco Monitor, Sept. 24, 1898. 
 
2OO The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 Henry C. Lea, is drawn either directly or indirectly 
 from this same source. 
 
 "But in the midst of all this acrid excoriation of 
 absolution and confession, what strange vagaries are 
 exhibited in the history of protestantism. The later 
 reformers have not words strong enough to abuse the 
 sacrament of Penance. On the contrary, it was not so 
 with the originators of the protest. Luther and Melanc- 
 thon urged that confession be retained. In the cate- 
 chisms published by Luther, and still authoritative, we 
 find an exhortation to confession and to belief in the 
 validity of the priest's absolution. The Confession of 
 Augsburg says that 'absolution is a true sacrament' and 
 to reject it is to renew the ancient error of the Nova- 
 tions. In the Apology for the Augsburg Confession, 
 pages 167-181, it is stated that 'it would be rash impiety 
 to abolish private confession. What would be the mean- 
 ing of the forgiveness of sins or the power of the keys, 
 if we should asperse private absolution. . . . The 
 same credit must be given to the absolving priest as to 
 a voice from Heaven.' 
 
 ' "Auricular Confession is practiced among the angli- 
 can clergy and laity of England. Archbishop Temple 
 defined what Confession is at Ashford Parish Church. 
 The address defined nothing except that 'we are various- 
 ly made, and there is no system that suits everybody.' 
 The first and perhaps the greatest objection to Con- 
 fession, the Archbishop says, 'is the want of freedom.' 
 Man is not the better for being so much looked after. 
 He is made to depend more on others than on himself, 
 
 25 San Francisco Monitor, Vol. xlviii, No. 6. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 201 
 
 and so there is in consequence a decline of moral and 
 spiritual activity. 
 
 "Another objection is the temptation to be untrue. 
 According to the Anglican theory, confession leads to 
 lying and so not only becomes useless but actually 
 harmful. 'A lie once told in the confessional weakens 
 forever the power of making a good use of such a 
 system.' This is very plausible. Of course to tell a 
 lie in Confession is harmful, much more so than to lie 
 under other circumstances. But is the temptation to 
 untruth greater in the confessional than elsewhere? 
 There are many occasions in every one's life where a 
 lie might stave off unpleasant results. A man often- 
 times gains some immediate benefit by lying, but in the 
 end he is bound to lose. In confession a man gains 
 nothing either immediately or ultimately by lying. And 
 what Doctor Temple lays down as the weak point of 
 confession is the strongest. While it is true that one 
 may lie in the confessional, the knowledge of the spirit- 
 ual ruin that follows such an act keeps people to the 
 truth. 
 
 "But Confession, according to Doctor Temple's idea, 
 is the strangest doctrine in the protestant creed. It 
 must be altogether voluntary. No man may be com- 
 pelled to confess. He is merely required to be at peace 
 with his own conscience. This freedom is the founda- 
 tion of protestantism. Any doctrine, the acceptance of 
 which causes trouble, is cast aside. Confession is dis- 
 agreeable, and because it is, therefore, it must not be 
 insisted upon. A man's comfort and convenience are 
 
202 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 the first things to be considered. That being attended 
 to, he believes. 
 
 "We should like to be heretic enough to believe in 
 voluntary confession. It would save many people much 
 uneasiness, but it would take away the greatest comfort 
 that religion can give, namely, the knowledge that, when 
 we have properly confessed our sins and received abso- 
 lution, our souls are healed of all the sores that caused 
 us pain and trouble. We enjoy a holy peace which is 
 a foretaste of the peace that is to be forever." 
 
 The Anglican professor of divinity in the" University 
 of Cambridge had this to say about the work of Jean 
 Daille, before mentioned : 26 "We must be careful not 
 to let our estimate of the Fathers be formed at second 
 hand from a mere perusal of such authorities as Daille. 
 Attention next after the Scriptures must be given to 
 the primitive Fathers . . . with such respect as is 
 due to the only witnesses we have of the state and 
 opinions of the Church immediately after the apostles' 
 times. . . . The necessity of secret confession is 
 another question, which Daille singles out as one which 
 does not admit of illustration from anything the Fathers 
 say, so alien from it are the topics they handle. And 
 as I have observed in similar cases, there certainly is 
 no treatise expressly on the subject by any early Father 
 but there is that which bears upon it. ... Daille 
 is not justified in representing the writing of the Fathers 
 as inapplicable to such a question secret confession 
 for however casually it may present itself in their writ- 
 ings and whatever may be the aspect of it they offer, 
 
 26 "The Early Fathers," pp. 50-53, J. J. Blunt. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 203 
 
 the question of secret confession is clearly one upon 
 which they may be made to speak in one shape or 
 other; and I could have doubled or trebled the length 
 of this lecture, had I chosen to bring forward all the 
 materials they would furnish upon it." 
 
 The Anglican professor finds no separate treatise, no 
 special apology for Confession in the writings of the 
 Fathers of the first centuries ! For the sake of brevity 
 as few quotations as possible out of many at hand have 
 been used. But these few seem sufficient to make clear 
 and plain the fact, that the Scriptures which mention 
 confession, were understood by the first Christians, pre- 
 cisely as we understand them now. It is surprising, 
 not that there should be so little, but that there should 
 be so much to substantiate this doctrine in the writings 
 of the early Fathers; especially so as the apostolic 
 origin of confession had never been denied. It is al- 
 ways the denial of a truth that brings out the apology 
 for it. When the Church was one and undivided, and 
 its doctrines generally believed, there was no question 
 of vital importance to call forth debate, and it therefore 
 occasions no surprise that the Fathers should not have 
 written largely in vindication of a doctrine the truth 
 of which none, not even the heretics who went out 
 from us in the early ages, had the hardihood to deny. 
 
 27 "The latest relic of early Christian literature was 
 published to the world in 1883, 'The Teaching of the 
 Twelve Apostles,' a work often referred to in Christian 
 authors but unknown in text had at last been discovered. 
 By the common consent of scholars this work must 
 
 27 San Francisco Monitor, Vol. xlviii, No. 2. 
 
204 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 have been written before A. D. 120, and most probably 
 before St. John finished his Gospel. Now chapter VII 
 to XV of this work refer to ritual and discipline, Chap- 
 ter XIV directs that Christians come together on the 
 Lord's Day to break (bread) and to give thanks, but 
 before communicating they should confess their sins in 
 the church in order that their sacrifice be pure. This 
 does not look as if the power of forgiving sins and the 
 necessity of confession were new doctrines." The same 
 writer in speaking of the increase among protestants 
 of ritualistic practices, says : 28 "This Ritualistic phase 
 of modern protestantism may seem ludicrous in many 
 ways to the catholic observer, but it has a deep signifi- 
 cance. It means a recognition of the rightful position 
 of the Catholic Church, and as a witness, is not to be 
 despised. The Catholic Church has always taught that 
 Jesus Christ entrusted to his priests the ministry of 
 reconciliation, that the priest has from Christ the power 
 of forgiving sins, and that this judicial pardon is granted 
 only after Confession. 
 
 "When those who are opposed to the Church admit 
 the truth of this, and as a large party of a protestant 
 sect, against the decision of their own authorities, return 
 to the catholic practice of confession and absolution 
 when this happens as it has happened in the case of 
 Ritualism, we may well exclaim, what further need 
 have we of witnesses?" 
 
 The consensus of opinion among those scholars and 
 students of history whose broadness of mind and free- 
 dom from partisanship constitutes them reputable wit- 
 as San Francisco Monitor. 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 20$ 
 
 nesses, is, that auricular confession dates from the days 
 of the apostles. Those on the contrary whose ideas 
 have taken shape within the narrow boundaries of a 
 sect, and who are opposed to this conclusion because 
 it makes against them, are confronted with the fact, 
 that while patient study has led to the deciphering of 
 the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the identification of 
 the bones and dried flesh of Rameses, the Pharaoh of 
 the Bible; yet with all their learning and research they 
 are unable to discover the origin of confession in the 
 comparatively recent date of the Christian era. From 
 a sense of fear for their own safety, they spare no 
 labor in efforts to establish modern dates for ancient 
 doctrines, turning away and refusing to dispassionately 
 investigate concerning the rise and progress of con- 
 fession, in the only age where that knowledge can be 
 found. 
 
 Mr. Lecky acknowledges that in the early days of 
 the Church, confession and absolution were practiced. 
 29 "It is manifest that we have in this system, not poten- 
 tially or in germ, but in full developed activity, an 
 ecclesiastical despotism." 
 
 Regarding these three last words of Mr. Lecky's we 
 would ask: If the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has 
 fastened upon her people "an ecclesiastical despotism," 
 how is it that the ecclesiastics themselves, from the 
 Pope down to the lowest, none of them are exempt from 
 its tyranny ? Despots tyrannize over others, not them- 
 selves ; but this "ecclesiastical despotism" of Mr. Lecky's 
 seems to be in particular a despotism over ecclesiastics, 
 
 29 "Hist, of European Morals," Lecky, Vol. ii, ch. 4. 
 
206 The Sacrament of Penance 
 
 who, in addition to the obligation of confessing their 
 own sins, are required under circumstances of great 
 discomfort to themselves, to remain many weary hours 
 each week cramped up in little boxes, hearing the tales 
 of sin and woe of their people, in the work of the 
 ministry of reconciliation. 
 
 An ecclesiastical despotism? It may seem so, to 
 such as are strangers to its power and consolation, and 
 who with the cold and calculating mind of unbelief, view 
 it from afar; but to those of the household of faith, 'tis 
 only the sweet burden of the Master's yoke, the willing 
 submission to the Master's commands : "Confess your 
 sins one to another," and a firm reliance on the judg- 
 ments pronounced in his name by the ministry of recon- 
 ciliation to whom he said: "Whose sins you forgive 
 they are forgiven them : and whose sins you retain they 
 are retained." They who bend their stiff necks in sweet 
 obedience to the burden of these commands, carry away 
 more than a song in their hearts in the consciousness of 
 justice disarmed, and sins forgiven. 
 
 All catholics, be they popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, 
 or laymen, must come to the tribunal of Penance, at 
 least once a year. Those who have much to confess, 
 feel the greatest measure of relief as the burden is laid 
 down ; those who have little, go away humble and 
 thankful that their case was no worse. 
 
 The sacrament of Penance is one of the most consol- 
 ing doctrines of the Catholic Church, we would not for 
 the world do without it, if we could. 
 
 If protestants would read the Scriptures, without con- 
 
The Sacrament of Penance 207 
 
 suiting their commentators, they would find in the "plain 
 language of the Bible," the doctrine of auricular con- 
 fession, which they now so cordially despise clearly 
 and fully revealed. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 
 
 To the average Christian, the place of our Lord's 
 birth, life, and death, the ground, the trees, the humblest 
 flower that gladdens the landscape with its presence, 
 each scene made blessed by the divine presence as 
 Jesus went about among men in the regions of Judea, 
 will ever be regarded as the most sacred on earth. 
 Nothing is comparable in interest to the scenes which 
 his eyes looked upon. The streams, the wood, the fields, 
 the places of his choice from which the thoughts of 
 parable and lesson may have taken form in those words 
 of grace and wisdom wherein it was said that "never 
 man spake like this man." 
 
 Men journey from the antipodes, cross seas and 
 plains, that their eyes may rest upon the sacred moun- 
 tains and valleys made memorable by the life of the 
 world's Redeemer, or dwell in silent contemplation 
 upon his wonderful words and works by the sea of 
 Galilee, or on the banks of the Jordan. 
 
 If Christians venerate the scenes of our Lord's life 
 and labors in Palestine with such enthusiasm, what 
 more natural to expect than that those nearest, and 
 dearest, to him on earth, should be the objects of our 
 special love and veneration. How natural to think 
 with devotion of the peerless sanctity of that Jewish 
 maiden, whom God from all the world selected to be 
 the Mother of his Son. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 209 
 
 Far better than love of the mountains, plains and 
 rivers of the Holy Land, is the love and honor given 
 to the Holy Family, and the consideration of that ready 
 obedience to God's will in the words, "Behold the hand- 
 maid of the Lord: be it done unto me according to 
 thy word/' which, in the sequel saw its culmination in 
 the glories of the Holy Night in Bethlehem when Christ 
 was born. 
 
 Eve, the mother of all mankind, was created im- 
 maculate, but through the freedom of her will consented 
 to temptation, and thus brought the world under the 
 dominion of original sin. It was promised that the 
 seed of the woman should crush the head of Eve's 
 tempter. When, in the fullness of time, Mary con- 
 sented to become, under such extraordinary circum- 
 stances, the mother of our Lord, who was that prom- 
 ised seed, she may be said to have become the second 
 Eve, by whose obedience the disobedience of the first 
 was to be overcome, and the ruins of her fall repaired. 
 
 Now is it possible to think that the second Eve, the 
 repairer under Christ of the great evil done by her 
 predecessor, could have been her inferior? Protestants 
 while admitting the first Eve with whom God walked 
 and talked in the garden to have been immaculate, 
 deny the like honor to the second Eve, thus unwittingly 
 making the Mother of God inferior to the mother of 
 Cain. 
 
 In Genesis it is written : l "I will put enmities 
 between thee" the serpent "and the woman, and thy 
 seed and her seed." By the seed, the woman, and the 
 
 i Gen. iii, 15. 
 
210 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 serpent, is understood Jesus, Mary, and the devil. As 
 the enmity between Jesus and Satan will of necessity 
 be perpetual, so also must the enmity be irreconcilable 
 between the lost spirit and the woman Mary. As the 
 effects of original sin consist in a darkening of the 
 understanding, a weakening of the will, together with 
 a disposition to fraternize with the devil and admire 
 his works, it is certain that the "woman" Mary, who 
 possessed none of the effects and dispositions above 
 enumerated, could not by any possibility for one moment 
 have been under the curse of original sin. 
 
 The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary, though not defined as being of faith until A. D. 
 1854, had been believed and taught from the earliest 
 times. St. Ambrose A. D. 397 calls Mary 2 "a Virgin 
 by grace entirely free from every stain of sin." St. 
 Augustine A. D. 430 in stating to the Pelagians that 
 original sin had descended upon all men, declared that 
 3 ''he did not intend to speak of the Holy Virgin Mary, 
 of whom, when treating of sins no question is to be 
 moved for the honor of the Lord." Here the great 
 Saint's belief that if the Blessed Virgin were less than 
 immaculate, it would tend to the dishonor of her divine 
 Son is in few words clearly set forth. 
 
 St. James of Sarug in Syria, in the sixth century, 
 says : * "If there had been any spot or defect in her 
 soul, he would have looked out for some other mother 
 with no spot in her." St. Epiphanius, A. D. 403, says: 
 "She was superior to all beings, God alone excepted; 
 
 2 In Psalm cxviii. 
 
 3 Serm. xxii. 
 
 4 De Nat. et Gratia, c. 36. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 211 
 
 more beautiful by nature than the Cherubim, the 
 Seraphim, and all the angelic host . . . the immacu- 
 late sheep who brought forth Christ the Lamb. Saint 
 Ephraim of Syria, Cyril of Alexandria, Fulgentius in 
 the sixth century, Anselm in the tenth century, and 
 others, give like testimony. Whole volumes would not 
 suffice to contain a small part of what the Fathers of 
 the early centuries have written in affirmation of their 
 belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin. 
 
 The Jesuit Father Felix, in his introduction to Car- 
 dinal Lambruschini's work on the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion, speaking of the testimony of the Fathers, says : 
 5 "Some of these testimonies suppose the Immaculate 
 Conception, others express it in equivalent terms, others 
 formally define it, ... and such is the energy of 
 their words, that if Mary knew for one instant the 
 stain of sin, we must admit that all these men, so good 
 by virtue, so illustrious by genius, so venerable by 
 antiquity, have made a compact to connive at error 
 through all time. . . . Yet there is a voice stronger, 
 more vast in its eloquence than the voice of the doctors ; 
 it is that which speaks in prayer, resounds in hymns, 
 and goes forth like an oracle from the depths of the 
 sanctuary the voice of the Liturgy. . . . And let 
 us bear in mind that it is not the idea of one man, of 
 one bishop; it is the idea of a Church. . . . 
 
 "Thus be it said in passing, great was the oversight 
 of those who understood not that by inaugurating new 
 liturgies, they condemned to death the most lively wit- 
 
 5 Page 31st. 
 
212 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 nesses of Catholic tradition, and often in one day 
 effaced the vestiges of fifteen ages of faith. An ancient 
 liturgy is like a man who is at once the cotemporary 
 of the past and the present ; an old man who never dies, 
 and is there to tell the living the faith of generations 
 passed away." 
 
 In the Faith of Our Fathers, Cardinal Gibbons says: 
 "The liturgies of the Church being the established 
 formularies of her public worship, are among the most 
 authoritative documents that can be adduced in favor 
 of any religious practice. In the liturgy ascribed to 
 St. James, Mary is commemorated as 6 'our most holy, 
 immaculate and glorious lady, mother of God and ever 
 Virgin.' In the Marionite Ritual she is invoked as 
 
 7 'our holy, praiseworthy, and immaculate lady.' In the 
 Alexandrian liturgy of St. Basil she is addressed as 
 
 8 'most holy, most glorious, immaculate.' " 
 
 It is seen, by these excerpts from ancient liturgies, 
 that the Immaculate Conception was no new idea when 
 in 1854 Pius IX defined it as a dogma of faith. 
 
 When we consider the evil effects of original sin in 
 the soul, the weakening of the will, the disposition to 
 wander from the narrow way, an undue affection for 
 temporal gratifications and appetites, whereby the body 
 made in God's image becomes the servant of sin ; can 
 we for one moment think that the mother of God's eter- 
 nal Son should be infected with this stain, when she was 
 selected for the very purpose of assisting in the preser- 
 vation of all from its evil consequences? 
 
 o Bibliotheca Max. Patrum, 1-2, p. 3. 
 
 7 De sac. ordinal, p. 313. 
 
 8 Renaudot Lit. Orient. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 213 
 
 That the Eternal Word could take flesh from a woman 
 under the dominion of original sin, and who from that 
 cause must be subject to many if not all the imperfec- 
 tions above enumerated, is a thought in itself most blas- 
 phemous. 
 
 At that fiat of Mary's: "Let it be done unto me ac- 
 cording to thy word," our divine Saviour received those 
 elements which joined to a human soul and simulta- 
 neously with the divine Word, became a divine Person- 
 ality, and Mary was therefore as St. Elizabeth in the 
 Gospel declared her to be, 9 "the mother of my Lord." 
 
 As it is the union of body and soul that produces man, 
 so it is the union with the Eternal Word of a human 
 body and soul that produced the God-Man, the divine 
 person Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who, 
 being his mother, was therefore the Mother of God. 
 What Mary conceived by the aid of the Holy Ghost, 
 then, was not a man, but a God-Man possessed of a 
 divine and a human nature which natures being inca- 
 pable of division and separation together formed the 
 divine personality of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 
 
 Our adversaries unwilling that the Blessed Virgin 
 should enjoy the honor ascribed to her by St. Elizabeth 
 in the Gospel, have brought forward a curious and 
 before unheard of proposition, called "the mother of a 
 nature!" Mary was but the mother of the human 
 nature of Jesus. Here then in this unfounded assertion 
 is the fissure through which Unitarianism entered the 
 "reformed religion"; the little fox that spoiled the 
 grapes and devastated the vineyards of protestantism. 
 
 9 St. Luke i, 43. 
 
214 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 In God's great plan of the Incarnation he was pleased 
 to give Mary a part so prominent, that any attempt to 
 rob her of her great honor as the Mother of God, is to 
 ruin the design, and furnish food for doubt in the great 
 mystery of the Incarnation. 
 
 As by the disobedience of the first Eve paradise was 
 closed, it was fitting that by the obedience of the second 
 Eve its gates should again swing open ; hence Mary's 
 answer: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done 
 unto me according to thy word." As at our birth our 
 mother brought into the world not only a human body 
 but an immortal soul also, we speak of her very prop- 
 erly as our mother, the mother of ourself entire who 
 live, think, and act; body and soul in one undivided 
 personality, and not of our material body alone. 
 
 As it is an impossibility that our mother could be the 
 mother of a fractional part of our nature, so Mary 
 could not be the mother of a fractional part of Christ. 
 There is not and never has been such a thing known 
 in theology or philosophy, as the mother of a nature. 
 It follows that the human nature of Christ being in- 
 separably united to the divine Word begotten of the 
 Father from all eternity, was that Holy which was 
 born of the Blessed Virgin the Son of God. The aged 
 St. Elizabeth understanding this, reverses the custom of 
 the world and gives respect and veneration to youth in 
 the words of the Gospel : 10 "And whence is this to me, 
 that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" 
 
 So Mary was filled with grace the equal of which no 
 creature ever enjoyed. A creature indeed, but the blood 
 
 10 St. Luke i, 43. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 21$ 
 
 relation of God; higher than the Cherubim and Sera- 
 phim, and all the hosts of heaven ! The Catholic Church 
 has mingled the praises of Mary with the praises of 
 Mary's Son, and both have been honored thereby. 
 
 It has been shown that Mary could not be the mother 
 of a nature, and that if Jesus Christ was God, then the 
 title of Mother of God must be accorded her. If Mary 
 was not the Mother of God, she was the mother of a 
 man, and therefore the Arians alone can claim to be 
 orthodox. That the Blessed Virgin had toward St. 
 Joseph marital relations like any other wife was a 
 discovery of the "Reformation" period, and it is most 
 shocking to all sense of propriety and the fitness of 
 things in connection with the exalted dignity of so great 
 a mystery as the Divine Incarnation. Even a " "mem- 
 ber of that latitudinarian organization called the Church 
 of England" says that, "it cannot \vith decency be imag- 
 ined that the holy vessel, which was once consecrated 
 to be a receptacle of the Deity, should be afterwards 
 desecrated and profaned by human use." 
 
 The Gospel expressly declares 12 that Mary was a Vir- 
 gin mother, and no proof can be found that she did 
 not so remain. Protestants, who feel competent to 
 explain so simple a book as the Bible, have placed their 
 .reliance upon a text in St. Matthew's Gospel as showing 
 that the title "Ever Virgin" bestowed by the Church, 
 was a doctrinal error. 13 "Is not this the carpenter's 
 son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren 
 
 11 Bishop Bull. 
 
 12 Matt, i, 23-25. 
 is Matt, xili, 55-6. 
 
216 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude : And his 
 sisters, are they not all with us?" 
 
 The term brethren, as used in Scripture, may, or may 
 not, mean that relationship which we associate with the 
 word brethren ; 14 it may mean an uncle, 15 or a cousin, 
 36 or a friend or fellow-countryman, or 17 those of equal 
 rank, or 18 those of the household of faith. Speaking 
 of the brethren of Jesus, therefore, conveys no idea of 
 any definite relationship. 
 
 From a verse in 19 St. Matthew, and one from 20 St. 
 Mark, we learn that at the crucifixion, there was a Mary 
 who was looking on afar ofr", called the mother of James 
 and Joseph, two of the four, mentioned as our Lord's 
 brethren. In St. 21 John's Gospel we find that this Mary, 
 called Mary of Cleophas and elsewhere of Alphaeus 
 was a kinswoman of the Blessed Virgin. In the Gos- 
 pel of St. Luke, 22 James is spoken of as the son of 
 Alphaeus, likewise Simon and Jude, the former being 
 elsewhere spoken of as the brother of the Lord. Here 
 we have the four: James and Joseph, Simon and Jude. 
 It is certain that they were the sons of Mary of 
 Cleophas or Alphaeus a near relative of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and might, after the Jewish custom, be spoken 
 of as our Lord's brethren. 
 
 It is irreconcilable with good sense to think that our 
 
 i* Gen. xiii, 8. 
 15 Gal. i, 19. 
 is Acts ill, 22. 
 17 Matt, xxiii, 8. 
 is Acts i, 15-16. 
 
 19 Matt, xxvii, 56. 
 
 20 Mark xv, 40. 
 
 21 John xix, 25. 
 
 22 Luke vi, 15. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 217 
 
 divine Lord should have, solemnly from the cross, be- 
 queathed his mother to the care of St. John, for the 
 remainder of her life, if she had four stalwart sons 
 and no one knows how many daughters, still living. 
 In the centuries before the rise of protestantism, history 
 contains no record of thought or word, so common and 
 low, as this. No artist, medieval or modern, has been 
 bold enough to portray on canvas a Holy Family of 
 the size given by the protestant commentators. 
 
 Protestants, mistrusting the history of the first ages 
 of faith, have depended entirely upon themselves in their 
 efforts to place the mother of our divine Redeemer in 
 what they think to be her true position in the mystery 
 of the Incarnation. They have conceived the idea 
 through a misunderstanding of the Scripture that all 
 honor given the Mother, must be a corresponding 
 detraction from the honor due the Son. But how a 
 good son could be displeased with praise bestowed upon 
 his mother seems not quite clear, as their interests being 
 identical, attempts made to detract from the merits of 
 either, must be prejudicial to both. 
 
 This idea is everywhere present in protestant com- 
 ment ; to keep in the background and to belittle as much 
 as possible the merits of the Blessed Virgin, to be silent 
 about her when no adverse criticism can be made, is the 
 usual practice. They say that our Lord spoke harshly 
 to his Mother at Cana ; but were that true, it would 
 be more derogatory to her divine Son than to her. The 
 history of protestantism shows that those who are seen 
 in the front rank among the disparagers of the Mother, 
 
 10 
 
2i8 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 are later found among the "advanced thinkers of the 
 day" who deny the divinity of her Son. 
 
 As further illustrating the persistence of this new 
 idea of the brethren concerning Jesus and his Mother; 
 attention is called to an excerpt from the "Popular and 
 Critical Bible Encyclopaedia and Scriptural Dictionary," 
 by Rt. Rev. Samuel Fallows, A. M., D. D., L.L. D. 23 
 "Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who. in later times has 
 been called the Virgin Mary, but who is never so 
 designated in Scripture. Little is known of this highly 
 favored individual. ... As her history was of no 
 consequence to Christianity, it is not given at large. 
 Her genealogy is recorded by St. Luke with the design 
 evidently of showing that Christ was of the royal house 
 and lineage of David. . . . The Protestant spirit of 
 opposition to the notion about the perpetual virginity 
 of Mary has led many commentators to contend that this 
 (text in St. Matthew) must be taken in its literal sense, 
 and that these persons are to be regarded as children 
 whom she bore to her husband Joseph after the birth 
 of Christ. We incline to this opinion etc." After the 
 birth of Christ, the events following are mentioned, 
 and particularly, "her appearance and conduct at the 
 marriage feast in Cana; her attempt in the synagogue 
 at Capernaum to induce Jesus to desist from teaching. 
 . . . It does not appear that Mary ever saw Christ 
 after the resurrection ; for she was not one of the chosen 
 witnesses specified in Scripture as Mary Magdalene 
 was." 
 
 The admission that this article was inspired by the 
 
 23 pp. 1120-310-1121. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 219 
 
 "protestant spirit of opposition," shows the belief 
 attacked to be both ancient and obnoxious to protestant 
 minds. Protestants are distrustful of Christian antiquity, 
 for the reason that Christian antiquity has no knowledge 
 of protestants. So they fail to join in the honor given 
 the Blessed Virgin by St. Elizabeth in the Gospel of 
 St. Luke, or in the songs of praise raised to her name 
 throughout all Christendom. They concern themselves 
 less with the prophecy of the Holy Ghost, that all 
 generations shall call her blessed, than with the opinions 
 derived from "modern thought" concerning her. Do 
 these modern explainers ever consult St. Augustine and 
 contemporary writers who, in the earliest days of the 
 Church, were tireless in sounding the Blessed Virgin's 
 praise ? 
 
 While the pulpits of the "rival churches" are made 
 to ring with the praises of the women of the Bible, 
 Miriam, Rachel, Judith, Esther, Ruth, and in the New 
 Testament, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and Martha, 
 and others, yet a strange silence falls upon the tongue 
 of eloquence concerning the ever virgin Mother of our 
 Lord. Mary is designated in Scripture as a virgin; 
 she is also so designated in the creeds formulated years 
 after her death, and in all the liturgies of the Church 
 founded by her divine Son. Up to the time of "the 
 Great Reformation," her perpetual virginity was no more 
 questioned than the divinity of her Son. 
 
 "Little is known of this highly favored individual." 
 It is to be hoped that this statement refers alone to 
 the writer, in which case his article will be taken as 
 sufficient proof. Those who limit the source of their 
 
220 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 knowledge regarding faith to the Bible alone, will be 
 often disturbed by its brevity and seeming contradictions 
 notably in the Gospels but which studied in the light 
 of contemporary history, and tradition, often become 
 clear and reconcilable. A short time would suffice to 
 read all the Bible contains anent this "little known in- 
 dividual whose history is of no consequence to Chris- 
 tianity." 
 
 24 The angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city 
 of Galilee to a virgin, and the virgin's name was Mary. 
 And the angel said unto her: Hail full of grace the 
 Lord is with thee. The understanding of the angel's 
 message which had the sanction of fifteen centuries has 
 been changed in the interests of the "protestant spirit 
 of opposition" to read, "thou that are highly favored." 
 Of course the Blessed Virgin was highly favored by 
 being chosen above all the women of earth as the spouse 
 of the Holy Ghost, which shows her as being of im- 
 maculate purity, it being unthinkable that the Holy 
 Ghost could espouse guilt. Favored by being chosen 
 to be the Mother of the divine Saviour of the world! 
 And still "her history is of no consequence to Chris- 
 tianity" ? 
 
 But to the first Christians, she was more than 
 "favored" she "was full of grace," and the object 
 of such a declaration has reached the acme of perfection 
 in sanctity there are no heights beyond. It is notice- 
 able that this explainer of the Scripture in his cold- 
 blooded article has not once used the word "blessed," 
 which is more than a straw in its significance. 
 
 24 St. Luke i, 26-56. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 221 
 
 "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the 
 Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the 
 Son of God, and Mary said: Behold the handmaid 
 of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy 
 word." The second Eve here gives consent to the 
 expressed will of God. She had the same free-will to 
 refuse compliance as had the first Eve to decline obed- 
 ience to God's will anent the tree of the knowledge of 
 good and evil. 
 
 The blessed and glorious Trinity waits for the Blessed 
 Virgin's consent to begin the work of man's redemp- 
 tion! And yet this learned expounder of Scripture tells 
 us that "the history of this individual was of no con- 
 sequence to Christianity!" 
 
 Allusion is made to "her appearance and conduct" at 
 the marriage at Cana, The words mentioned particu- 
 larly the latter are not generally used in comments 
 upon wedding guests whose behavior needs no criti- 
 cism. In the protestant translation, the phraseology of 
 the fourth verse owing to "the protestant spirit of 
 opposition" to Mary has changed from "woman, what is 
 that to me and to thee?" to the more harsh and less 
 appropriate wording "what have I to do with thee?" 
 It is easily seen that in their eagerness to criticize the 
 Blessed Virgin, they have suggested impoliteness and 
 harshness on the part of her divine Son. Here, upon 
 this occasion, the commentator had an excellent oppor- 
 tunity which perhaps for a reason other than inad- 
 vertence he failed to improve of informing us that 
 upon this occasion, our Saviour began before the time 
 
222 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 set his public ministry on earth, by performing his 
 first miracle at the request of his Mother! 
 
 The animus of this partisan writer is nowhere more 
 plainly shown than in the incident at Capernaum, where 
 the expressed wish to speak to her Son, is mentioned as 
 an effort made to "induce Jesus to desist from teaching !" 
 
 If those whose experience in spiritual things has, 
 through some good influence, left them free from the 
 narrow lines of sectarian bias, will but for a moment 
 reflect upon the beautiful life of the Holy Family; 
 upon the unwearied devotion of the Virgin Mother 
 at all times, and especially when the 25 prophetic sword 
 of sorrow pierced her soul as she witnessed the dying 
 agonies of her Son, such reflection must convince them 
 that a belief, that such love could be extinguished at the 
 cross, and that the Virgin Mother made no further 
 effort towards a meeting, is a thousand times more 
 difficult of comprehension than the catholic belief which, 
 in its beautiful naturalness, has come down to us from 
 the beginning. 
 
 Let us in charity think that this unnatural and im- 
 probable explanation is not received as a belief among 
 our friends, but as only one of many opinions whose 
 truth, no one, not even the author, could be expected 
 to verify. There can be no comparison, no rivalry, 
 between the sinless maiden who was The Immaculate 
 Conception that she might be worthy to be the Mother 
 of God, and this converted sinner, Mary Magdalen, 
 the friend of the divine Saviour. 
 
 The holy women mentioned came after the manner 
 
 25 St. Luke ii, 35. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 223 
 
 of the Jews to anoint with sweet spices the body of 
 Jesus ; not as chosen witnesses of his Resurrection, and 
 who were commanded by the Angel of God, to "go tell 
 his diciples and Peter," who were his chosen witnesses, 
 where they were subsequently to meet him. 
 
 The ancient liturgies of the Church unite with no dis- 
 senting voice in calling Mary, the "Glorious Ever Vir- 
 gin," and Catholic Tradition has sung no songs more 
 unitedly and perseveringly through the Christian Ages 
 than that "a Virgin brought forth, yet a Virgin re- 
 mained." So eminently fitting is the catholic belief in 
 the perpetual virginity of Mary, that the discordant 
 note which protestantism has raised concerning it, is 
 easily recognized as being "of the earth earthy," and 
 is incompatible with the exalted beauty and grandeur of 
 God's great work inaugurated for man's redemption 
 by the Incarnation of his Son. 
 
 The great number of our separated brethren, who 
 have denied the divinity of our Lord, failed to find the 
 divine Child, from their refusal to look where the 
 first Christians found him, "with Mary his Mother." 
 
 In the Angelic salutation, these words are found: 
 "Blessed art thou among women." Upon the visit 
 of Mary to her cousin St. Elizabeth the latter uttered 
 in a loud voice the same words: "Blessed art thou 
 among women," which brought from Mary this concord- 
 ant response: "Behold from henceforth all generations 
 shall call me Blessed." Does this protestant explainer, 
 call Mary "Blessed?" Do protestants habitually speak 
 of Mary as Blessed? Would it not be in the nature 
 of an accident, a slip of the tongue if they did? 
 
224 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 If the generations of men who refuse to take part in 
 this prophecy of the Holy Ghost, who constantly neg- 
 lect to call Mary "Blessed," or even think of her as 
 such; who fail to regard her consent as a necessity of 
 the Incarnation, let them think when they trim with 
 shining greenery, and red berries, their temples at 
 Christmas tide, whether or not they have any part or lot 
 in the matter. It is an occurrence passing strange, that 
 an announcement from God's throne by a special mes- 
 senger thus presaging news of the greatest import- 
 ance should cause our brethren of many names to 
 stand aloof from it! 
 
 The protestant educator seemingly speaks approvingly 
 of "the protestant spirit of opposition," and himself 
 gives an example of opposition to the divine Will, by 
 refusing to call Blessed, whom God called Blessed, and 
 whom God chose also to be the Mother of his Son, the 
 spouse of the Holy Ghost, who was by all generations 
 to be called "Blessed among women." The design of 
 this commentator is easily seen to be the placing of the 
 Blessed Virgin on a plane far below that of Mary 
 Magdalen ! 
 
 As the cavernous depths of the burntout craters of 
 the Moon, swing blind and blackening in the morning 
 air untouched by the day's bright beams ; so protest- 
 antism, drear, dark and cold, suffers an additional chill, 
 at the mention of the sweet name of the Blessed Ever 
 Virgin Mary. 
 
 Let an examination now be made concerning how 
 this New Testament prophecy is fulfilled in the Catholic 
 Church. A devotion called the Rosary is largely prac- 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 225 
 
 ticed, in which Mary is called Blessed fifty times. There 
 is a confraternity, whose members encircle the earth, and 
 who engage to perform the devotion daily. There is 
 also another confraternity world-wide, who promise to 
 say a certain allotted portion of this devotion every 
 twenty-four hours so that some one of their number 
 will be engaged in calling Mary, Blessed, at all hours 
 of the day and night. As these confraternities exist 
 all over the world, it is safe to aver that there is not one 
 tick of the clock year in and year out, in which in 
 some part of the world, Mary is not called Blessed. 
 In the Catholic Church alone is seen the fulfillment of 
 this Gospel prophecy. If we could imagine that this 
 Church should at once be overthrown, be lost, as it 
 were, in the blackness of annihilation, where then would 
 this prophecy see its fulfillment? 
 
 Now as protestants have carefully cut themselves off 
 from all connection with this Gospel, by their refusal 
 to honor whom God has delighted to honor, it is there- 
 fore manifestly true that the Catholic Church, and she 
 alone has any connection with this part of God's written 
 Word and thus is the true explainer of the Gospel; the 
 true and only Church of the true and only God. 
 
 As protestants insist upon restricting the meaning 
 of the word worship, to the act of paying divine 
 honor, it becomes necessary to deny the oft-repeated 
 calumny that we worship the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 The Council of Trent defines that, "the saints reigning 
 with Christ offer up their prayers to God for men ; 
 that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, 
 and to have recourse to their prayers, help and assist- 
 
226 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 ance, to obtain favors from God through his Son Jesus 
 Christ, who is alone our Redeemer and Saviour." 
 
 Catholics pray to God that he will give them all 
 desired blessings, but to the Blessed Virgin and the 
 saints, for their intercessory supplications, as any Chris- 
 tian may ask the prayers of a good man in his behalf; 
 as St. Paul asked the prayers of the Churches to whom 
 he addressed his epistles ; and as the Almighty com- 
 manded the friends of Job, to solicit his intercession 
 for the pardon of their sins. So we say "pray for us 
 Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy 
 of the promises of Christ." 
 
 26 "So far from making gods and goddesses of the 
 saints we hold that as they have no virtue or excellence 
 but what has been bestowed upon them by God, for 
 the sake of his Son Jesus Christ, so they can procure 
 no benefit for us but by means of their prayers to the 
 Giver of all good gifts, through their and our common 
 Saviour Jesus Christ. In short they do nothing for us 
 mortals in heaven, but what they did while they were 
 here on earth, and what all good Christians are bound 
 to do for each other, namely they help us by their 
 prayers. The only difference is that as the saints in 
 heaven are free from every stain of sin and imperfec- 
 tion, are confirmed in grace and glory, so their prayers 
 are more efficacious for obtaining what they ask for, 
 than are the prayers of us imperfect mortals. 
 
 Protestants seek to raise an objection to the invo- 
 cation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, by the 
 affirmation that Christ is the only Mediator between 
 
 26 "End of Controversy," Milner, p. 228. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 227 
 
 God and man. In this we heartily concur, as St. Paul 
 teaches Z1 "There is one Mediator between God and men, 
 the man Christ Jesus." That, however, can in no sense 
 militate against the mediation of the saints, which is 
 entirely intercessory, and wholly dependent on the media- 
 tion of Christ. 
 
 Our opponents also contend that the invocation of 
 the saints presupposes in them the divine attribute of 
 omnipresence, which is blasphemous. To this may be 
 answered that if, 28 "there is joy before the angels of 
 God over one sinner that repenteth," it would appear 
 that perhaps a part of the felicity of the saints in 
 heaven consists in watching over their friends on earth, 
 and in rejoicing over the good effects of the intercession 
 which they themselves have made for them. But if 
 this be not so, still God is quite able, and we may 
 suppose willing, to reveal to the Blessed Virgin, and 
 the saints, the supplications addressed to them by us 
 poor mortals here below. 
 
 The practice of invoking the aid of angels is found 
 in the Old Testament in many places. 29 Jacob asked 
 and obtained a blessing from the angel with whom he 
 mystically wrestled ; 30 he also invoked a blessing from 
 his angel, for Joseph's sons. And again, 31 that Joshua 
 fell upon his face before an angel and worshiped. 
 But if a catholic were to be seen praying before a 
 picture or statue of the Blessed Virgin or some saint, 
 
 27 I Timothy ii, 5. 
 
 28 Luke xv, 10. 
 
 29 Gen. xxx, 11, 26. 
 so Gen. xlvii, 16. 
 
 ai Joshua v, 14. 
 
228 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 a protestant onlooker would experience the confirma- 
 tion of that early teaching regarding the idolatry of 
 catholics, although the picture or statue would be 
 regarded by the user as a representation only, and 
 would be no more worshiped than is the bedpost 
 before which so many protestants delight to pray. 
 
 Pictures and statues of the Blessed Virgin and the 
 saints are used as a help to devotion by exciting feel- 
 ings of respect and veneration for the subjects of them, 
 as we are reminded by the pictures of Washington, 
 Lincoln and others what these noble men did for our 
 country. Our friends need have no fear that there is 
 a catholic on earth so ignorant as not to know the 
 sinfulness and uselessness of praying to stocks and 
 stones. 
 
 St. Basil in the fourth century says : 32 "I invoke the 
 apostles, prophets and martyrs to pray for me, that 
 God may be merciful to me, and forgive me my sins. 
 I honor and reverence their images since these things 
 have been ordained by tradition from the apostles, and 
 are practiced in all our Churches." 
 
 In the writings of St. Irenaeus we read : 33 "We 
 venerate and worship the angelic host, and the spirits 
 of the prophets, teaching others as we ourselves have 
 been taught." That the saints in heaven pray for us 
 seems evident from the passage in Revelations 34 where 
 the four and twenty elders have "golden vials full 
 of odors, which are the prayers of saints." Now as 
 the saints in heaven have no longer need of prayers 
 
 32 Epist. 205-7-111, edit. Paris. 
 
 33 Apol. 2 prope Init. 
 
 34 Rev. v, 8. 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary 229 
 
 for themselves, and as there is no one besides, that 
 they could pray for, it seems fair to presume whom 
 they pray for us, and therefore it must be right to 
 ask for their intercession. All the Eastern Churches 
 which separated from us centuries before modern 
 protestantism was thought of fully agree with us as 
 to the great benefit to be derived from the invocation 
 of the Blessed Virgin and the saints. 
 
 The divine Son on the cross, in confiding his Mother 
 to his beloved disciple St. John, made her, as it were, 
 the mother of us all. Our confidence in the Blessed Vir- 
 gin's love and intercession, is the confidence of children 
 in their mother. At mere mention of Mary's name, 
 Satan trembles, but her children's hearts are softened 
 and the way prepared for a greater trust and confidence 
 in Mary's Son. 
 
 Mary is a creature, and between the created and 
 the Creator, is a sea of wide extent, a gulf unfathom- 
 able. The Church would hold under an anathema 
 those who would worship as Divine the Blessed Vir- 
 gin, or declare her the equal of her Son. Mary is 
 not the source, but the channel, through which God's 
 graces flow to men. In loving and honoring Mary, we 
 only do what God himself has done, and whose example 
 it is always safe to follow. We have less fear that 
 the divine Son will be displeased if we love his Mother, 
 than if we loved her not; for those who love the 
 Mother will never deny the Son. If Mary was not the 
 Mother of God, as St. Elizabeth said she was, then 
 the Bible is not true and the Christian religion a vain 
 delusion. 
 
230 The Blessed Virgin Mary 
 
 Considering all that has been said in this chapter, let 
 the reader have no fear to join with us in the Angelical 
 Salutation: "Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is 
 with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed 
 is the fruit of thy womb," Jesus. And fail not to con- 
 clude in the language of the Catholic Church of all 
 ages: "Holy Mary, Mother of God; pray for us sin- 
 ners now and at the hour of our death." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 PURGATORY AND PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 1 "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to 
 pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." 
 The doctrine that there is besides heaven and hell, an 
 intermediate place of detention where the souls of the 
 faithful departed undergo a purifying process as gold 
 is subjected to the refiner's fire before it becomes pure, 
 is a doctrine which together with its correlative of 
 prayers for the dead, is one of the most ancient beliefs 
 known to man, and which long antedates the coming 
 of the new law of grace and truth by Jesus Christ. 
 
 If our opponents contend that the quotation at the 
 commencement of this chapter is not from the Bible, 
 it should be a sufficient refutation to say, that it was 
 our divine Lord's most common practice to quote Scrip- 
 ture from the Septuagint which contains the words 
 above written. He knew that the Jews, in accord with 
 the text, practiced praying for the dead, but although 
 finding fault with them for many things, it is nowhere 
 recorded that he had ever reproved them for practicing 
 this Scriptural injunction. 
 
 This doctrine of a middle state, believed by the 
 Church, from the beginning, was treated by the "reform- 
 ers" with the greatest hostility. The statement of the 
 text quoted, in the clearness and freedom from ambi- 
 
 i II Machabees xii, 46. 
 
232 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 guity, made their explanations of it an impossibility. 
 There was nothing to be done but to kill the witness. 
 The Church of England declared it "a fond thing 
 vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of 
 Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God." 
 Therefore the books of the Machabees were excluded 
 from the English protestant Bible. Now if this text is 
 in the Bible, that of itself alone would be sufficient to 
 establish the catholic belief. 
 
 The Septuagint a Greek version of the Old Tes- 
 tament was made by the Hellenist Jews about two 
 centuries before Christ. St. Augustine spoke of the 
 Septuagint as "approved by the Apostles." In the New 
 Testament, out of three hundred and fifty quotations 
 from the Old Testament Scriptures, about three hun- 
 dred were from the Septuagint. The Council of Hippo, 
 A. D. 393, pronounced the first and second books of 
 Machabees, canonical. The Council of Carthage, A. D. 
 397, declared the same books canonical, giving the 
 reason that "it is from our fathers that we hold that 
 these books are those which should be read in the 
 Church." Pope Innocent I, A. D. 405, in the list of 
 canonical books includes the two books of the Macha- 
 bees. In the year 679, Pope Gelasius declared canon- 
 ical the same books. The Council of Trent affirms 
 the judgment A. D. 1545, sanctioned by the Vatican 
 Council in 1870. 
 
 We know that the Greek Church has the same canon 
 of Scripture, for in the seventeenth century the protest- 
 ants made overtures for a union with that Church, 
 but the canon of Scripture proved an insurmountable 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 233 
 
 obstacle, the Greeks holding to the same canon as the 
 Council of Trent saying: "We regard all these books 
 as canonical; we recognize them as Holy Scripture, be- 
 cause they have been transmitted to us by ancient cus- 
 tom, or, by the Catholic Church." 
 
 It is very easy to recognize the work of the protest- 
 ant explainer who fears not to expunge from the Bible 
 what he does not wish to see there and as in this 
 case, places on the level of spurious writings, that 
 which had been declared by Jew, and Christian, to be 
 the Word of God. 
 
 The "New International Encyclopedia" under the 
 heading "Apocrypha" says: "It has been customary, 
 since the' time of Jerome to apply the term to a num- 
 ber of writings which the Septuagint had circulated 
 amongst the Christians, and which were sometimes 
 considered as an appendage to the Old Testament, and 
 sometimes as a portion of it. The Greek Church, at 
 the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 360, excluded them 
 from the canon." 
 
 If we consult the article under the heading "The 
 Books of the Machabees" in the same work, the state- 
 ment is found that "the first and second books are 
 declared canonical by the Council of Trent. The third 
 (book) is also considered canonical by the Greek 
 Church." So in one volume of the Encyclopaedia we 
 are told that the Greek Church excluded from the 
 canon of Scripture the first and second books, and in 
 another volume, that the same Church declared the first, 
 second and third books to be canonical. 
 
 As the Greek and Latin Churches were, at this time, 
 
234 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 in union under the Roman Pontiff, their canon of 
 Scripture was, necessarily, the same and, as a matter 
 of fact, has always so remained. 
 
 Our opponents seek unweariedly for a tangible con- 
 nection with the past; they speak and write about Aug- 
 ustine, Jerome and a score or two like sturdy Papists. 
 They show familiarity with these ancient authorities 
 by quotations from their works ; but in all this polite- 
 ness and seeming good-fellowship, there is to be feared 
 an interested motive: they take, here and there, some 
 part of an argument or statement which, separated 
 from its context, makes the venerable author a witness 
 for themselves. 
 
 In Dr. Fallows' Protestant Encyclopaedia, is to be 
 found a case in point ; where St. Augustine is quoted 
 as saying: "Let us omit those fabulous books of Scrip- 
 ture which are called apocryphal because their secret 
 origin was unknown to the Fathers." Further on in 
 the article is a list of apocryphal books according to 
 the protestant canon ; containing of course the two books 
 of the Machabees. The design is, that the unsuspicious 
 reader will, through this quotation, connect St. Augus- 
 tine with the rejection of the two books of the Mach- 
 abees. 
 
 While Augustine may well have been the author of 
 the quotation, yet the attempt to connect him with the 
 approval of the protestant canon of Scripture, adopted 
 many centuries afterwards, may, through the inatten- 
 tion of a careless or prejudiced reader, accomplish its 
 purpose ; yet it can hardly be considered in harmony 
 with the highest moral principles of mankind. The 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 235 
 
 testimony of St. Augustine was, that the two books of 
 the Machabees, were "approved by the Apostles," and 
 he was present and assisting at the Council of Car- 
 thage, when these books were declared to be the Word 
 of God. 
 
 This is but one of a thousand instances, in which 
 the venerable Fathers of Christendom have been com- 
 pelled to do duty as witnesses in favor of protestant- 
 ism. As all efforts to connect primitive Christianity 
 with the rejection of these books will result only in 
 failure, it follows that the existence of Purgatory and 
 the practice of prayer for the dead, the title of this 
 chapter, is a divinely revealed doctrine and not a "fond 
 thing vainly invented," but stands duly accredited as 
 Scriptural doctrine sanctioned by the tradition of nearly 
 twenty centuries. 
 
 Our divine Lord, in St. John's Gospel, says : 2 "No 
 man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended 
 from heaven." Where then were the souls of the 
 just, from Adam, until Christ? Not being allowed to 
 enter heaven till after Christ's Ascension, these souls 
 were detained in limbo, and it was to them that, ac- 
 cording to 3 St. Peter's first epistle, Christ preached 
 after his death to "those spirits who were in prison." 
 
 From the Scriptures then we learn, that the souls 
 of the departed are not necessarily either in heaven 
 or hell, but may, for a time, be in a third place. 
 Since Christ's ascension, by which act heaven was 
 opened to the just, there is no longer need for the 
 
 2 John iii, 13. 
 
 3 I Peter iii, 19. 
 
236 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 prison of the just; but the need for the prison of hope, 
 the refiner's fire, Purgatory, will remain till the end of 
 time. 
 
 Again, St. Paul 4 is found praying for Onesiphorus 
 "because he hath often refreshed me, and was not 
 ashamed of my chain. The Lord grant to him to 
 find mercy of the Lord on that day." Dr. Dollinger 
 remarks on the text that 5 "the Ephesian Onesiphorus, 
 was clearly no longer among the living. St. Paul 
 praises him for his service but does not, as elsewhere, 
 send salutations to him, but only to his family." 6 The 
 protestant Jeremy Taylor, admits that Onesiphorus was 
 dead at the time of the Apostle Paul's prayer for him. 
 A protestant Dictionary of the Bible, upon this subject, 
 says : 7 "It is not perfectly clear whether at the time 
 when St. Paul wrote, Onesiphorus was alive or dead ; 
 but the references to his 'house' rather than to him- 
 self make it most probable that he was now dead." 
 
 Had this important text, from St. Paul's Epistle to 
 Timothy, first seen light in II Machabees, its fate would 
 necessarily have been linked with the text at the com- 
 mencement of this chapter, and the protestant air would 
 have been "perfectly clear," regarding any mention of 
 the error of St. Paul's course in here praying for the 
 dead Onesiphorus. But as a greater appearance of 
 safety lay in relegating to a level of spurious writings 
 these books of the Old Testament, and no appearance 
 
 4 II Tim. i, 16-18. 
 
 5 "First Age of the Church," p. 251. 
 
 e Works of Jeremy Taylor, D. D., Vol. vi, p. 462. 
 7 "A Die. of the Bible," Vol. iii, p. 622, James Hastings, 
 M. A. ( D. D. 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 237 
 
 of safety in a like treatment of the books of the New 
 Testament; therefore it is, that our brethren tread, with 
 halting steps and tender feet, the ancient and thorny 
 grave of Onesiphorus. Thus some protestant com- 
 mentators ignore entirely, and others dispute the death 
 at this time of Onesiphorus, while others admit it, but 
 deny that St. Paul prayed for the dead Ephesian, but 
 only expressed "a pious wish for his spiritual welfare!" 
 
 As protestants have declined to receive light from 
 any source save from the Sacred pages, the light which 
 the history of early years throws upon the explanations 
 of Bible texts, and the pious practices that naturally 
 follow those explanations being excluded, our friends 
 are cut off from one of the most reliable sources of 
 information in existence, and as in this, so with many 
 other instances, are able to reach no conclusion pos- 
 sessing either clearness or certainty. If the ancient 
 liturgies be carefully examined, even the most preju- 
 diced can hardly fail to acknowledge that it was a cus- 
 tom universally observed "to pray for the dead that 
 they may be loosed from sins." 
 
 These liturgies may not be welcome evidence, but 
 they cannot be gainsaid, they are historical witnesses 
 to the truth, and conclusively prove that St. Paul was 
 not introducing an innovation, but following the usual 
 practice when praying for the departed Onesiphorus. 
 
 Liturgy of Jerusalem. 8 "Remember, O Lord, the 
 God of spirits and of all flesh, those orthodox whom 
 we have remembered, and those also whom we have 
 not remembered, from just Abel even unto this day; 
 
 8 "Faith of Catholics," Capel, Vol. iii, p. 201. 
 
238 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 do thou give them rest in the region of the living in 
 thy kingdom, in the delights of paradise, in the bosoms 
 of our holy fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whence 
 sorrow, grief, and lamentation are banished away, 
 where the light of thy countenance visits and shines 
 continually." 
 
 Liturgy of Alexandria. "Give rest, O Lord our God, 
 to the souls of our fathers and brethren, who are de- 
 parted in the faith of Christ; being mindful of our 
 forefathers from the beginning of the world, fathers, 
 patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, bish- 
 ops, saints, just men, and every spirit of those who 
 have died in the faith of Christ; and of those whom 
 we this day commemorate, and of our holy father 
 Mark the Apostle and evangelist, who showed unto 
 us the way of salvation. . . . And give rest to the 
 souls of all these, O Lord our God, in the tabernacles 
 of thy saints, granting unto them in thy kingdom thy 
 promised good things, which eye hath not seen nor ear 
 heard . . . Give rest to their souls, and vouch- 
 safe them the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Not desiring to unnecessarily weary the reader, we 
 briefly refer to the liturgies of Constantinople, the 
 Syriac liturgy, Roman, Armenian, Nestorian, Coptic, 
 Etheopian, Jacobite, as well as all existing liturgies, 
 none of which are without prayers for the dead. 
 
 9 Tertullian in his work, "advises a widow to pray for 
 the soul of her departed husband, imploring for him 
 repose and a participation in the final resurrection, and 
 the making of oblations for him on the anniversary 
 
 9 Ch. x on single marriages. 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 239 
 
 days of his death." St. Augustine says : 10 "The pray- 
 ers of the Church, or of good people, are heard in 
 favor of those Christians who departed this life not so 
 bad as to be deemed unworthy of mercy, nor so good 
 as to be entitled to immediate happiness. So also, at 
 the resurrection of the dead, some will be found to 
 whom mercy will be imparted, having gone through 
 those pains to which the spirits of the dead are liable. 
 It would not have been said of some, with truth, that 
 their sin shall not be forgiven, neither 'in this world, 
 nor in the world to come,' unless some sins were for- 
 given in the next world." 
 
 Origen thus explains I Corinthians, third chapter, 
 thirteenth and fifteenth verses : n "If on the founda- 
 tion of Christ, you have built not only gold and silver 
 and precious stones, but also wood and hay and stubble, 
 what do you expect when the soul shall be separated 
 from the body? Would you enter into heaven, with 
 your wood and hay and stubble, to defile the kingdom 
 of God : or, on account of these encumbrances, remain 
 without, and receive no reward for your gold and silver 
 and precious stones? Neither would this be just. It 
 remains then that you be committed to the fire, which 
 shall consume the light materials ; for our God, to 
 those who can comprehend heavenly things, is called 
 a 'consuming fire.' But this fire destroys the wood, 
 and hay, and stubble, not the creature, but what the 
 creature has himself built. It is manifest then that in 
 the first place, the fire destroys the wood of our trans- 
 
 10 De Civit Dei. lib. xxiv. 
 
 11 Horn, xvi, in Jer. 
 
240 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 gressions, and then returns to us the reward of our 
 good works." 
 
 St. Chrysostom writes : 12 "It was not without good 
 reason 'ordained by the Apostles,' that mention should 
 be made of the dead in the tremendous mysteries (the 
 Mass), because they knew well that they would receive 
 great benefit from it." 
 
 Many volumes would be required to contain all that 
 the Fathers have written upon this subject during that 
 period in which protestants themselves have maintained 
 that the Church had not yet lost its innocence, had not 
 succumbed to the aggressions of the Papacy. They 
 hear the voice of all Christian antiquity proclaiming 
 the existence of Purgatory a fact beyond question, yet 
 they are not inclined to hear its voice, not convinced, 
 though it speak ever so wisely. 
 
 Our friends wish, and expect, to reach heaven in- 
 deed ; but the route, to meet their approbation, must 
 be direct, continuous, and pleasant. They do not wish 
 to spend any time on the way, particularly in Purga- 
 tory; but just in that condition and state of spiritual 
 imperfection, in which death may overtake them, and, 
 being perhaps wholly unappreciative of the immensity 
 of God's holiness, they feel no misgivings about ap- 
 pearing at once, with all their human frailties and the 
 soil of their earthly life still fresh upon them, with 
 their little accumulations of wood, hay, and stubble 
 face to face with that dread Presence, of whom it has 
 been written that none without the wedding garment 
 of perfect holiness may dare to look. Surely this must 
 
 12 "Faith of Catholics," Vol. ii. 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 241 
 
 be the acme of presumption. Seldom a faithful saint 
 is seen without some trifling imperfections ; but what 
 is to be said of the majority of faithful sinners? 
 
 Protestants, in the extreme of charity, consign their 
 dead relatives, and friends, to immediate perfect bliss in 
 heaven, although living with them on earth the latter 
 may, at times, have been somewhat in the nature of a 
 trial of patience to the former. Suffering and death 
 naturally, and rightly, claim our sympathy, and disarm 
 criticism; but our dead, simply because they are dead, 
 are no nearer saintship than when living. 
 
 The ordinary Christian, being but a frail creature at 
 best, much dross is found with the gold of his good 
 works: of this dross the soul must be cleansed in the 
 refiner's fire, or remain stained with it outside the 
 heavenly portals. 
 
 All sin is punished either in this world or in the world 
 to come. The few Christians who die sinless, will go 
 directly to heaven. Those whose mortal sins remain 
 unforgiven at death, will go directly to hell. The third 
 class, however, those whose mortal sins have been for- 
 given in the great consolatory Sacrament of confession, 
 and yet are far from being free from imperfections and 
 lesser sins, for the punishment of which, eternal damna- 
 tion would not serve the ends of God's justice, are mer- 
 cifully provided with a third place Purgatory, where 
 they will suffer punishment in proportion to the gravity 
 and number of their offenses. 
 
 In this way God is enabled to "reward every man 
 according to his works." Saint Paul says : 13 "Every 
 
 is I Cor. iii, 13-15. 
 
242 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 man's work shall be manifest; . . . and the fire 
 shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any 
 man's work abide, he shall receive a reward. If any 
 man's work burn, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself 
 shall be saved, yet so as by fire." The evident meaning 
 of this Scripture is, that those who at death have be- 
 sides their good works, much wood, stubble, and hay 
 symbolizing venial sins must abide in the refining 
 flames of Purgatory, until fitted for the abode of celes- 
 tial bliss where perfect holiness alone contemplates 
 through the Beatific Vision the face of God! 
 
 Overconfident must be our separated brethren, to 
 prefer their own private opinion to that of the Church 
 whose voice, living and perpetual, sounds as a trumpet 
 blast through the ages from the days of the Apostles 
 to the present time. A voice that without shadow of 
 variableness echoes, in their very words, the teachings 
 of Origen, Augustine, and the Fathers of Christendom 
 whose names protestants profess to reverence, and who, 
 from their nearness to the Apostolic age, must have 
 known, if any people on earth could be supposed to 
 know, what the first teaching upon this subject really 
 was. 
 
 It has been shown that first the Jews, then the primi- 
 tive Christians, the Greeks, and every Eastern sect that 
 separated from us, thought it "a holy and a wholesome 
 thought to pray for the dead," and in the ritual of the 
 Episcopal Church, we find this prayer: "And we be- 
 seech thee, that we, with all those who are departed 
 in the true faith . . . may have our perfect con- 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 243 
 
 summation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy 
 eternal and everlasting glory," etc. 
 
 In the II book of the Machabees we read that "Mach- 
 abeus sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jeru- 
 salem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the 
 dead (his slain companions), thinking well and relig- 
 iously concerning the resurrection. For, if he had 
 not thought that they that were slain should rise again, 
 it would have seemed superfluous to pray for the dead." 
 The practice of praying for the dead, and especially 
 that of almsgiving in connection therewith, was severely 
 reprobated by the "reformers." 
 
 Those who are accustomed to the practice of economy 
 in religious practices, are wont to feign commiseration 
 for catholics, who, because they give alms for various 
 religious purposes among them offerings for the Holy 
 Sacrifice of the Mass in aid of the souls in Purgatory 
 are regarded as being systematically fleeced, in the 
 interests of superstition, by a rapacious clergy. 
 
 Upon this subject the historian Lingard remarks: 
 14 ''During the controversial war which sprung from 
 the reformation, when the prejudice of party eagerly 
 accepted every accusation against the clerical orders, 
 writers were strongly tempted to sacrifice the interests 
 of truth at the shrine of popularity. They pretended 
 to discover, that the practice of praying for the dead 
 originated in the interested views of the clergy, who, 
 while they applauded in public, ridiculed in private the 
 easy faith of their disciples. 
 
 "The idea may be philosophic, but it is pregnant 
 
 14 "Anglo Saxon Church," p. 154-5. 
 
244 Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 
 
 with difficulties. The man who first detected the im- 
 posture should have revealed the mysteries by which 
 it had previously been concealed. He should have ex- 
 plained by what extraordinary art it was effected, that 
 of the thousands who during so many ages practiced 
 the deception, no individual in an unguarded moment, 
 no false brother in the peevishness of discontent, re- 
 vealed the dangerous secret to the ears of a misguided 
 and impoverished people. 
 
 "He should have shown why the conspirators pre- 
 served even among themselves the language of hypoc- 
 risy; why, in their private correspondence, they anx- 
 iously requested from each other the prayers which 
 they mutually despised; and why they consented to 
 make so many pecuniary sacrifices during life, merely 
 to obtain what they deemed an illusory assistance after 
 death. 
 
 "Till these difficulties can be removed, we may safely 
 acquit the Anglo Saxon clergy of the charges of im- 
 posture and hypocrisy. The whole tenor of their lives 
 deposes that they believed the doctrines which they 
 taught; and if they erred, they erred with every Chris- 
 tian Church which then existed, and with every Chris- 
 tian Church which had existed since the first publication 
 of the Gospel." 
 
 What more consoling thought, than that our dear 
 ones, who have passed to that "new and undiscovered 
 country, from whose bourn no traveler returns," can 
 yet find help and succor in their great necessity, from 
 our alms and prayers. Let us then, who by our inter- 
 cessions have stormed high heaven for the welfare of 
 
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 245 
 
 our friends on earth, not forget them at the grave ; 
 remembering well the text, that "it is a holy and whole- 
 some thought to pray for the dead." 
 
 Death is but the temporary separation of the body and 
 soul; the body alone dies, the soul lives on. In Purga- 
 tory, the soul, sensible to the pain of the deferred vision 
 of God and of material fire, yet hopes, remembers, loves. 
 In hell on the contrary cursing, raging, and choking in 
 the sulphurous fumes of a fire that never consumes, 
 that is never extinguished; the souls of the damned, 
 damned because they refused succor live on forever 
 and forever in indescribable agony, remorse, and despair. 
 
 15 
 
 If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
 
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 
 
 is Tennyson. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 INDULGENCES. 
 
 That an Indulgence is a permission to commit sin 
 is the belief of many protestants : their words, and their 
 writings, give evidence. That this belief, in some cases, 
 is retained for the pleasure it gives, seems likely when 
 we notice the difficulty in removing these impressions, 
 and the probability of their ultimate return. When a 
 pleasing bit of knowledge has been acquired in one's 
 youth, it is given up with reluctance in after life, and 
 its ghost is apt to haunt us even after our belief in 
 ghosts has passed away forever. 
 
 Readers of protestant history would do well to re- 
 member, that an Indulgence can be obtained only, 
 through the absolution of the priest following a full 
 and contrite confession of sin. Our friends, zealous 
 for our welfare, and seemingly suspicious that the 
 Church will make so easy the terms of our pardon, 
 that we, discerning the facility with which sin is for- 
 given, may be the more readily enticed to a greater 
 fall, are untiring in their efforts to keep the danger 
 before us. But all this solicitude appears unnecessary, 
 if we stop to think of the relative care and thought 
 considered necessary by each in the important work of 
 obtaining God's pardon for sin. 
 
 The protestant in his "closet," confesses to God as 
 much or as little as he likes he also confesses with 
 
Indulgences 247 
 
 great decorum in public with others, that "we have left 
 undone those things which we ought to have done; 
 And we have done those things which we ought not 
 to have done ; And there is no health in us." All of 
 which seems comparatively easy ; nothing here of a 
 humiliating character, all is polite, proper, and pleasing. 
 
 On the other side, the catholic to obtain God's pardon 
 for his sins, must spend some time in prayer that he 
 may secure grace and enlightenment to know his sins 
 and to be truly contrite for them; he must meditate 
 upon the greatness of even a small sin when the offense 
 is against a God of infinite holiness. The penitent will 
 also make a careful examination of his conscience by 
 the aid of the Ten Commandments, regarding his three- 
 fold duty to God, to his neighbor and to himself. The 
 preparatory work being finished, the catholic, waiting 
 his turn enters the confessional and kneels on a soft 
 and luxurious board. The Father Confessor being 
 occupied with a penitent on the other side, our sup- 
 posed penitent will wait his convenience. During this 
 brief season of expectancy and trepidation the novice 
 will note the absence of any aperture through which, 
 according to protestant legends, money is to be passed 
 to the priest. 
 
 The penitent begs the Father's blessing, and with 
 head bowed down says : "I confess to Almighty God, 
 to Blessed Mary ever virgin, to Angels and Saints, and 
 to you Father; that I have sinned exceedingly in 
 thought, word, and deed, through my most grievous 
 and exceeding great fault." Here must be given an 
 exact account of all sins committed since the last con- 
 
248 Indulgences 
 
 fession. Perhaps he has indulged to excess in eating 
 or drinking; been neglectful of his neighbor's honor; 
 given too low a valuation of his property to the as- 
 sessor; strained the truth in reciting the good qualities 
 and freedom from blemishes of a horse, which he has 
 for sale. He may have broken one of the Ten Com- 
 mandments, or engineered a corner in wheat, or fuel 
 thank God not yet on air by which resulted untold 
 suffering to God's poor. 
 
 The account-book of God, must be unabridged and 
 kept in double entry, to show all the sins that men 
 and women in good social standing commit in the mad 
 rush for wealth and position, in an age which if not 
 prone to overscrupulousness in its methods yet pro- 
 fesses to be charmed with the thought of much learning, 
 and the graces and refinements of life. 
 
 In confession all sins must be declared, for, if the 
 penitent through carelessness or shame, makes a con- 
 fession other than complete, far from obtaining God's 
 pardon through the absolution of the priest, goes out 
 of the confessional more guilty than when he came in. 
 All catholics know that much at least about confession. 
 In this case, supposing the penitent to have made a 
 good confession, he will upon his knees before the 
 Blessed Sacrament return hearty thanks for the infinite 
 mercy of God that has enabled him to perform this act 
 of penance, and, feeling the burden of his sins re- 
 moved, is joyful of heart as a prisoner loosed from his 
 chains. Rich in blessings and inexpressibly sweet are 
 these moments before the Blessed Sacrament after con- 
 fession. 
 
Indulgences 249 
 
 Now the penitent will say the prayers which the 
 confessor gave as a penance. Ordinarily these few 
 things are all that strict obligation requires for obtain- 
 ing the pardon of sin. It would seem that this work 
 would be sufficient to deter catholics from rushing into 
 sin as soon as they leave the confessional; but alas! do 
 not protestants tell us, that, frequently the confessional 
 has, on the contrary, the effect of encouraging sin. "It 
 is evil and that continually," says good Dr. Barnes in 
 his "Gospel Notes." There remains something to be 
 further considered. Though the penitent has received 
 pardon he will not escape the temporal punishments due 
 for the sins which he has confessed. This according to 
 protestant reasoning would be another inducement to 
 repeat the offense. 
 
 The penitent having done penance is now ready to 
 complete the requirements for securing an Indulgence 
 by preparing himself through the medium of suitable 
 devotions for making a worthy communion; after which 
 he will say the prescribed prayers for the Pope's inten- 
 tion, and make his thanksgiving. Then he may hope 
 that by the grace of God and the favor of the Sover- 
 eign Pontiff, he has secured an Indulgence. That which 
 is above all price, has been obtained without price! 
 
 It would seem to the unprejudiced reader that no 
 comparison could be instituted regarding the thorough- 
 ness, extent, and humiliating character of the work per- 
 formed by the two parties in this supposed case. The 
 protestant has not confessed to, or before men, but in 
 secret and in the dark. Without a skillful and dis- 
 interested counselor a Prophet Nathan, to say "thou 
 11 
 
250 Indulgences 
 
 art the man" is it not possible, nay likely, that he 
 may through bias, and that self love that doth hedge 
 ns in, have failed to realize the full extent and gravity 
 of his fault, and thus have invalidated his confession? 
 
 David failed to comprehend the enormity of his 
 transgression until the awakening of his conscience un- 
 der the scathing denunciation of the prophet. Our 
 friends are often aware of our frailties and shortcom- 
 ings, when the sentinel on our watch-tower is calling 
 "all's well." In mentioning a circumstance to one's con- 
 fessor, it is often in the nature of a surprise, to con- 
 sider the viewpoint from which an entirely impartial 
 judge will regard what we were inclined to believe 
 to be a fair excuse. 
 
 Our protestant friend having neglected the Scripture 
 which says, "confess therefore, your sins one to an- 
 other," and having no physician of the soul to bring to 
 mind and assist him to discover the quality, nature, and 
 extent of his fault, would be likely to be more indul- 
 gent with himself than would an entirely disinterested 
 adviser. The catholic, who has the advantage of good 
 advice, is more likely to make a good confession than 
 the other. Again the test of humility is wanting in 
 the confession to God alone; it is comparatively easy in 
 the solitude of one's chamber with the door locked, to 
 confess to God, but when a gentleman goes to another 
 gentleman, and getting down on his knees before him, 
 tells of some particularly outrageous sin which he has 
 committed, while certainly embarrassing, it is also a 
 first-rate test of one's humility and sorrow. The chances 
 are ten to one, that he who confesses to God alone, 
 
Indulgences 251 
 
 will repeat the offense, rather than he who confesses 
 to the priest as God's agent. 
 
 After this brief sketch regarding the method of ob- 
 taining an Indulgence, it is necessary to inquire what 
 an Indulgence is. As the system of rewards and pun- 
 ishments is the basic principle of all government, we 
 see the practice of granting Indulgences in use both in 
 civil and ecclesiastical affairs. 
 
 Let us take the case of a prisoner under sentence of 
 death. His friends may efficaciously plead for a full 
 pardon, and thereby secure for him what we should call 
 a Plenary Indulgence. 
 
 Thus we see during the Civil War, President Lincoln 
 exercising this prerogative in favor of many a young 
 soldier sentenced to be shot for dereliction of duty; 
 his great heart being unable to withstand a mother's 
 tears. Again, every convicted felon in our prison, is 
 entitled under the credit system, to a remission of a 
 certain number of days or years of penal servitude as 
 a reward for good behavior, which is practically what 
 we call an Indulgence of so many days or years. 
 
 The catholic, because of this system is far more 
 diligent in frequenting the sacraments of Confession, 
 and Communion, than might otherwise be the case, that 
 he may, by obtaining Indulgences, shorten his stay in 
 the purgatorial fires. The felon works with courage 
 and perseverance that he may the sooner secure the 
 sweet boon of freedom. The student at school does 
 his best work under the stimulus given by the credit 
 system. The soldier, the civilian, and all, in the various 
 walks of life, strive for excellence under the alluring 
 
252 Indulgences 
 
 prospect of a just reward. The disciples of the Master 
 received no reproof for manifesting their desire to know 
 what it should profit them for having left all to follow 
 him. Without the lure of heaven before our eyes, who 
 among the best of us would be enamored of penances 
 and prayers ? 
 
 A principle of action which our divine Lord has 
 sanctioned, his Apostles have practiced, and which the 
 nations of the earth have adopted, must be considered 
 as the best of all systems for all ; and as we have seen, 
 this system is nothing new, but simply the catholic 
 doctrine of Indulgences. What then must be thought 
 of the discernment of those who would find that the 
 convict's, the soldier's, the scholar's Indulgences must 
 lead to, and constitute in themselves a license to com- 
 mit sin ! 
 
 Strictly speaking, an Indulgence is the remission of 
 a part sometimes the whole of the temporal punish- 
 ment which remains due to sin, after it has been for- 
 given in the Sacrament of Penance. As an instance in 
 point, after David had obtained God's forgiveness for 
 his great sin, he was severely punished by the sentence 
 of death passed upon the innocent child. Had the 
 great God been sufficiently moved by the supplications 
 of the King to rescind the penalty, and preserve the 
 life of his offspring, David would have received a Ple- 
 nary Indulgence. 
 
 As the Church, through her ministers, has the power 
 to remit sin as to its eternal punishment, so she has 
 also the power to remit the temporal punishment in- 
 curred, which lesser grant is naturally included in the 
 
Indulgences 253 
 
 greater, the power of binding and loosing given to the 
 Prince of the Apostles in the words : 1 "Whatsoever 
 thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven : 
 and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed 
 also in heaven." 
 
 As the Catholic Church never changes her doctrines, 
 it follows that the doctrine under consideration has re- 
 mained the same that Luther believed and taught before 
 he had the misfortune to lose the faith. Luther knew 
 well that never in the history of the Catholic Church, 
 had the payment of money been a factor - necessary in 
 the acquirement of an Indulgence. 
 
 The Indulgence which Tetzel was authorized to 
 preach, and to which Luther took exception, was granted 
 by Leo X. for the double purpose of increasing the 
 spiritual blessings of the people, and the accumulation 
 of money for the building of the greatest of all the 
 cathedrals of the world. Surely it was a noble thought 
 to use God given talents, and the perfection of human 
 skill, in the raising on high to the honor of God, the 
 grandest temple that the world has ever seen, St. 
 Peter's, the masterpiece of man. 
 
 A vast number took up the design of the Pope with 
 enthusiasm, large sums were obtained, and thus St. 
 Peter's became the modern glory of ancient Rome. 
 While it was the money alone that built the great cathe- 
 dral, it was not the money alone wrung from Christ's 
 poor, as Luther would have us believe that obtained 
 the Indulgence. All the penitential exercises before 
 mentioned were to be performed with all possible care 
 
 i Matt, xvi, 19. 
 
254 Indulgences 
 
 and devotion as in the sight of God. No person in a 
 state of mortal sin could secure the Indulgence preached 
 hy Tetzel, were he to offer millions for it. \Yhile an 
 Indulgence may be obtained without money, it cannot 
 be obtained with money. 
 
 The people who gave the money, gave it of their own 
 free will, with the intention of honoring God, and 
 benefiting themselves. There was no compulsion about 
 it, they were free to take it, and equally free to leave 
 it alone. Besides this particular Indulgence, there were 
 numerous others that could be had without contributing 
 money. 
 
 As Indulgences have never been sold in the ordi- 
 nary meaning of the term bargain and sale the hue 
 and cry raised about it is but a vain beating of the 
 air, showing a want of good faith and of that charity 
 that thinketh no evil *"As was proper in this case, 
 the rich paid the greatest sum, the moderately circum- 
 stanced a smaller sum, and the very poor nothing, yet 
 all received a like benefit. 
 
 "It is difficult to get the facts concerning Tetzel's 
 work, but it seems likely that he was not the best 
 selection that could have been made, and that his zeal 
 ran far ahead of his discretion." 
 
 The fact that Luther knew the teachings of the 
 Church concerning Indulgences, and the further fact of 
 his misrepresentations, together with the scurrility of 
 his language, shows that he was not in good faith, and 
 in his account of the Pope's Indulgence, which here 
 
 * "Hist. West. Europe." by Prof. James Harvey Robinson, p. 1- 
 
Indulgences 2 ; ; 
 
 follows, the founder of protestantism appears as though 
 playing to the galleries for applause. 
 
 "It happened in the year 1517," he tells us, "that 
 a preaching friar, Johann Tetzel by name, came hither, 
 a noisy fellow. . . . The same Tetzel hawked about 
 the Indulgence and sold grace for money, dear or cheap 
 as best he could. At the time I was a preacher here 
 in the monastery, and a young doctor fresh from the 
 anvil, glowing and bold in Holy Scripture. As many 
 people went from Wittenberg . . . after the In- 
 dulgence, I so truly as Christ redeemed me not know- 
 ing what the Indulgence was . . . began to preach 
 mildly that men might do better than purchase the 
 Indulgence. . . . Now, to come to the true cause 
 of the Lutheran teaching, I let all go on as it went ( !). 
 However, it comes to my mind how that Tetzel had 
 preached loathsome and fearful articles, which I will 
 now name, to wit: Item, the red Indulgence-cross, with 
 the Pope's banner erected in the churches, was as effi- 
 cacious as the cross of Christ. 
 
 "Item, if St. Peter were here now, he could have no 
 greater grace or power than he had himself. Item, he 
 would not change places in heaven with St. Peter; for 
 he had released more souls with Indulgence than St. 
 Peter by his preaching. Item, when a coin was placed 
 in the chest for a soul in purgatory, as soon as the 
 penny fell ringing upon the bottom, the soul imme- 
 diately started for heaven. Item, there was no need 
 to feel grief, or sorrow, or repentance for sin, if a 
 man bought the Indulgence. Tetzel also sold the right 
 
 s "Hist, of Eng.," by Henry Smith Williams, VoL xvii, p. 2S2. 
 
256 Indulgences 
 
 to sin in future time. He pushed his traffic to a fearful 
 extent: everything might be done for money." 
 
 The language of this excerpt a part of which from 
 its extreme "frankness" has been omitted is easily 
 recognizable as that of Luther. It is surprising that 
 Luther had no knowledge of what the Pope's Indul- 
 gence was, yet felt it incumbent upon him to preach 
 against it. Did he wish us to understand that he 
 oftenest preached upon those subjects of which he knew 
 nothing? Or was it that whatever the Pope saw fit to 
 order, Luther on general principles and without knowl- 
 edge concerning it, saw fit to oppose? It seems out 
 of the usual course, that he should make oath to an 
 unimportant statement, and fail to do so when attribut- 
 ing acts to Tetzel, which if true, would consign him to 
 the shame and contempt of all men. Thus the language 
 attributed to Tetzel remains uncorroborated by either 
 oath or witness. 
 
 It is well-nigh impossible for protestant preachers, 
 editors, historians, novelists, and writers in general, to 
 use correct terms in describing catholic belief and prac- 
 tice. It has never been denied by our critics that Tetzel 
 was a representative catholic, for it is to their interest 
 to maintain that fact; but if Tetzel was a catholic, he 
 could never have used the language contained in the 
 "items," which is a wicked and monstrous perversion 
 of catholic truth, and which embodies all the stock-in- 
 trade misrepresentations which protestants at a later 
 date than that of Tetzel's preaching introduced in their 
 efforts to discredit this doctrine. 
 
 The "items" seem but a retrospective glance, the 
 
Indulgences 257 
 
 things that came into Luther's mind after the lapse of 
 years ; a postprandial day dream of an old man after 
 indulging" to an unwarrantable extent in the pleasures 
 of the table ; a weakness for which the great founder of 
 protestantism was as much renowned as for the "gift 
 of using strong smiting phrases" after his awakening. 
 
 As a fitting close to the "items," Luther charges that 
 Tetzel "sold the right to sin in future time." Knowing 
 catholic doctrine, Luther knew this to be impossible. 
 Had the protestant doctor, "glowing and bold in Holy 
 Scripture," ever read there, that "thou shalt not bear 
 false witness against thy neighbor?" 
 
 There seems to be in these days an occasional spor- 
 adic case among protestant writers, where they are just 
 about to grasp the thought that perhaps it is as well 
 to be reasonably fair, lest the discovery might be made, 
 that for its moral support a just cause needs no 
 fabrications. One such protestant writer in referring 
 to this subject, says : 4 "It is a common mistake of 
 protestants to suppose that the Indulgence was forgive- 
 ness granted beforehand for sins to be committed in the 
 future. There is absolutely no foundation for this idea. 
 A person proposing to sin could not possibly be contrite 
 in the eyes of the Church, and even if he secured an 
 Indulgence, it would, according to the theologians, have 
 been quite worthless." 
 
 Tardy justice is no doubt better than none, but it 
 requires more than one act of reparation to balance 
 centuries of calumny. The charge that the Catholic 
 Church, in this doctrine, sells permission to its people 
 
 4 "Hist, of Western Europe," J. H. Robinson, p. 391. 
 
258 Indulgences 
 
 to commit sin, launched into the world by the ex-priest 
 Luther, has kept its tens of thousands outside the gates 
 of the "one true fold of the one true Shepherd," and 
 has for centuries been in effect as much believed as 
 the Bible itself. 
 
 Perhaps the doctrine had been abused as every good 
 thing has at one time or another; but who was the 
 paragon Luther who cast the first stone? He was a 
 man who had broken his vows, who had abducted a 
 nun from her convent; who had for the smiles of a 
 prince, sold an Indulgence sanctioning his desire to 
 commit bigamy ! 
 
 Yes, there were some corrupt monks in the old days. 
 Martin Luther was one of them. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS BY PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES AND 
 OTHERS. 
 
 If we consider the expense attending the proselyting 
 incursions into catholic domain by the "rival churches/' 
 it will be found that owing to the necessity of sending 
 at a distance not only a missionary, but a missionary's 
 wife, numerous progeny, and necessary baggage trains, 
 the returns in conversions seem small in proportion to 
 the outlay. 
 
 In all countries, there will be found those who are 
 dissatisfied with whatever exists, if for no better reason 
 than that it exists. This is largely the class that upon 
 the advent of the protestant missionary, help to unfurl 
 his banner and hie themselves to the protestant chapel 
 where, posing as "converted Romanists," they are sure 
 of a warm welcome. As the first fruits of the mission 
 their testimony is valuable in establishing a good re- 
 port concerning the efficiency of the worker in the field. 
 While the mission may not be a success as regards the 
 number of conversions made; yet, through the highly 
 colored reports of the work sent home, interest is re- 
 vived and protestant prejudice stimulated to a new 
 growth. Thus protestant life at home is largely kept up 
 by missionary work abroad. 
 
 As misrepresentations concerning the moral condi- 
 tions prevailing, especially attacks upon the character 
 
260 Misrepresentations 
 
 of her priests made in a home community where their 
 lives are as an open book, would prove detrimental to 
 their accusers only, it is evident that to accomplish the 
 desired result, accusations must come from a distance 
 so remote as to bar investigation as to their truth. 
 Here then is the foreign missionary's golden oppor- 
 tunity. The glowing accounts regarding the whiteness 
 of the harvest now ready for the protestant sickle in 
 catholic lands ; the longing for the coming of protestant- 
 ism with its "Open Bible" to usher in the new century 
 light of freedom and progress makes instructive read- 
 ing for the home bureau, and conduces to greater finan- 
 cial efforts in the cause. 
 
 During the many elaborations of the theme, we learn 
 that great numbers of these poor papists have never 
 heard there was a Bible ; the priests, in the interests of 
 their continued subjection, preferring to keep that 
 knowledge from them. The rapacity of the priests for 
 coin is said to be insatiable, and a large proportion of 
 the poor live in sin, unable as they are to pay the 
 marriage fees required. When the same class die they 
 have no priest as they are unable to pay the price of a 
 Mass! Without the knowledge that God alone can for- 
 give sin, these poor wretches pay their hard earned 
 money those that can for the priests' pardon, and if 
 they should wish to sin, ever so little, in the future, 
 that privilege can only be had by payment strictly in 
 advance. 
 
 That this picture may not seem overdrawn, we quote 
 from the "California Christian Advocate," of March 
 31st, 1904: "In most of these countries," Mexico, 
 
Misrepresentations 261 
 
 South America, Austria and Italy, "nearly fifty per cent, 
 of the children are born out of wedlock. They have 
 few divorces because the good people are not cere- 
 monially married. Thousands cannot pay the price these 
 merciless friars fix." 
 
 The same paper of November 21st, 1907, publishes 
 the following in its notices of new books : l "This book," 
 says Rev. Editor Bovard, "is not written to promote 
 strife, but to spread information." This is the "infor- 
 mation": "A Catholic priest of Chicago," says the 
 Rev. Author, "has recently published the following: 
 'One priest made a specialty of working miracles by 
 using a certain brand of holy water which he put up. 
 His laboratory was stocked with bottles and corks. In 
 the corner was an ordinary city hydrant. He got tired 
 blessing a quantity of water from time to time, so he 
 blessed the hydrant, and then when he wanted holy 
 water he filled the bottle directly from the faucet. The 
 holy water was to be taken internally and applied ex- 
 ternally. I knew of a case where a poor workman gave 
 fifteen dollars to cure his wife. All the poor man got 
 for his money was a bottle of this holy water. The 
 wife died and the family was evicted for non-payment 
 of rent.' The depth of superstition is not easily sound- 
 ed, the author thinks, and we (Rev. Mr. Bovard) agree 
 with him that Christian education will cure Romanism. 
 If this booklet were read by the Roman laity, they 
 would have their eyes opened." 
 
 "A Catholic priest of Chicago" is, in case we should 
 wish to look him up, rather indefinite. When protestant 
 
 i "The Claims and History of the R. C. Church," by Rev. 
 Henry Schutz, of the M. E. Church. 
 
262 Misrepresentations 
 
 ministers tell their charming little stories, "for general 
 information," about the teachings of "Romanists," from 
 their ignorance concerning the same, they often fall 
 into the mire. 
 
 We have never heard of the use of holy water as a 
 medicine, or as an assisting agent in the performing of 
 miracles. As there are other ingredients in holy water, 
 than water, it could not have been produced by blessing 
 a hydrant. As one may often see in Catholic Churches, 
 a barrel of holy water with faucet and funnel for the 
 convenience of those who may wish to take a quantity 
 home, it is safe to say that it is never sold for any 
 purpose, and that no "certain brand" is known. 
 
 As in the celebrated case of the Milkmaid where the 
 fall of one pail of milk caused the loss of eggs, chick- 
 ens, and a new green dress, so here, the payment of 
 fifteen dollars to the priest, caused the death of the wife 
 and the eviction from the family home of the poor man 
 and his children! Pause, kind readers, and drop a tear. 
 
 In a later number of the Christian Advocate is found 
 the following: "We should look naturally for per- 
 manency in the marriage relation in Roman Catholic 
 countries, but instead we find a lamentable condition 
 prevailing. Adultery and illegitimacy are rife and ram- 
 pant in all these Catholic countries. Though the Roman 
 Catholic Church teaches the indissoluble character of 
 the marriage vows, no matter what the offense, yet, as 
 a matter of fact, she is the only Church in all the world 
 that has repeatedly severed the bonds of matrimony." 
 
 This is a mistake of the Christian Advocate, as the 
 Church cannot dissolve a marriage once validly con- 
 tracted. The Pope could not, even had he so desired, 
 
Misrepresentations 263 
 
 have dissolved the marriage of Henry VIII. and Cath- 
 erine. When Pope Pius VII. was asked by Napoleon 
 to annul the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte and Miss 
 Patterson, he said : "Your Majesty will understand that 
 upon the information thus far received by us, it is not 
 in our power to pronounce a sentence of nullity. We 
 cannot utter a judgment in opposition to the rules of 
 the Church, and we could not, without laying those 
 rules aside, decree the invalidity of a union which ac- 
 cording to the Word of God, no human power can 
 sunder." 
 
 It is beyond belief that in any civilized country, "near- 
 ly fifty per cent, of the children are born out of wed- 
 lock." According to the statistician Mulhall's official 
 tables for a period of forty-six years, in Germany, there 
 were in each one thousand catholic births, fifty-eight 
 illegitimates, and in each one thousand protestant births, 
 eighty-five illegitimates. According to the same au- 
 thority, from 1865 to 1878 
 
 There is one illegitimate There is one illegitimate 
 
 in every in every 
 
 Catholic Protestant 
 
 countries. countries. 
 
 43.48 births in Ireland 28.57 births in Holland 
 
 18.03 births in Spain ir . cn ,. , . (England 
 
 , 19.50 births in. ?, , 
 17.85 births in Portugal (and Wales 
 
 15.38 births in Italy 11.75 births in Norway 
 
 14.08 births in. . . .Belgium 11.59 births in . . .Germany 
 
 14.08 births in. . .Hungary 10.74 births in Scotland 
 
 13.36 births in France 9.80 births in Sweden 
 
 7.69 births in .... Bavaria 9 births in ... Denmark 
 
 4.40 births in Austria 6.99 births in Saxony 
 
264 Misrepresentations 
 
 Regarding the poor showing made by the catholic 
 countries of German Austria and Bavaria, it is but 
 fair to state that owing to the peculiarities of the civil 
 enactments concerning marriage, the applicant for a 
 license must be able to read and write, and possess a 
 certain amount of skill in the science of numbers, to- 
 gether with a specified amount of property. These 
 unusual requirements frequently prove among the very 
 poor to be prohibitory of marriage. These catholics 
 are, in the interests of Christian morality, regularly 
 married by their priests, but as they have no license 
 from the civil authority, their children appear in the 
 tables as illegitimates. 
 
 In Italy, many good catholics married by their priests 
 refuse to comply with the demand for a civil marriage 
 by the minions of a ^Robber King," and they will re- 
 gard their children's bend sinister as an honor, not a 
 disgrace. The struggle between the Church and the 
 pagan government of France, in the same manner 
 enables protestants to make a better showing than 
 would otherwise be possible. 
 
 These tables, with their explanations, are relied upon 
 to disprove the charges made by the Christian Advo- 
 cate. There is no ''fixed price" for performing the 
 marriage ceremony among us, any more than among 
 protestants. 
 
 When little artless stories are heard designed to 
 awaken sympathy for the catholic poor as being vic- 
 timized by a rapacious clergy, let no one waste a tear, 
 or pass the sad tale on, for there are no people on 
 
Misrepresentations 265 
 
 earth that venerate their shepherds, and for such good 
 reason, as the humble poor of the catholic flocks. 
 
 The Rev. Charles W. Fraser, a Congregational Mis- 
 sionary to Cuba, endeavors to make plain how catholics 
 mismanage affairs at a distance from Boston. 2 "Where 
 Roman Catholicism has chiefly undone things for cen- 
 turies, the Protestant missionary has a difficult work. 
 We first went to mass, not to court favor with the 
 people, but to show that we were not enemies in the 
 camp. Then the writer called on the parish priest to 
 show him proper courtesy and tell him our purpose 
 in coming to this town. He frankly said there was no 
 religion in the island; money and vice like weeds 
 choked life out of the Church. 'The same people who 
 hear me will hear you, and I think it would be better 
 to go to some heathen field where work would be far 
 easier.' We felt that we must take Romanism at its 
 best, honor and recognize her in the points where we 
 agree, and above all, desire for her as for ourselves a 
 pure ministry and sincere worship. 
 
 "One can hardly criticize severely the only religion a 
 people know without tears, when the land is sown with 
 illegitimate sons of priests, where women declare that 
 though dying, they would not confess their sins to such 
 men, yet whose devotion to the Virgin Mary alone 
 keeps them from coming to us. They love our services 
 and have real sorrow when held back from them by 
 fear of a priest whom they despise. 
 
 "Truly a strange paradox, but does not their cate- 
 chism say that the priest is the same as Jesus Christ? 
 
 2 "Congregational Work," Vol. viii, No. 5, May, 1904. 
 
266 Misrepresentations 
 
 If we stormed at such a state of affairs, we would 
 either drive them from all religion or promote slavish 
 submission to a creeping paralysis of soul, which is 
 doubtless worse. By their own testimony they say 
 'you are better Christians than we.' Hitherto they have 
 been taught that we are atheists, but now we are 
 visited by those who dare not worship with us and 
 they speak to us of things they never say to the priest. 
 We are trying to show them that if there is no room 
 for us in Romanism, there is room for them in 
 Protestantism. . . . 
 
 "We have in our patio a Kumquot Orange tree, load- 
 ed with golden fruit. It is the talk of the town. We 
 gave our friends each two or three of the fruit. The 
 wife of the Roman Catholic organist called on a friend 
 to beseech me to give her a few of them. Quite hu- 
 morously I said on giving her the fruit, 'you were 
 afraid to ask me for these because you thought the 
 devil was in my house,' a quotation of the priest to 
 frighten children from our Sunday-school. She was 
 worried and confused at my joke, but her husband 
 laughed and said, 'I envy you your godliness. I saw 
 you at our Church and your features never moved 
 while our priest denounced you as a cursed heretic, 
 and what astonished me was to see you put something 
 in our collection box after it.' Strange but true that 
 humor is our greatest weapon against the superstition 
 that surrounds us. A missionary without a little wit 
 and humor would never do more than hasten his own 
 miserable failure. 
 
 "Perhaps we are vain, yet there comes a vision of 
 
Misrepresentations 267 
 
 this old Church; we think of her in all her history; 
 her hymns we are still singing in all our Churches. 
 Her formalism stands as a perpetual rebuke and warn- 
 ing against the decline of spiritual life; yet she speaks 
 the finest words ever given to men." 
 
 This humble missionary, so full of regard for his 
 neighbor's honor, begins his work by going to Mass! 
 Catholics consider daily attendance at Mass highly 
 beneficial to the spiritual life, but as protestant minis- 
 ters do not believe in going to Mass, lest this unusual 
 occurrence should seem to denote some ulterior motive, 
 the missionary makes haste, before he is accused, to 
 set himself right. If we will hear him, it was as a 
 friend, not an enemy in the camp, that he approached 
 the heavenly portals to hear Mass. In imitation, per- 
 haps, of One who sometime wept over a city of Pales- 
 tine, this good man too weeps as he contemplates the 
 necessity of becoming a hostile critic of ''the only 
 religion a people know." 
 
 In the missionary's country, three or four hundred 
 religions are barely sufficient to express the devotion 
 of the people to the Giver of all good; while here only 
 that one old-fashioned faith has been taught which 
 enables all to dwell together in unity, as the Scripture 
 commands. Here after centuries of teaching, and 
 practicing, of this one faith, this bearer of a new 
 message has come, to raise doubts in the minds of this 
 simple people regarding their former teachers, and 
 their ancient faith, and, incidentally, of course, make a 
 living for himself and family without the necessity of 
 doing manual labor. 
 
268 Misrepresentations 
 
 The missionary will seek to show the latest thing out 
 in Simon-pure religion, and will descant long and loud 
 regarding the blessings attendant upon "The Great 
 Reformation," and the superiority of a diversity of 
 religions over one faith. Should he succeed in unset- 
 tling the faith of many, he would make just so many 
 busy, perhaps angry, disputants concerning the Bible's 
 meaning; until faith, never too strong, will be seen 
 diminishing and divorce increasing in like degree, in 
 that catholic land, as witnessed here in this protestant 
 land, where marriage is being debased, until it has be- 
 come little else than an experiment, which may be 
 improved upon by further and like experiments later on. 
 
 We leave this pious missionary to reconcile his con- 
 science with this breach of charity, in publishing to 
 the world his snap judgment against the priests of a 
 country which, from his brief stay in it, he could have 
 known little or nothing about, and w^hich of all 
 known subjects, protestant preachers along the high- 
 way of their lapses in moral duty, should walk with 
 tender feet. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Bayne in speaking on confession, 
 and a celibate priesthood, says : 3 "Rome maintains 
 auricular confession and a celibate clergy. This is a 
 terrible indictment against the Papacy. A celibate 
 clergy and the confessional are incompatible with 
 healthy and happy social life. Intelligent men will not 
 believe none but simpletons will believe that where 
 celibacy of clergy and auricular confession prevail, do- 
 mestic life will not be honeycombed with intrigue." 
 
 3 "Life of Luther," Bayne, p. 40. 
 
Misrepresentations 269 
 
 This is a strong assertion, which gives no proof, or 
 reason, why it should be true. In lieu of proof, it 
 would have looked better had the author but thought 
 to tell where this honeycombed condition of domestic 
 life among catholics exists. Is it in the cities or in 
 country towns? Anywhere in the United States where 
 we can obtain facts ? No ; but hark ! A voice from a 
 distance ; the protestant missionary in far off catholic 
 lands, he "can a tale unfold," and the distance between 
 the location where the alleged infraction of the moral 
 code will be said to have taken place, and the home 
 bureau of investigation will prove sufficiently great to 
 so delay the report, that a later denial would find the 
 story already confirmed and the incident closed. 
 
 The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church is fully alive 
 regarding the reputation of her priests, and is ever 
 watchful of their conduct. 4 "A Passionist Father, un- 
 der the auspices of the Catholic Truth Society, in his 
 endeavors to ascertain what if any truth there might 
 be in the protestant stories told about priests in South 
 America, had a very lively chase in his endeavors to 
 run them to earth. ... In his travels, he says that 
 he went 'seven times around the Continent, and three 
 times across it. ... They could not be verified on 
 the seaboard. He had been referred to the interior, 
 names and places being given. On arriving at these 
 places he had been advised to go still further into the 
 interior. He had. done so but with the same result. 
 In his travels he had never been able to verify such 
 
 4 San Francisco Monitor, Vol. xlvii, No. 2. 
 
270 Misrepresentations 
 
 stories though he had followed them to their ever- 
 changing scenes toward the center of the country/ ' : 
 
 The catholic laity feel sure that their priests will 
 not suffer in comparison with any body of ethical teach- 
 ers that the "rival churches" can produce. We do not 
 think that the immoralities of protestant ministers as 
 recorded in the public press, have their origin in the 
 teachings of protestantism, and we have no desire to 
 shout when made aware of their downfall. But, when 
 a protestant missionary goes to a catholic country, and 
 before he has time to hang up his hat, sits down and 
 writes to the society that sends him, "that the land is 
 sown with the illegitimate sons of priests," and that 
 society publishes the lie to the world; then if in former 
 chapters we have failed to prove that divided protestant- 
 ism is not that Church which our divine Lord estab- 
 lished in unity; there remains no further need of proof 
 other than this failure of theirs in the showing of even 
 an approach towards Christian charity. 5 "God is char- 
 ity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and 
 God in him." 
 
 We know that the Catholic Church teaches in her 
 pulpits, her confessionals, and her catechisms, the same 
 doctrines everywhere ; maintains the same uncompro- 
 mising attitude towards iniquity in high places as in low, 
 in any and all countries, as in this. There is not one 
 Gospel for the rich, and another for the poor, one 
 Gospel for North America, and another for South 
 America and the islands of the sea. We know that 
 abundant testimony is at hand from protestants who live 
 
 5 St. John I. 
 
Misrepresentations 271 
 
 among us, that our reputation for honesty and right 
 living is at least equal to their own. While different 
 peoples doubtless are to some extent influenced by their 
 environment, yet it is irreconcilable with reason and 
 good sense, that the Church that teaches all nations one 
 and the same faith should, in our own country, be able 
 to show the fruits of a pure priesthood and people, and 
 in distant lands only a priesthood and people domi- 
 nated by vice. 
 
 But as serious as the offense against charity by our 
 Congregational brethren is, yet it is but journey work 
 in comparison with the cunningly devised fables of the 
 disciples of John Wesley. 6 A report of the Methodists 
 on the condition of affairs in South America: "The 
 Committee invites the attention of the Protestant 
 Churches of Christendom to the moral condition of the 
 clergy of South America. That condition as revealed 
 in Rome at the recent council of Bishops from that 
 country, is so deplorable that every pure minded person 
 in the Roman Catholic Church will admit that it is fit 
 to make the Angels weep. At this council, which Leo 
 XIII. assembled a few months ago in Rome, a statisti- 
 cal report was presented on the moral condition of the 
 South American clergy. According to it there are 
 eighteen thousand Roman priests, of whom three thou- 
 sand are regularly married, having wives and legiti- 
 mate children. Four thousand live in secret concu- 
 binage, having wives under the names of nieces, aunts, 
 wards or housekeepers. Then fifteen hundred sustain 
 
 6 New York Sun, April, 1900. 
 
272 Misrepresentations 
 
 more or less public relations with women of doubtful 
 character in their neighborhoods." 
 
 These charitable and delightfully frank statements of 
 our Christian brethren as usual are sustained by no 
 word of proof, and for that reason are not entitled to 
 notice; yet as protestants are, generally, willing in a 
 case where the Catholic Church is the subject of criti- 
 cism, to take each other's bare assertions as positive 
 proof, it is often necessary to take notice of that which 
 is beneath notice. The Church has usually maintained 
 silence before her accusers, in imitation of her divine 
 Saviour before Herod. As though wearied with a one- 
 sided controversy, our friends in intention sometimes 
 have changed front and praised us. They have praised 
 us, not for our faith and devotion so much as for our 
 splendid organization and child-like obedience to rule. 
 Some of the brethren have made favorable mention of 
 our uncompromising hostility to divorce, and have be- 
 wailed their inability to educate their people up to a 
 like standard of morality. They have taken notice too 
 of the noble deeds of Catholic Sisterhoods performed in 
 hospitals, in the halls of learning, and among the poor ; 
 and have, in some instances, essayed feeble imitations 
 of them. More rarely has faint praise been wrung 
 from them, for the grand old man of the Vatican, Leo 
 XIII. 
 
 This charitable condition of mind among the brethren, 
 like a fair warm day in early Spring, .is after all but 
 the harbinger of a speedy and unwelcome change. As 
 a sunburst in some quiet valley whose surrounding 
 heights are obscured in the leaden gloom of a tempest 
 
Misrepresentations 273 
 
 about to hurl its thunder on the quiet summer air; 
 so here, the calm, too brief, is ended in the coming of 
 this awful avalanche from South America. When our 
 friends, who live by method, become aware that the 
 exigencies of their case require the employment of 
 desperate remedies, they use none but the largest fig- 
 ures, and make statements that seem at variance with 
 the usual results obtained by a correct method in the 
 use of numbers. 
 
 It is chiefly the van of an avalanche, that is the 
 destroying agent. In the van of this vast immoral 
 army, are "three thousand priests who are regularly 
 married, having wives and legitimate children." This 
 vanguard of three thousand South American priests, 
 are, therefore in this one respect only not one whit 
 better than the three thousand Methodist preachers 
 who are married and have legitimate children. In fact, 
 if, according to Methodist doctrine, priestly celibacy is 
 wrong, a married priesthood must evidently be right. 
 Are the Methodist preachers mentioned to be classed as 
 immoral? If not, why should the conduct of these three 
 thousand priests cause us to hang our heads in shame, 
 or make the Angels weep ? What makes marriage moral 
 for the preacher and immoral for the priest? The celi- 
 bacy of the priesthood is a matter not of doctrine but of 
 discipline in the Catholic Church, and there are married 
 priests outside South America. It follows then, that 
 "The Committee" who have so kindly invited the 
 churches of protestant Christendom to view with sor- 
 row (?) the degradation of three thousand Catholic 
 priests, stand convicted of grossly slandering them as 
 
274 Misrepresentations 
 
 well as all married priests of the Catholic Church, who 
 live in wedlock as the majority of Methodist preach- 
 ers live. 
 
 Passing to the second count of this far from delecta- 
 ble indictment, we find that, "four thousand live in 
 secret concubinage having wives," etc. This charge 
 may be dismissed on the ground of an entire want of 
 anything in the nature of proof, and the impossibility 
 of understanding whether the four thousand are ac- 
 cused of having concubines or wives. Concerning the 
 fifteen hundred, the charges of immorality are for all 
 we know as true as those already mentioned. Only 
 two years before this alarming condition of affairs was 
 revealed to the Methodist Church, as we have men- 
 tioned, a Catholic priest went seven times around the 
 South American continent and three times across it 
 in search of the origin of this class of stories reflecting 
 upon the morals of the catholic priesthood. "The 
 Father's report at Rome was that their origin could be 
 traced to protestants, and he emphatically branded them 
 as 'groundless calumnies/ and that he had seen the 
 clergy everywhere except in Venezuela, and had found 
 them 'the equal of the clergy of England or Italy, of 
 Spain or North America.' " 
 
 Are those of the "rival churches" so obtuse as for 
 a moment to think that the Church which has taught 
 the necessity of a clean heart, and a clean life, for 
 nineteen centuries; that has frowned upon and unceas- 
 ingly denounced immorality among princes and peas- 
 ants alike, can so far forget her glorious record as to 
 allow a standing army of eight thousand five hundred 
 
Misrepresentations 275 
 
 of her priests in one country alone to live in open and 
 notorious sin? Surely "none but simpletons" could 
 believe anything so improbable, so monstrous! 
 
 Do protestants who sometimes praise us for our 
 obedience to authority, imagine that the Miter has lost 
 its power? Such is the order and discipline in the 
 Church, that should a priest disobey his bishop he 
 would be brought to an accounting immediately. The 
 authority of the South American bishops, to depose 
 from office this formidable array of evil livers, would 
 be both ample and compulsory. The picture presented 
 of the South American Bishops before the Pope, each 
 handing in his statistical report anent the immoral lives 
 of the clergy under him, thus confessing whose negli- 
 gence it was that had permitted these scandal givers 
 to retain their positions thereby laying themselves open 
 to the severest censures of an indignant Pontiff, is a 
 picture so malicious in conception, so clumsy and un- 
 true in likeness, and so altogether improbable, as to 
 clearly reveal the hand of the protestant falsifying artist. 
 
 The climax of absurdity, however, is reached when 
 we are expected to believe that after receiving this 
 account regarding the lives of his clergy, the Pope 
 who has been credited with some skill as a diplomat 
 should have turned the report over to the Methodist 
 brethren ! If it were not a fact that protestant credulity 
 is without limitations, where stories are told reflecting 
 upon the Church, so absurd a story as this would not 
 be believed even by "simpletons." 
 
 The protestant missionaries, who take themselves to 
 Mexico, and other countries, for the purpose of con- 
 
276 Misrepresentations 
 
 verting Christians who are accustomed to attend Church 
 every day of their lives, to the belief that attendance 
 at divine worship once a week is quite sufficient; that 
 instead of a daily or weekly reception of that super- 
 substantial bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh 
 and blood of the Son of God, to a reception perhaps 
 once in three months, of bread and wine, or grape 
 juice, as a bare memorial of his death: to convert 
 Christians from believing much, to believing little, and 
 that little uncertain ; to reduce religion to its lowest 
 terms, and sow seeds of doubt where all before was 
 certain, may seem to the preachers the doing of a 
 great work, but from the viewpoint of the more intelli- 
 gent among the people, their advent is as much dreaded 
 as would be the coming of the smallpox. 
 
 7 "Whatever may be done for the peon in the way of 
 cleanliness and education, the iconoclastic improver 
 should stop at the door of his Church. Of all the 
 people I have ever seen the people of Mexico wear 
 their religion the best. It fits them like a seamless 
 garment. In the dusky silence of their beautiful cathe- 
 drals, the peons are equal to the rich, and what cares 
 they have slip from them like the burden from a Chris- 
 tian's back. Here at least the peon is as good as his 
 master." 
 
 That the preachers who, at the expense of the mis- 
 sionary boards, live in luxury in foreign countries, prove 
 quite often to be mischief makers, the authors of mis- 
 representation, contentions and strife; is attested by 
 many eminent writers who cannot be rightly accused 
 
 7 San Francisco Press. 
 
Misrepresentations 277 
 
 of undue partiality towards us. 8 Charles Dudley War- 
 ner says that "the missionaries in Mexico have done 
 nothing but sap the Christianity of many whose faith 
 was their strength, and foment ill feeling against the 
 American people in general." 
 
 If the missionaries, who are so bent on converting 
 catholics, were really anxious to save souls, they could 
 not find the world over a field more in need of mis- 
 sionaries than that nearest their own doors. This field 
 according to Governor Rollins of New Hampshire is in 
 New England, more especially in the rural districts al- 
 most exclusively peopled by the descendants of the 
 Puritans. In a "fast day" proclamation, the Governor 
 says: "The decline of the Christian religion, particu- 
 larly in our rural communities, is a marked feature 
 of the times, and steps should be taken to remedy it. 
 No matter what our belief may be in religious matters, 
 every good citizen knows that when the restraining 
 influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, 
 its decay, moral, mental and financial is swift and sure. 
 . . . There are towns where no church bell sends 
 forth its solemn call from January to January; there 
 are villages where children grow to manhood unchris- 
 tened ; there are communities where the dead are laid 
 away without the benison of the name of Christ, and 
 where marriages are solemnized only by Justices of the 
 Peace." 
 
 This then is the religious condition of rural New 
 England where protestantism has enjoyed undisputed 
 sway since the "pilgrim fathers" from their storm tossed 
 
 8 Harper's Mag., June, 1898. 
 
278 Misrepresentations 
 
 barks landed on her wild and rock-bound coasts. In 
 the cities, of course it is all very different for they are 
 largely populated by catholics ; and catholics go to 
 Church even if they "don't feel like it," and even if they 
 "don't like the minister." 
 
 The Rev. President of Amherst College says that "the 
 Church is no longer looked upon as an indispensable 
 means of salvation." Then of course it naturally follows 
 that, as people can get to heaven without the aid of 
 the Church, the people in rural New England who 
 have closed theirs and left them to rot, have only thrown 
 away a useless institution. Those who have read Long- 
 fellow's poem Evangeline, will naturally contrast this 
 picture of rural New England life, the outgrowth of 
 protestantism, with the life in a somewhat earlier period 
 of a rural people not very far distant, whose lives were 
 the embodiment of Christian charity, the outcome of 
 catholic teaching. 
 
 Mr. Rollin Lynde Hart, in the Atlantic Monthly, 
 writing of a New England hill-town, says: "Here 
 you may mingle with as wicked a throng of human 
 creatures as ever congregated in Whitechapel, or Belle- 
 vue or Five Points. French Canadians? Foreigners 
 of any breed or birth whatever? Not they. That loath- 
 some rabble gathered from twenty decadent hill-towns 
 are they not every soul of them descended from the 
 Puritans? Their pre-revolutionary blood is as good as 
 your own. When the ceremony of marriage has en- 
 tirely disappeared from the social regimen of Cidersville 
 when lovely sweet Auburn is cursed with moral and 
 
Misrepresentations 279 
 
 physical abberations, it is time to recognize a problem 
 of no less than national seriousness." 
 
 The San Francisco Monitor asks : "Will the American 
 missionaries enter the field, or must the harvest await 
 future reapers from among Filipino and Cuban zealots, 
 solicitors for the salvation of benighted descendants of 
 the Puritans?" 
 
 Lieut. E. O. Raynor, stationed at Calloocan in Phil- 
 ippines writes : "We had a visit from one of the 
 women missionaries. She informed me that they were 
 here in force, and intended to linger until every germ 
 of sin peculiar to this archipelago was no more. Bless 
 her deluded heart; it is not more religion that these 
 people want; they have far too much. 
 
 "When they become as sinful and irreligious as we 
 Americans, then we may hope for better things of 
 them. . . . We are in the midst of Lenten and 
 Easter festivities. Tell your friends who are in the 
 habit of celebrating Easter . . . that they would 
 not make a side-show to the Filipino devotions. No, 
 indeed, no more religion for these people. 
 
 "What we want to teach them is commerce as it is 
 practiced in the United States how to beat your fel- 
 low man in trade. No, the American on a religious task 
 is too slow for these people. In all matters of business 
 they will say 'manana,' but when it comes to going 
 to Church they simply get there with both feet before 
 daylight." 
 
 General Leonard Wood, after a lengthy stay in the 
 Philippines bears testimony to the noble work of the 
 
280 Misrepresentations 
 
 religious orders, as follows : 9 "The ease with which we 
 have solved the Philippine colonization problem was 
 due to our predecessors there. The Spanish had so done 
 the preliminary work that it should not be difficult for 
 us to take it up and complete it. Indeed Spain did 
 more for the Filipinos than any other colonizing nation 
 has ever done for an Oriental people. 
 
 "She gave them her religion, and language, and civil- 
 ization. She did not merely scratch the surface. She 
 really affected and influenced the lives of the natives. 
 Malays they are, yet they are like no other Malays. 
 In place of pure barbarism, cannibalism, and idolatry, 
 Spain implanted the Roman Catholic religion, which is 
 to-day the religion of nine-tenths of the people. 
 
 "Spain also elevated the status of the Filipino woman. 
 In other Oriental countries the woman is little better 
 than a slave. In the Philippines on the contrary, the 
 woman is the 'business man' of the house. She it is 
 who really manages the estate or household and it is 
 almost more important that we get her good will and 
 friendship than the man's. 
 
 "The work done by the Roman Catholic friars in the 
 three centuries Spain held the Islands was wonderful, 
 and can not fail to excite our admiration. And in spite 
 of her many troubles there Spain was continuing the 
 work of Christianizing the Islands when our war came 
 on." 
 
 It is a pleasant surprise that, amidst all this excoria- 
 tion of the poor friars, we hear the real truth at last; 
 and that, from one whose high government position 
 
 9 Boston Transcript. 
 
Misrepresentations 281 
 
 enabled him to know all there was to know, and who, 
 being outside the narrow boundaries of a sect, was 
 willing to tell what he knew as he knew it. 
 
 The Government Consular Report says : "The Span- 
 ish priests, with scarcely an exception, do their duties 
 faithfully and devotedly. Priests of native extraction 
 do not quite come up to the high standard of Spanish 
 confratres." The United States Minister to Siam, Mr. 
 John Barret, anent the much abused religious orders 
 says : "Numbering nearly three thousand, they include 
 many men of great ability, noble character and wide 
 knowledge. The majority are faithful to their vows, and 
 the few who backslide are of mixed blood or natives." 
 
 Why protestants should feel called upon to essay the 
 conversion of those whose faith is from the beginning, 
 to the faith that is new and untried; whose faith is in 
 unity to those whose faith is in diversity; from the 
 Church founded by the divine Son of God, to a church 
 founded by man; from a sure and certain faith, to a 
 set of opinions of kaleidoscope changeableness, will 
 ever remain a wonder to us. While our friends seek the 
 conversion of Christians in distant lands, they would 
 do well to remember, that "they have run without being 
 sent," their so-called "churches" being subject to the 
 limitations of youth, are, in consequence, not con- 
 cerned with the divine command to "go teach all na- 
 tions," given centuries before their birth. As our dis- 
 senting brethren, the Protestant Ministers, are very fond 
 of Scripture quotations used to prop their tottering 
 edifice, we recommend to them the two following pas- 
 sages of Holy Bible bearing on the subject at issue, 
 12 
 
282 Misrepresentations 
 
 the necessity of a divine mission for Gospel preaching 
 "Thus saith the Lord of hosts : I did not send prophets, 
 yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they 
 prophesied" (Jerem. xxiii, vv. 15, 21). 
 
 "Whosoever shall call" upon the name of the Lord, 
 shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him, in 
 whom they have not believed? Or how shall they be- 
 lieve Him, of whom they have not heard? And how 
 shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall 
 they preach unless they be sent? (Rom. x. 13, 14). 
 
 So in their desire to do a great, a conspicuous work 
 abroad, they leave those at home who through many 
 diversities of thought and variety of conjectures have, 
 under a guidance confused and uncertain, become creed- 
 less, and faithless, ever ready to fall victims to strange 
 hallucinations, the prey of the swarms of religious (?) 
 mountebanks, and tramps, that live upon the credulous 
 and gullible. Such are the descendants of those who 
 left us because they disbelieved a few doctrines, and are 
 now making a finish, by disbelieving them all. And 
 because the greater number of mankind must believe 
 something, they are, in the place of truth, accepting 
 vagaries foolish enough to move a schoolboy to de- 
 rision. 
 
 If the Christians in the Philippines mentioned in the 
 soldier's letter, for whose conversion our friends are 
 so desirous, are in some degree less ambitious than 
 we in business as people in warm climates naturally 
 are, yet they are quite the reverse when engaged in the 
 principal business of life, the care of the soul, that 
 being declared in the Scriptures as of incalculably 
 
Misrepresentations 283 
 
 greater importance than care for the body, "what we 
 shall eat, and what we shall drink, and wherewithal 
 shall we be clothed." 
 
 The people of this country well aware that they are 
 intelligent, bright, inventive, progressive, and an all- 
 round go-ahead nation, are not taking any great amount 
 of care to conceal the fact; but they can hardly make 
 good the claim of being so eminently a religious people, 
 as to entitle them to be considered the rightful enlight- 
 eners and evangelizers of the world. 
 
 Our friends of the "rival churches," spend much time 
 in arranging long columns of figures which are relied 
 upon to demonstrate the superiority of protestant, over 
 catholic countries, in the specialties of wordly prosperity 
 and material wealth. While it is generally conceeded 
 that statistics are often misleading and that figures 
 under adroit manipulation may be made to lie, yet it 
 would seem reasonable that where the whole mind, 
 heart, soul, and strength, are given to the acquirement 
 of wealth, a large measure of success might be looked 
 for in that particular, and we cheerfully admit that our 
 protestant brethren are richer than we. But as it is 
 nowhere written that wordly prosperity is a distinguish- 
 ing mark of the true Church, and as according to the 
 Gospel "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye 
 of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven," then the statistics seem to prove rather 
 the reverse of what was intended. 
 
 Catholics in all countries are taught from pulpit and 
 confessional to remember that in the toil and rush of 
 wordly strife; riches and honors are not the only things 
 
284 Misrepresentations 
 
 worth seeking, and that great moderation should be 
 practiced in the pursuit of them. And so, the better to 
 restrain us from these excesses, we find in the Catholic 
 Church, a thousand ingenious and attractive devices, in 
 her many sodalities and confraternities, for restraining 
 the restless, turning back the wanderers, leading along 
 the narrow way the lame and the blind, confirming the 
 faith of the timid and hesitating, and gently, and per- 
 severingly urging all to go forward in the sweet ways 
 of Divine love : 10 "higher than the plains and above 
 their dust, yet not so high as to be beyond the region 
 of sweet flowers and shady trees, and the coolness of 
 bubbling springs." 
 
 Thus in the Philippines, in Cuba, in Mexico, in all 
 catholic countries, may be found large numbers who 
 give the tranquil hours of early morning, before the all 
 engrossing cares of busy life take full possession of the 
 mind, to the accumulation of those heavenly treasures 
 mentioned in the Gospel, and incidentally take advantage 
 of the pious protestant missionaries who have come so 
 far to convert them from error, and who are now in 
 bed sleeping away the golden hours of the day, and of 
 their opportunity. It is a sad surprise to us that the 
 "rival churches" should look upon this principle of 
 action with such disfavor, and reproach us for our early 
 habits of devotion, and ultra diligence in Church attend- 
 ance. 
 
 Be not displeased brothers, it is not to gain an unfair 
 advantage that we do thus, but, that we may enjoy 
 the untold blessings conveyed to us by the great Sac- 
 
 10 Father Faber. 
 
Misrepresentations 285 
 
 rifice foretold by the prophet Malachias, when he said: 
 "From the rising of the sun even to the going down 
 . in every place there is sacrifice and there is 
 offered to my name a clean oblation" (ch. i, v. ii). 
 
 The foreign correspondents of the public press, and 
 the writers of magazine articles will descant at length 
 upon the valuable time spent in celebrating holy days 
 that could be better used, for a thousand needful pur- 
 poses, in the care of the sick, "building of alms-houses, 
 work for the prevention of child labor and civic cor- 
 ruption, etc." Humor is an indispensable adjunct, when 
 combating superstition, is the opinion of the missionary 
 to Cuba. This brings to mind the fact that many years 
 since, a large and flourishing publishing house in New 
 York became possessed with the hallucination that its 
 mission on earth was to destroy the Catholic Church, 
 and this it sought to accomplish by the aid of the 
 humorous cartoons of Mr. Thomas Nast. Before the 
 Church became fully aware of the destiny which had 
 been so kindly marked out for her, the publishing house 
 ended in bankruptcy and Mr. Nast was called by death 
 to his accounts. 
 
 We have shown that our protestant friends are to a 
 much greater extent dominated by the spirit of world- 
 liness, than the catholics of the Philippines, Cuba, and 
 Mexico, and that while they profess numerous beliefs, 
 on the contrary, the inhabitants of these several coun- 
 tries all agree in the profession of one faith. This one 
 faith is as much superior to the rival faiths, as it is 
 older; or as the brightness of noon-day, is warmer 
 than the darkness of night. The difference between 
 
286 Misrepresentations 
 
 what this one faith has done for the people of the 
 countries named, who are sprung from an inferior 
 stock; and what protestant opinions have done for the 
 descendants of the Puritans, who were of a superior 
 stock, can be easily seen by contrasting the letter of 
 Lieut. E. O. Raynor of Manila, with the statement of 
 Governor Rollins, and others before quoted. 
 
 The people whom the missionary societies propose to 
 convert, in these countries, are already practical Chris- 
 tians possessing the finest and largest of stone Churches 
 which are well-filled with devout worshipers, even 
 before daylight; while the wooden meeting houses of 
 rural New England about the size of the little red 
 schoolhouse, are closed and rotting on their foundations ; 
 their erstwhile congregations having drifted into rank 
 infidelity, in Spiritism, Christian Science, Theosophy, 
 and numberless other delusions. 
 
 The tide of needed missionary work has for a long 
 time been strongly setting towards, not from, the cap- 
 itals of protestantism. Why then should not the prot- 
 estant missionaries, recognizing their rightful field of 
 labor, remain at home and endeavor to pull out of the 
 mire their own people? 
 
 In foreign countries our missionary friends are not 
 understood, and their good qualities unappreciated ; 
 while at home they might, without such disadvantages 
 shine with their customary brilliancy, and the work 
 would be found comparatively easy. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 HISTORY SINCE THE ADVENT OF PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Allusion has been made in previous pages to the 
 insidious arts of our adversaries, the sages of History, 
 who, from the venerable seats of learning, hand down 
 to the inquirer after truth a so-called history designed 
 to place protestantism in the most favorable light; the 
 center piece, as it were, of an attractive picture which, 
 from its contrast with a background of catholic domi- 
 nation over men's minds and wills, may be likened to a 
 glorious sunburst after stormy weather. 
 
 It is noticeable, that, in these histories, the pontiffs 
 and prelates of the Catholic Hierarchy were, when not 
 fools, always cunning, unscrupulous, arrogant and im- 
 moral; while in contrast the "reformers," were the per- 
 sonification of meekness, charity, longsuffering, and 
 chastity, and were possessed of all the real learning and 
 piety which, at that time the world could boast of. They 
 were the great advocates if not discoverers, of civil and 
 religious liberty; they perfected, where they did not 
 originate, the languages of the several countries blest 
 by their presence. 
 
 In the pages of these great historical lights, the 
 praises of our Lord, and his apostles, have been well- 
 nigh forgotten in paeans of triumph for the reformers. 
 The world, itself, could scarcely contain the flood of 
 light that poured in upon it at "The Great Reformation." 
 
288 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 In Lord's "Beacon Lights of History," we find that 
 Wycliffe's Version of the Bible 1 "besides its transcend- 
 ent value to the people, now able to read the Bible in 
 their own language before a sealed book except to the 
 clergy and the learned gave form and richness to the 
 English language." The idea which Doctor Lord desires 
 to accentuate is contained in the parenthesis "before a 
 sealed book." If the Bible has in the past been a 
 sealed book to the common people, the fact that the 
 common people could not read, and Bibles could not 
 be had, would seem a sufficient explanation of the whole 
 matter. 
 
 Upon the following page Doctor Lord says: "At a 
 convocation of bishops held in St. Paul's in 1408, it was 
 decreed as heresy to read the Bible in English to be 
 punished by excommunication." The decree, to which 
 Doctor Lord calls attention, reads as follows : "It is 
 dangerous, as Jerome declares, to translate the text of 
 the Holy Scriptures out of one idiom into another since 
 it is not easy in translations to preserve exactly the 
 same meaning in all things. We, therefore, command 
 and ordain that henceforth no one translate the text 
 of Holy Scripture into English for general use" 
 "until such transaction shall have been approved and 
 allowed by the diocesan of the place or by the Provin- 
 cial Council." Sir Thomas More, in further explanation 
 says: "The Council of Oxford neither forbiddeth the 
 translations to be read that were already well done of 
 old before Wycliffe's time nor damneth his because it 
 was new, but because it was naught; nor prohibiteth 
 
 i "Beacon Lights," Vol. ii, p. 453. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 289 
 
 new to be made but provideth that they shall not be 
 read if they be made amiss, till they be by good ex- 
 amination amended." He further says : "As for old 
 translations before Wyckliffe's time, they remain lawful 
 and be in some folkes hands. Myself have seen and 
 can show you Bybles, fair and olde in English which 
 have been known and seen by the Byshoppe of the 
 Diocese and left in layman's hands and womenes." 
 
 Notwithstanding this testimony, of one living at the 
 time, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, has the boldness to 
 state that 2 "vernacular versions . . . were pub- 
 lished by catholics as the antidote to Protestant Bibles/' 
 This is surprising after reading the previous page which 
 says : 3 "The use after the fall of the Roman Empire 
 of the Bible was shifted from the sphere of public 
 worship to that of private edification and instruction ; 
 and for the latter purpose the necessities of a bar- 
 barous age seemed to demand explanatory paraphrases, 
 Bible narratives in meter, and the like, rather than 
 literal renderings of the whole Scriptures. Thus in the 
 Anglo-Saxon Church, Caedmon's poetical version of the 
 Bible history dates from 664 A. D., while the earliest 
 prose translations of parts of the Latin Bible (gospels, 
 psalms, etc.) do not seem to be older than the eighth 
 century. In Germany, in like manner, metrical versions 
 of the gospels are among the earliest attempts to convey 
 the Bible to the people. ... A complete and literal 
 translation of the Vulgate existed in Germany perhaps 
 as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century." 
 
 2 Vol. iii, p. 648. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 647. 
 
290 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 How does this last tally with the discovery of the 
 Bible, by Luther, in the sixteenth century? 
 
 In a moment of forgetfulness this writer of history 
 has given the Catholic Church a scant measure of praise 
 by briefly describing how the Bible was "conveyed to 
 the people" in the ages before the invention of printing 
 had, with its attendant diffusion of learning, enabled 
 the people, generally, to study the Word of God. 
 
 It is not easy to see how the Church could have 
 done more to familiarize an illiterate people with the 
 great truths of the Bible, than was done by her in the 
 ages past. She took care to preserve and multiply 
 copies of the same by the almost endless labor of the 
 pen. She instructed the ignorant by means of Bible 
 stories, poems, paintings, and by enacting upon the 
 stage the principal scenes in our divine Lord's life 
 which were incidental to his ministry among men. 
 Immediately after the invention of printing, she is found 
 using the new art in publishing the Bible; indeed, one 
 of the first books printed was the Catholic Bible. 
 
 We are sorry that with all this to our credit, our 
 friends of many beliefs are still not pleased with us. 
 The Catholic Church stands alone on earth to-day the 
 defender of the whole Bible. But, and here is where 
 our friends take leave of us, she never puts the Scrip- 
 tures into the hands of the people, be they learned, or 
 be they ignorant, directing them to find out the true 
 faith from it alone and unaided ; but ever throws around 
 it such safeguards, in the way of explanatory readings, 
 that will with the aid of the Living Voice that taught 
 all nations the way of salvation before the Bible was 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 291 
 
 known to them, make plain and sure to all, the ways 
 of God to men. 
 
 The Encyclopaedia Britannica's historian continues : 
 4 "The work of translation assumed important dimen- 
 sions mainly in connection with the spirit of revolt 
 against the Church of Rome which rose in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries. The study of the Bible in the 
 vulgar tongue was a characteristic of the Cathari and 
 Waldenses, and the whole weight of the Church's 
 authority turned against the use of the Scriptures by the 
 laity." 
 
 In order to avoid all misconception it should be kept 
 in mind that the Bible, here so innocently mentioned, 
 was a protestant translation designed to be used in 
 smiting, hip and thigh, the "Scarlet Woman." It was 
 this alleged Bible that was studied with so much enthus- 
 iasm by the Cathari, Waldenses, and the Lollards, and 
 which the Catholic laity were, very properly, forbidden 
 to read. 
 
 The protestant authority Doctor Hook, says : 5 "It 
 was not from hostility to a translated Bible considered 
 abstractly that the conduct of Wycliffe in translating 
 it was condemned. Long before his time there had 
 been translations of Holy Writ. There is no reason to 
 suppose that any objection would have been offered to 
 the circulation of the Bible if the object of the trans- 
 lator had only been the edification and sanctification of 
 the people. It was not till the designs of the Lollards 
 were discovered that Wycliffe's version was proscribed." 
 
 4 Vol. iii, p. 647. 
 
 5 "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," Vol. iii, p. 83. 
 
292 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 It is surprising that, in this age of enlightenment, our 
 friends should still continue to think that the Church, 
 because she refused to allow her children to read a cor- 
 rupt and partisan version made by her enemies, was 
 therefore opposed to the reading, and study, of the 
 Bible by the laity. 
 
 6 "The sympathies of a Protestant," says Macaulay, 
 "it is true, will naturally be on the side of the Albi- 
 gensians and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened and 
 temperate Protestant will perhaps be disposed to doubt 
 whether the success, either of the Albigences or of 
 the Lollards, would on the whole, have promoted the 
 happiness of mankind. Corrupt as the Church of Rome 
 was, there is reason to believe that, if that Church had 
 been overthrown in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth 
 century, the vacant space would have been occupied by 
 some system more corrupt still. There was then, 
 through the greater part of Europe, very little knowl- 
 edge ; and that little was confined to the clergy. Not 
 one man in five hundred could have spelled his way 
 through a psalm. Books were few and costly. The 
 art of printing was unknown. Copies of the Bible, 
 inferior in beauty and clearness to those which every 
 cottager may now command, sold for prices which many 
 priests could not afford to give. It was obviously im- 
 possible that the laity should search the Scriptures for 
 themselves. It is probable therefore, that, as soon as 
 they had put off one spiritual yoke, they would have 
 put on another, and that the power lately exercised by 
 the clergy of the Church of Rome would have passed 
 
 6 "History of Eng.," Vol. i, p. 51. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 293 
 
 to a far worse class of teachers." This "far worse class 
 of teachers" were the fanatical Lollards, and in other 
 countries the Cathari, Albigences, Waldenses, and others, 
 whose teachings professedly innocent were, none the less, 
 subversive of all law and order. 
 
 Wycliffe, like his illustrious follower Luther, had the 
 gift of using "strong smiting phrases;" both were suc- 
 cessful in inciting an ignorant peasantry to acts of sedi- 
 tion and murder; both under the sting of disappointed 
 ambition inaugurated a warfare against the pontiff they 
 had promised to obey and did obey till their anticipated 
 preferment failed of confirmation at his hands. Wycliffe 
 lost the Wardenship of Canterbury Hall at Oxford; he 
 appealed from the archbishop, to Pope Urban V, who 
 sustained the former authority. Very soon afterward 
 Wycliffe discovered that the Pope was anti-Christ, by 
 being anti- Wycliffe. 
 
 Wycliffe, by the testimony of Sir. Thomas More and 
 others, in no sense gave the Bible to the people. The 
 International Encyclopaedia, while making the usual 
 misstatement that 7 "no systematic attempt had been 
 made to translate the whole Bible into English before 
 Wycliffe's time," yet admits that "it is not probable that 
 he did more than a fragment of the work himself." 
 That is, Wycliffe's Bible was largely the work of some 
 other person. Fox, of the Book of Martyrs fame in 
 his dedication to Archbishop Parker of his edition of the 
 Saxon Gospels says : "If histories be well examined 
 we shall find, both before John Wycliffe was born as 
 since, the whole body of the Scriptures was by sundry 
 
 7 Vol. xvii, p. 713. 
 
294 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 men translated into our country's tongue." Cranmer 
 also adds his testimony corroborative of the same fact: 
 8 "If the matter should be tried by custome, wee might 
 also alledge custome for the reading of the Scriptures 
 in the vulgar tongue, and prescribe the more ancient 
 custome. For it is not much more above one hundred 
 years ago since Scripture hath not been accustomed to 
 be read in the vulgar tongue within this realme, and 
 many hundred yeares before that, it was translated and 
 read in the Saxon's tongue, which, at that tyme, was 
 our mother tongue . . . and when this language 
 waxed olde and out of common, because folke should 
 not lacke the fruit of reading, it was again translated 
 into the newer language whereof yet also many copies 
 remayne and be dayly founde." 
 
 The Rev. E. Cutts, a protestant writer, in a work 
 published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowl- 
 edge in England says : "There is a good deal of popular 
 misapprehension about the way in which the Bible was 
 regarded in the Middle Ages. Some think that it was 
 very little read even by the clergy; whereas the fact is 
 that the sermons of the mediaeval preachers are more 
 full of Scriptural quotations and allusions than sermons 
 in these days, showing that their minds were saturated 
 with Scripture diction. Another common error is, that 
 the clergy were unwilling that the laity should read the 
 Bible for themselves, and carefully kept it in an unknown 
 tongue that the people might not be able to read it." 
 
 The fact that the Bible in England was always known, 
 preached, taught, and read by all that could read, is 
 
 8 Prologue to second edition of Bible. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 295 
 
 by these ancient and modern excerpts from protestant 
 writings fully established. It is to be hoped that our 
 brethren will recognize the manifest impropriety of con- 
 tinuing these misrepresentations regarding the with- 
 holding of the Bible from the people. There was not a 
 particle of truth in these stories in the beginning, there 
 is none now. 
 
 As Wycliffe in no true sense gave the people the 
 Bible, what then has he done to deserve such extrav- 
 agant praise ? The answer is short and easy to find. He 
 fought the Pope! Because that supreme authority had 
 decided against him, from that time he was a dangerous 
 man. A man with a grievance. 
 
 It was not so much a disbelief in Catholic doctrine 
 that was the primal cause of the defection of Wycliffe, 
 Luther and Henry VIII, as it was the defeat of cher- 
 ished aspirations, the denial of their claims for advance- 
 ment by the Pope. It was the visible head of the 
 Church instead of its body of doctrine that was attacked, 
 because it was the head that had offended. If the Pope 
 had decided for, rather than against, Wycliffe in his 
 contention with Archbishop Islip, we should not have 
 witnessed the rising of the "Morning Star." 
 
 If Luther had been chosen to preach the Pope's in- 
 dulgence, we should quite likely have heard from him 
 nothing but praise of the doctrine. 
 
 If the Pope had fallen down before Henry VIII., 
 as Luther prostrated himself before the Landgrave of 
 Hesse and gave, as Luther did, his dispensation in 
 favor of immorality in exchange for a prince's favor; 
 England might not have been forced into a revolt against 
 
296 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 catholic authority. Yet our friends still continue to 
 charge us with a partiality for doing evil that good may 
 come. 
 
 Wycliffe, while enjoying till death a fat living in the 
 Catholic Church, inveighed against all Church digni- 
 taries likewise happily situated. He had sufficient ex- 
 ecutive ability to keep those around him busily occupied, 
 while doing very little himself. He sent out his "Poor 
 Clares" to beg their way as they preached "the pure 
 Gospel" according to Wycliffe, while he tarried behind 
 where the temporal blessings were sure and unfailing. 
 
 According to Lingard : "In common with other relig- 
 ious innovators, he claimed the two-fold privilege of 
 changing his opinions at will and of being infallible in 
 every change ; and when he found it expedient to dis- 
 semble, could so qualify its doctrines with conditions 
 or explain them away by distinctions as to give an 
 appearance of innocence to tenets of the most mis- 
 chievous tendency." 
 
 Returning to the History of England, by Macaulay, 
 it is noticeable that, when drawing a pen picture of the 
 life and character of a people, no question of fact is 
 allowed by him to block the way and impede the com- 
 pletion of the design. If that design, for the moment, 
 is to exalt the Catholic Church, all the necessary adjec- 
 tives will be piled up in the most pleasing and effective 
 manner; and if the picture is designed to vilify the 
 same, all the graces of rhetoric will just as readily con- 
 spire together towards the furtherance of that end. 
 
 Lord Macaulay says : 9 "When, in our own time, a 
 
 9 "Hist, of England," Vol. ii, p. 60. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 297 
 
 new and terrible pestilence passed round the world, 
 when, in some great cities, fear had dissolved all the 
 ties which hold society together, when the secular clergy 
 had forsaken their flocks, when medical succor was 
 not to be purchased by gold, when the strongest natural 
 affections had yielded to the love of life, even then the 
 Jesuit was found by the pallet which bishop and curate, 
 physician and nurse, father and mother, had deserted, 
 baiding over infected lips to catch the first accents of 
 confession, and holding up to the last, before the expir- 
 ing penitent, the image of the expiring Redeemer." 
 
 With all this the Jesuits are not overpraised. We 
 arc now to view the reverse side of the picture, the 
 side that has for its object the consigning of the Jesuits 
 to shame and contempt, and which forms the basis of 
 the dictionary's definition of the word. 
 
 "It was alleged," says Lord Macaulay, "and not without 
 foundation, that the ardent public spirit which made 
 the Jesuit regardless of his ease, of his liberty, and of 
 his life, made him also regardless of truth and of 
 mercy ; that no means which could promote the interests 
 of his religion seemed to him unlawful. ... It 
 was alleged that, in the most atrocious plots recorded 
 in history, his agency could be distinctly traced ; that, 
 constant only in attachment to the fraternity to which 
 he belonged, he was in some countries the most danger- 
 ous enemy of freedom, and in others the most dangerous 
 enemy of order. . . . Instead of toiling to elevate 
 human nature to the noble standard fixed by divine 
 precept and example, he had lowered the standard till 
 it was beneath the average level of human nature. He 
 
298 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 gloried in multitudes of converts . . . but it was 
 reported from some of those converts that the facts on 
 which the whole theology of the Gospel depends had 
 been cunningly concealed, and that others were per- 
 mitted to avoid persecution by bowing down before the 
 images of false gods, while internally repeating Paters 
 and Aves. . . . If he had to deal with a mind truly 
 devout, he spoke in the saintly tones of the primitive 
 fathers; but with that large part of mankind who have 
 religion enough to make them uneasy when they do 
 wrong, and not religion enough to keep them from 
 doing wrong, he followed a different system. Since 
 he could not reclaim them from vice, it was his busi- 
 ness to save them from remorse. He had at his com- 
 mand an immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded 
 consciences. In the books of casuistry which had been 
 written by his brethren, and printed with the approba- 
 tion of his superiors, were to be found doctrines con- 
 solatory to transgressors of every class. There the 
 bankrupt was taught how he might without sin, secrete 
 his goods from his creditors. The servant was taught 
 how he might, without sin, run off with his master's 
 plate. The pander was assured that a Christian man 
 might innocently earn his living by carrying letters 
 between married women and their gallants." . . . 
 
 "In truth, if society continued to hold together, if 
 life and property enjoyed any security, it was because 
 common sense and common humanity restrained men 
 from doing what the Order of Jesus assured them 
 they might with a safe conscience do." 
 
 "It is alleged, and not without foundation," that the 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 299 
 
 noble Lord received both his inspiration, and his infor- 
 mation, for this beautifully written, but fearfully calum- 
 nious article, from a book entitled "Secret instructions 
 of the Society of Jesus." This book was published in 
 1614 at Cracow, without the author's name. Two years 
 after, it was condemned by the Congregation of the 
 Index, as "falsely ascribed to the Society, calumnious, 
 and full of defamatory matter." 
 
 The New International Encyclopedia says : 10 "Its 
 genuineness has ceased to be defended by scholars, what- 
 ever their point of view." 
 
 Before these base fabrications had passed a two 
 years' limit of existence, they were repudiated ; and 
 yet we see a great writer stooping to revive and reha- 
 bilitate them for the purpose of making protestant 
 history. 
 
 Of like character, and equal truthfulness, are the 
 excerpts anent the Jesuits contained in a history pro- 
 fessedly for the enlightenment of our youth. 
 
 11 "Loyola draws up a set of actions for the society. 
 
 " *1. A good motive makes any action right.' 
 
 "That is what Loyola believes. It is right to tell a 
 lie, to take a false oath, to defraud, and commit even 
 murder, if done for the good of the Church. 
 
 " '2. In taking oaths, the members may make mental 
 reservations to break them, if they can benefit the 
 Church by so doing.' 
 
 " 'If called upon to justify any of their actions, they 
 may give a false motive instead of the real one. They 
 
 10 Vol. xii, p. 518. 
 
 11 "The Story of Liberty," by Chas. C. Coffin, p. 224. 
 
300 History Since Advent-of Protestantism 
 
 may equivocate, may justify fraud and deceit, without 
 any scruples of conscience.' 
 
 "The Pope promises to grant them absolution for 
 whatever they may do that in itself is wrong, but which 
 he will make right, because it is for the good of the 
 Church. 
 
 " '3. No member of the society shall submit him- 
 self to be examined before any court of justice 
 without the permission of his superior.' 
 
 "This makes the society superior to the State, to 
 kings and emperors superior to all law. 
 
 "With the Pope's blessing resting upon them, 
 the members of the society go forth, in their enthus- 
 iasm to establish the Church in every land . . . 
 bringing myriads of the human race under the domin- 
 ion of the Church ; persuading, where persuasion will 
 accomplish what they desire, and employing force 
 where force is possible, regardless of natural rights 
 and liberties. 
 
 "We shall see, by-and-by what will come from 
 such an organization, established on a code of morals 
 which sets up vice for virtue, falsehood for truth, 
 deceit for honesty; which claims to be superior to 
 king, emperor, Parliament, or Congress; which makes 
 itself a despotism over the hearts and consciences 
 of men; which places its spies in every household, 
 taking note of the actions and beliefs of every indi- 
 vidual ; trampling on all law; setting aside all author- 
 ity; acknowledging only one whom they are bound 
 to obey the Pope of Rome !" 
 
 It is certain that the "set of actions," which serves 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 301 
 
 as the motive for the concluding peroration, can no- 
 where be verified in the writings of the society named. 
 Instead of making profession of such principles of 
 action they have, whenever occasion offered, de- 
 nounced them in the strongest terms. One's interest 
 in the "set of actions" is dwarfed by the greatness 
 of the desire to know where the author received 
 his information, and what his reason could have been 
 for withholding it. 
 
 There is a character in fiction whose "set of 
 actions," led by common assent to the prefix to his 
 family name of the word "rogue;" this undesirable 
 appellation seemed to inspire him to make upon all 
 occasions, asseverations of probity even before the 
 question had been raised; so this distinguished author 
 of "The Story of Liberty" has felt it to be incumbent 
 upon him, in the first line of the introduction, to 
 make the announcement that "this Story of Liberty is 
 a true narrative !" 
 
 The following citations are from a "Handbook of 
 English History," by Guest and Underwood, which 
 work was in use in some of the public schools in 
 California in 1899, and for aught we know to the 
 contrary may still be the authority on that subject. 
 This alleged History is well stocked with the usual 
 misstatements concerning historical facts, and is filled 
 with gross misrepresentations of catholic doctrines 
 and practices. 
 
 Item No. 1. 12 "The Crusaders believed if they 
 made these journeys, their sins would be forgiven. 
 
 12 p. 153. 
 
302 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 A pilgrim would lay by his shirt once worn in Jeru- 
 salem that he might be buried in it, for he thought 
 it would carry him straight to heaven." 
 
 Item No. 2. 18 "These pardons were parchments 
 which were bought of the Friars and other 'pardon- 
 ers.' " 
 
 Item No. 3. 14 "The Pope whom the English sup- 
 ported" against WyclifTe "sent some of those 'sacks 
 full of pardons' to the people of England and pro- 
 claimed that he would absolve from every crime or 
 fault those who would help him in destroying his 
 enemies. These pardons, of course, were not to be 
 had for nothing, but were bought, and it was solemnly 
 declared that all who had given their money and 
 should die at this time were absolved from every 
 fault." 
 
 Item No. 4. 15 "Jeanne D'Arc and all the others 
 in the Church would kneel and pray before the 
 images of the saints and angels, without a moment's 
 doubt that they could hear and answer." 
 
 Item No. 5 16 "In the forest where Jeanne lived 
 the priest used to drive away the fairies." 
 
 Item No. 6. I7 "The lower clergy used their power 
 as a means of getting money. If a man did not like 
 to do penance after confession, he might pay money 
 instead and be absolved just the same. Rich people 
 
 is p. 281. 
 
 14 p. 294. 
 
 15 p. 337. 
 
 16 p. 338. 
 
 17 p. 385. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 303 
 
 could get dispensations from fasting by praying for 
 them." 
 
 Item No. 7. 18 "Another means of raising money 
 was to send people on pilgrimages to some holy 
 shrine or miraculous image to get forgiveness for 
 their sins. But every one knew that it was no use 
 to go empty handed." 
 
 Item No. 8. 19 "It was supposed that no one but 
 a great saint went at once to heaven after death ; but 
 no baptized person, unless excommunicated, perished 
 forever, so that almost every one went to Purga- 
 tory; and a priest could release him by saying a cer- 
 tain number of Masses which were to be paid for." 
 
 Item No. 9. 20 "It is not to be supposed that the 
 people became protestants at once, it was only by 
 degrees that they learned to see that among the 
 things that they had been brought up to believe, 
 some were untrue, some uncertain and some vain 
 and superstitious." 
 
 Item No. 10. 21 "The Pope himself, Gregory XIII., 
 gave his consent to the murder of Elizabeth!" 
 
 Mr. Charles Dickens in his "Child's History of 
 England," says: 22 "The Catholic Church never per- 
 mitted a translation of the Scriptures into English." 
 Mr. Dickens also describes how Luther found the 
 Bible, 23 "which the priests did not allow to be read, 
 and which contained truths that they suppressed." 
 
 18 p. 386. 
 
 19 p. 387. 
 
 20 p. 404. 
 
 21 p. 432. 
 
 22 p. 73. 
 
 23 p. 59. 
 
304 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 Again, the infant mind is enlightened by the informa- 
 tion that Church teaching largely consisted 24 "in 
 finding artful excuses and pretenses for almost any 
 wrong thing, and in arguing that black was white, 
 or any other color." The Pope is regarded as being 
 25 "indefatigable in getting the world into trouble." 
 Poor ill used world ! 
 
 In "Goodrich's History of England," for schools, 
 the ancient fabrication again comes to light, that 26 "in- 
 dulgences as they are called, were also to be bought; 
 that is, permission to commit crimes." Markham's 
 "History of England" teaches the youth 27 that "indul- 
 gences were privileges that were to be bought, allowing 
 people to do things which were forbidden; but which 
 they had a mind to do." 
 
 Item No. 2. 28 "It was considered a religious duty 
 to go to the Crusades, and it was thought that those 
 who died in the Holy Land were sure to be received 
 into heaven, let their lives have been ever so bad." 
 Item No. 3. 29 "Till the time of Wycliffe there were 
 none but Latin Bibles, which were only to be found in 
 possession of the priests; so that the mass of the peo- 
 ple were kept in total ignorance of the Scriptures." 
 Item No. 4. 30 "The venerable Bede made a transla- 
 tion of the whole Bible;" compare this with item No. 
 3, and with the first statement of Mr. Dickens "but 
 
 24 p. 55. 
 
 25 p. 51. 
 
 26 p. 43. 
 
 27 p. 40. 
 
 28 p. 61. 
 
 29 p. 155. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 305 
 
 when the Popes began to rule the affairs of the English 
 Church, none but Latin Bibles were allowed to be used, 
 in order to keep the people in ignorance, that the priests 
 and monks might make them believe what they pleased." 
 
 According to Richard Dana Skinner, in the "Catholic 
 Review America" of March 2d, 1912, a professor of 
 history at Harvard University, made the statement to 
 his class, that "a careful study of the Jesuit order in 
 history will show that its real motto although a 
 Jesuit himself would never admit it is: 'The end 
 justifies the means.' " Questioned after class by Mr. 
 Skinner regarding proof for the statement: the Harvard 
 professor gave the characteristic protestant reply, that 
 there was none, but that "appearances pointed that 
 way !" 
 
 In each and every historical excerpt to which the 
 reader's attention has been called, all are of a date 
 subsequent to "The Great Reformation," and emanate 
 from that event as corroborative of its claims. In all 
 these so-called historical facts, it is well to note that no 
 attempt has been made and as we may infer, could 
 not be made, to substantiate any one of them. These 
 excerpts then must be considered, not as history, but 
 as the statements of prejudiced writers who seek to 
 distort and wrest the truths of history for partisan 
 purposes. 
 
 In a book entitled "English History for Americans," 
 by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Edward Chan- 
 ning, is found how the English people first became 
 protestant, secondly catholic, and thirdly protestant 
 again. "For many years the English still remained 
 
306 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 pagan, worshipping the old Saxon gods; but just before 
 the end of the sixth century Augustine, a monk, visited 
 England. Fortunately for him, the king of Kent, named 
 Ethelbert, had married a Christian wife, daughter of 
 the King of the Franks, so Augustine was allowed 
 to land. 
 
 "Between his wife's persuasions and those of this 
 monk, Ethelbert became a Christian, and allowed Aug- 
 ustine to live at Canterbury, where the head of the 
 Church of England has ever since had a palace, his 
 title being that of Archbishop of Canterbury. . . . 
 then by degrees all the other kings and their people 
 became Christians. And what was almost as important, 
 before long the English Church became a portion of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, to which the leading 
 nations of western Europe also belonged." Just how 
 it could be said that a Church founded by a Catholic 
 monk under the instructions of Pope Gregory I, could 
 instead of at its foundation "before long become a 
 part of the Roman Catholic Church," these protestant 
 historians have neglected to inform us ! 
 
 This visit of Augustine's was not the first attempt 
 at introducing Christianity into Britain. History in- 
 forms us that in the second century the .Roman Pontiff 
 Eleutherius, at the request of a British prince, sent 
 two missionaries, Fugatius, and Dameanus, who have 
 been regarded as the Apostles of Britain. Some cen- 
 turies later, with the conquest of Britain by the pagan 
 Saxons, all the refinements of the ancient Britons, to- 
 gether with the knowledge of the Gospel, were borne 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 307 
 
 down and swept away in the deluge of heathen bar- 
 barism that inundated the land. 
 
 The Britohs, who escaped, retired before the vic- 
 torious Saxons into Wales and the remote corners of 
 the north. The natural ferocity of the pagan Saxons, 
 in time yielded to the teachings of Augustine, whom 
 Pope Gregory had sent for their conversion, and this 
 rude and boisterous people were converted to Chris- 
 tianity. Of course, among a people just emerging 
 from barbarism, there must have been many slips, and 
 many falls, as the tide of civilization rose and fell. 
 31 Mr. Lingard says : "Whenever they forgot their 
 new lessons, they fell back into barbarism, when they 
 returned again to their teachers, they began to ascend 
 the scale; their good actions were inspired by the 
 Gospel, their bad deeds were the relics of paganism 
 not yet fully eradicated." 
 
 Anent the conquest of the Britons which took place 
 long before the arrival of Augustine the historian 
 Green says : 32 "The Roman Church, the Roman coun- 
 try-house, was left standing, though reft of priest and 
 lord." And again Mr. Green says : 8S "Before the 
 landing of the English in Britain, the Christian Church 
 stretched in an unbroken line across Western Europe 
 to the furthest coasts of Ireland." 
 
 What Church was it that is here spoken of as the 
 Christian Church ? Mr. Green says : 84 "The monks 
 of Lindisfarne looked for their ecclesiastical tradition, 
 
 si Lingard. 
 
 32 "Hist, of English People," p. 32. 
 
 33 Ibid., p. 48. 
 
 34 "Hist, of English People," p. 55. 
 
308 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 not to Rome but to Ireland; and quoted for their guid- 
 ance the instructions, not of Gregory, but of Columba. 
 Whatever claims of supremacy over the whole English 
 Church might be pressed by the (Roman) See of Can- 
 terbury, the real metropolitan of the Church as it 
 existed in the north of England was the Abbot of lona." 
 Mr. Green here seeks to show the existence of a 
 more ancient Christian Church than that founded by 
 Augustine, but he has only found, what was well known 
 to be in existence, the Church of the Britons founded 
 by missionaries sent by Pope Eleutherius. In this 
 ancient Catholic Church, the teachings of St. Columba 
 and the Abbots and monks of Lindisfarne, are found 
 to be in perfect accord with those of Augustine and 
 his followers. The many messengers of the gospel of 
 peace, however separated by time or distance, had but 
 the one message to deliver, the one faith to announce 
 to all alike. Speaking of this fact Mr. Williams says: 
 35 "It is surprising that so many modern historians 
 should have represented the Britons as holding differ- 
 ent doctrines from those professed by the Roman Mis- 
 sionaries, though these writers have never yet pro- 
 duced a single instance of such difference. Would 
 Augustine have required the British clergy to join in 
 the conversion of the Saxons, if they had taught doc- 
 trines which he condemned? Bede has related with 
 great minuteness all the controversies between the two 
 parties. They all regard points of discipline. No- 
 where does the remotest hint occur of any difference 
 respecting doctrine." 
 
 35 "Hist, of Eng-., by Henry Smith Williams, I.L,. D., Vol. viii 
 p. 45. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 309 
 
 In pushing their way westward the followers of 
 Augustine encountered, as they naturally would, the 
 descendants of the Britons whom they found to be 
 Christians like themselves, with the exception that they 
 observed the festival of Easter upon a date different 
 from the other Christian nations. The explanation of 
 this circumstance is easy. When the barbarous hordes 
 of the Saxons had overrun the land, and driven the 
 inhabitants into the wilds of the west and north, the 
 pagan conquerors remained as an impregnable wall, in 
 front and between, the isolated Britons and the Ro- 
 man See. 
 
 Although it occasionally happened that some un- 
 usually venturesome bishop would reach Rome by way 
 of the sea, yet it was at long and irregular intervals, 
 and they being so cut off, were ignorant of what was 
 transpiring in the world around them. 
 
 There having been a variety of rules in use for 
 determining the proper time for celebrating the great 
 feast of the Resurrection, for the sake of uniformity 
 a new rule had been adopted at Rome. With the ex- 
 istence of this rule, for the reason mentioned, the 
 Britons were unacquainted and were still observing 
 Easter by the same computation of time as did the 
 first missionaries who, with the attestation of many 
 miracles, had converted them. 
 
 It was perhaps but natural that when the converted 
 Saxons who, as barbarians had driven the Britons 
 from their homes and burned their churches centuries 
 before, now came with a request that they change their 
 ancient custom and conform to that of their old-time 
 
3 io History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 conquerors, they should have met with a stubborn 
 refusal. 
 
 It is interesting to note the result, to these ancient 
 Catholics, of their separation from the Holy See, where- 
 by they lost the missionary spirit and, instead of going 
 forth to preach the Gospel to the pagan Saxons, re- 
 mained at home and spent their time in well-nigh in- 
 terminable debates upon abstruse subjects and intricate 
 theological problems which, from the absence of a 
 supreme authority to decide, never resulted in any- 
 thing more satisfying than further discussion. If it 
 please our adversaries, here is certainly a characteristic 
 of protestantism, but it was a characteristic resulting 
 from a condition of circumscribed environment other 
 than normal, and which wholly disappeared after the 
 Council of Whitby, where a final conclusion was ar- 
 rived at by the rival factions. At this council, Colman, 
 Bishop of Lindisfarne, 36 "pleaded for the Irish fashion 
 of the tonsure and for the Irish time of keeping Easter. 
 Wilfrid pleaded for the Roman. The one disputant 
 appealed to the authority of Columba, the other to 
 that of St. Peter. 'You own,' cried the King (Oswiee) 
 at last to Colman, 'that Christ gave to Peter the keys 
 of the kingdom of heaven has he given such power 
 to Columba ?' The Bishop could but answer, No ! 
 Then will I rather obey the porter of heaven/ said 
 Oswiee, 'lest when I reach its gates, he who has the 
 keys in his keeping, turn his back on me, and there 
 be none to open.' " 
 
 This was the momentous occasion when, according 
 
 86 "Green's Hist, of English People." 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 3 1 1 
 
 to the Historians Higginson and Channing, "the Eng- 
 lish Church became a portion of the Roman Catholic 
 Church," without changing a doctrine! This under- 
 standing of the power of the Keys, is very poor pro- 
 testant doctrine, and the Bishop of Lindisfarne seems 
 to have been ignorant of the protestant definition that 
 the keys given Peter, 37 "were the keys of the rooms 
 of the house and also where the provisions are kept!" 
 
 The existence of this isolated Church, having a 
 different time for celebrating Easter from the other 
 nations, is the slender thread upon which the Anglican 
 Church hangs its hopes of being able to win the popu- 
 lar assent to its "Branch Theory." 
 
 38 "There were present at the Council of Aries, 
 A. D. 314, three British Bishops; Restitutus of Lon- 
 don, Eborius of York, and Adelphius of Lincoln. At 
 this Council the Pope's Legate presided and the de- 
 crees of the Council were sent to Rome for the sig- 
 nature of the Pope. The fact that these British bish- 
 ops signed the decrees with the other bishops, shows 
 that they acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope." 
 
 The contention that in England, alone of all nations, 
 was a church for a time independent of the Roman 
 See, is an assertion utterly devoid of historical proof. 
 
 It is often taken for granted, by the writers of his- 
 tory, that catholic sovereigns were accustomed to be 
 invariably submissive to the authority of the Pope, 
 who lorded it over them with all the pomp and cir- 
 cumstance of the most arrogant foreign power. In 
 
 37 Prot. Commentator Ahrens. 
 
 38 "Historians Hist, of the World," Williams, p. 23. 
 
3 1 2 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 histories written, in the interests of protestantism, the 
 Pope is always bad, but "the king can do no wrong." 
 It is always the civil government that is lauded, the 
 hierarchy that is blamed. Whatever goes wrong in 
 civil or religious history, is uniformly laid at the Fish- 
 erman's door. The fact is, that the sovereign was often 
 a catholic in name rather than practice. 
 
 In catholic countries there has existed from the ear- 
 liest times a union between the Church and the State. 
 In this union the State received the emoluments per- 
 taining to the partnership, the Church the opprobrium. 
 It was to an extent appreciable, that, owing to this alli- 
 ance, a decadence in the spiritual life of the Church 
 can be traced. The State, in its pride and sense of 
 power, often invaded the rights of the Church, con- 
 fiscated her property and carried away captive, for 
 political purposes, her Pontiffs. When it was to the 
 advantage of temporal princes to uphold the authority 
 of the Roman See, they did so, when it was advan- 
 tageous for the furtherance of the same ends to ignore 
 that authority, they manifested no reluctance in doing 
 so ; indeed to make as completely as possible the Pon- 
 tiff into a puppet, was the aim of the secular powers. 
 It has often been sought by the State to use its influ- 
 ence in Papal elections, and its power in forcing into 
 vacant bishoprics those who might be made subservient 
 to its will. In this way grave scandals sometimes arose, 
 and the remonstrances of the Popes were often in- 
 effectual in keeping ambitious and worldly men from 
 occupying positions of great trust and responsibility 
 in the Church. But while these abuses, directly trace- 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 313 
 
 able to the lust and greed of the Caesars of this world, 
 have been the occasions whereby our adversaries have 
 sought our discomfiture; yet they have been of a 
 temporal duration only and never could affect the 
 infallibility of her teaching or the enforcing of her 
 laws. "For the great truths which it is her mission to 
 teach have," as Bishop Spalding says, "been fixed by 
 the hand of God, and are unchangeable; but as it is 
 her destiny to live in contact with human society in 
 all its ever varying degrees of development and de- 
 cay, it must also be her fate to find herself again and 
 again surrounded and interpenetrated by abuses and 
 disorders of all kinds." 
 
 Although the future attitude of the newly organized 
 Republics of France and Portugal towards the Church 
 may not be exactly foreseen, yet at one time or an- 
 other, most Catholic Sovereigns have thought it con- 
 sistent with princely dignity to make burdensome the 
 wearing of the Triple Crown. 
 
 Among other historical inaccuracies, some inquiries 
 might well be made anent the reliability of that trusted 
 weapon of protestant controversy the Spanish Inquisi- 
 tion. This arm of the civil power was professedly to 
 be employed in preserving the Christian faith from 
 the evil designs of the Moors and Jews. It was, 
 however, from the beginning used largely as a politi- 
 cal power in the upholding of the State's authority. 
 Ferdinand, by the aid of the wisdom of this world, 
 obtained the privilege of appointing the Inquisitors, 
 and thus found, ready at hand, an instrument suitable 
 to his aims. 
 
 13 
 
314 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 As Dr. Brownson remarks: "It was solicited by the 
 Spanish King, and conceded, though reluctantly, by 
 the Pope, not as a tribunal against peaceable and in- 
 offensive heretics, but it was established for the pur- 
 pose of ferreting out and bringing to light persons 
 who were secretly conspiring against royalty, as well 
 as against religion; men plotting in secret to overthrow 
 both Church and State by a violent and bloody revo- 
 lution; persons whom our own laws would condemn 
 and punish as criminals." 
 
 Spain had, at this time, brought to a close a long 
 and stubborn contest with the Moors the Cross against 
 the Crescent. Was Spain, perhaps all Europe, to be- 
 come Mohammedan? Would the Church, built on 
 Peter, prevail against the gates of hell; or would the 
 Lord's promise fail and he be no more God in Sion? 
 The contest was long waged and sanguinary, with ever 
 varying fortune, the tide setting now for, and then 
 against, the Christian armies ; till at last the infidel 
 Saracens were overthrown and the victory was Christ's. 
 
 But war, always brutalizing and degrading, we may 
 well suppose left for a time its distinctive mark upon 
 the Spanish people, and those brave conquerors, inured 
 to scenes of carnage, had become forgetful of the 
 sacredness of human life, and with the finer sensibilities 
 dulled by familiarity with strife and bloodshed, little 
 wonder that they should have become, in some degree, 
 callous to human suffering, as they laid heavy hands 
 upon the conquered in the Spanish Inquisition. 
 
 We, who have received the faith as a free gift, little 
 realize what that faith cost our fathers in the past, 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 3 1 5 
 
 and as we compare our favored day of religious tolera- 
 tion with those turbulent ages now supposedly gone 
 forever, our wonder is excited that those who professed 
 to be followers of the Prince of Peace could have 
 been so far removed in spirit from .that perfect ex- 
 ample. But we are all influenced in a great measure 
 by our surroundings, and that which is customary and 
 usual, seems to us at the time to be right. Doubtless 
 the Spanish Inquisition occasioned less unfavorable 
 criticism at that time, than when viewed by succeeding 
 generations, as when Melancthon wrote anent the burn- 
 ing of Servetus, that "the magistracy of the republic 
 of Geneva gave, by putting Servetus out of the way, 
 a pious and memorable example to all posterity" : he had 
 no premonition concerning the light in which "all pos- 
 terity" would ultimately regard it. 
 
 Perhaps we shall never know what degree of severity 
 was necessary to keep in order the many thousands 
 of Moors and Jews who, that they might be permitted 
 to remain in Spain, professed the Catholic faith; but 
 it is fair to presume that a conversion which was the 
 outcome of such motives, could hardly have been gen- 
 uine and that while professing Christianity outwardly, 
 they were as before infidel Moors and secret enemies. 
 
 In the "New International Encyclopaedia," a work 
 usually free from offensive partisanship, is found a 
 definition of the Auto-da-fe, which owing to its advo- 
 cacy of protestant misrepresentations, seems an excep- 
 tion to the rule. This article received its inspiration 
 from a chapter on the Inquisition in Prescott's life of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, and that chapter of misinforma- 
 
316 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 tion in turn imbibed its maliciousness from the pois- 
 oned fountain of history prepared by the ex-priest 
 Llorente. In the thirty-five pages of Prescott's chapter, 
 twenty-four citations are found from Llorente's false 
 history. After this article on the Auto-da-fe, where 
 the statements of Llorente are given as facts; in an- 
 other volume of the same work, speaking of Llorente, 
 he says : "His statements deserve no credence what- 
 ever." It is unusual certainly to produce in evidence a 
 witness of one's own discrediting, and it here seems the 
 less necessary, as those in possession of reasoning facul- 
 ties could not be expected to believe a statement of the 
 ex-priest's so monstrous as that, "those who made pro- 
 fession of the Catholic Faith at the last moment," in- 
 stead of being burned, "were so favored as to be 
 strangled !" 
 
 In a note at the close of the chapter on the Inquisi- 
 tion Mr. Prescott cannot forego the pleasure of further 
 eulogizing his friend Llorente as follows: "Llorente is 
 the only writer who has succeeded in completely lifting 
 the veil from the dread mysteries of the Inquisition. 
 It is obvious how very few could be competent to this 
 task, since the proceedings of the Holy Office were 
 shrouded in such impenetrable secrecy that even the 
 prisoners who were arraigned before it, were kept in 
 ignorance of their own processes. His official station 
 afforded him every facility for an acquaintance with 
 the most recondite affairs of the Inquisition." 
 
 The reason why "Llorente was the only writer who 
 has succeeded in completely lifting the veil" is told by 
 himself in his "history." After he had finished consult- 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 317 
 
 ing the records, he finished the records also by making 
 light of them. "I burnt," he says, "with King Joseph's 
 approbation all the criminal processes save those which 
 belong to history by their importance or celebrity, or 
 by the quality of the person, as that of Caranza, and 
 of Macanez, and a few others." "Was there no place," 
 says Balmez, "to be found in Madrid to place the pro- 
 ceedings and documents, where they could be exam- 
 ined by those who, after Llorente, might wish to write 
 the history of the Inquisition from the original docu- 
 ments ?" 
 
 Llorente's "History" was written in the interests of 
 the Bonapartes. It seems to have been the ambition 
 of the Man of Destiny whose destiny it was to pine 
 on a barren isle for the general benefit of mankind 
 to place on the different thrones of Europe his relatives 
 that all might enjoy the blessings of good government 
 under the Bonapartes. 
 
 Llorente, whose forced resignation as Secretary of 
 the Inquisition had been promptly accepted, in 1791, 
 after engaging in sundry occupations, lent or sold the 
 aid of his pen, in assisting Napoleon to place his brother 
 in 1808 upon the Spanish throne. 
 
 Llorente uses a citation from the Jesuit writer Ma- 
 riana to the effect that two thousand victims perished 
 in 1482 in the dioceses of Seville and Cadiz alone; 
 whereas what Mariana does say is, that the number 
 given was for all Spain and for the fifteen years of 
 Torquemada's administration. The statements of Llor- 
 ente concerning the hundreds of thousands who per- 
 ished in the 331 years of the Inquisition in Spain, are 
 
3 1 8 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 now generally discredited by all historians. Even the 
 "dyed in the wool" Prescott writes : "One might rea- 
 sonably distrust Llorente's tables, from the facility 
 with which he receives the most improbable estimates, 
 in other matters, as, for example, the number of ban- 
 ished Jews which he puts at eight hundred thousand. 
 I have shown from contemporary sources that the num- 
 ber did not probably exceed one hundred and sixty 
 thousand." 
 
 The Spanish Inquisition took cognizance of a large 
 number of crimes, among them, polygamy, usury, se- 
 duction, treason, sacrilege, public blasphemy, church- 
 robbery, murder, smuggling, theft, etc. Heresy, being 
 but one among many, much the larger number were 
 punished for other crimes. 
 
 The great assistance which Llorente's "History of 
 the Spanish Inquisition" has been to the cause of prot- 
 estantism, has been fully appreciated by that party. 
 The fearful exaggerations of the main facts by the ex- 
 priest still further by easily excited minds multiplied 
 have proved a veritable fortification from whose bat- 
 tlements young orators have long hurled deadly missiles 
 of eloquence, and the pen of the ready writer secured 
 for its owner renown. 
 
 As a case in point, Mr. Prescott says: "This work 
 of Llorente well deserves to be studied, as the record 
 of the most humiliating triumph which fanaticism has 
 ever been able to obtain over human reason, . . ." 
 and "that the embers of this fanaticism may be rekin- 
 dled too easily, even in this nineteenth century." 
 
 The words of warning of this prejudiced writer, 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 319 
 
 anent the rekindling of the embers, etc., had their ful- 
 fillment not long afterwards in Prescott's native city, 
 in another "humiliating triumph of fanaticism over rea- 
 son," when a large number of Boston's bravest citizens 
 of pre-revolutionary blood, under the spell of a frenzied 
 burst of "fanatical" oratory indulged in, it is alleged, 
 by a member of the Beecher family, proceeded to the 
 rural borders of the adjacent city of Charlestown, and 
 there, at dead of night, made a furious onslaught on 
 a Catholic Convent occupied by a few defenseless and 
 gentle Nuns, and their young lady pupils. When day- 
 light was near at hand the dim outlines of crumbling 
 walls and smoldering ruins where at yesterday's vesper 
 hour had been a stately convent fair to see, dedicated 
 to prayer, retirement from the world, and the educa- 
 tion of youth was all that these brave and gallant 
 gentlemen left behind them on the homeward march ! 
 
 A very temperate and unprejudiced article from the 
 New International Encyclopaedia is here cited: 
 
 39 j>y Ferdinand and Isabella, in consequence, it is 
 said, of the alarms created by the alleged discovery of a 
 plot among the Jews and Jewish converts who had been 
 required either to emigrate or to conform to Chris- 
 tianity to overthrow the Government, an application 
 was made to Pope Sixtus IV. to permit its the Span- 
 ish Inquisition reorganization (1478) ; but in reviving 
 the tribunal the Crown assumed to itself the right of 
 appointing the inquisitors, and, in fact of controlling 
 the entire action of the tribunal. The establishment of 
 the tribunal was sanctioned by the Cortes at Toledo in 
 
 39 Vol. x, p. 37. 
 
320 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 1480, and from this date the Spanish Inquisition be- 
 came a State tribunal, a character which is recognized 
 by Ranke, Guizot, Leo, and even the great anti-Papal 
 authority, Llorente. In order to prove that the Church 
 generally, and the Roman See itself was dissociated 
 from that State tribunal, the bulls of Pope Sixtus IV., 
 which protested against it, are cited. Notwithstanding 
 this protest, however, the Spanish Crown maintained 
 its control of the Inquisition ... In 1483 the Do- 
 minican Thomas Torquemada became the first Grand 
 Inquisitor. The Popes attempted to control the arbi- 
 trary action of the royal tribunal and to mitigate the 
 rigor and injustice of its proceedings, but these meas- 
 ures were ineffective to control the fanatical activity of 
 the local judges. When, however, Spain sought to 
 introduce its peculiar Inquisition into Naples also, Pope 
 Paul III., in 1546, exhorted the Neapolitans to resist 
 its introduction. However severe the weight of the 
 Inquisition may have been on heretics and unbelievers 
 the number of its victims as given by Llorente, an 
 unreliable historian of the Inquisition, is enormously 
 exaggerated. His statements deserve no credence, what- 
 ever, although he had excellent opportunities of learning 
 the truth, as he was the secretary of the Inquisition for 
 a time. 
 
 "He was a violent partisan, and his errors and exag- 
 gerations have been exposed, especially by Hefele in 
 his Life of Cardinal Ximenes. Ranke does not hesi- 
 tate in his Fiirsten und Volken des siidlichen Europas, 
 to impeach his honesty. While he gives the number of 
 executions as three hundred and forty-one thousand 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 321 
 
 and forty-two, for the three hundred and thirty-one 
 years of its existence, the Catholic authority, Gams, 
 states four thousand to have been the total. . . . 
 The Spanish Inquisition is condemned by protestants, 
 and non-Spanish catholics alike. Spanish catholics, how- 
 ever, are inclined to defend it, and hold that its form 
 of proceeding was not as usually stated, but was fair 
 and equitable, considering what a fearful crime heresy 
 is in the eyes of the Catholic Church. There is no 
 doubt that many of the crimes tried by the inquisitors 
 were such as would now be brought into our ordinary 
 civil courts." 
 
 Llorente, by burning the major part of the docu- 
 mentary evidence regarding the acts of the Inquisition, 
 has left the number of its victims largely a matter of 
 conjecture, but whatever that number may be, it is 
 certain that a small percentage was for the crime of 
 heresy. It was known to be principally a State tri- 
 bunal and that 40 the receipts from confiscations, fines, 
 and all other sources of revenue from the inquisition 
 went directly to the royal exchequer. 
 
 The King, and the Inquisitors of his appointment, 
 and no one else, were responsible for the acts of cruelty 
 which have been charged to the Inquisition in Spain. 
 
 The Pope was the first to make protest, saying to 
 Ferdinand and Isabella that "mercy towards the guilty 
 was more pleasing to God than the severity they were 
 using." The Pope, seeing his protest ignored, wrote 
 again in the following words : "Since it is clemency 
 which, as far as is possible to human nature, makes 
 
 40 "Princes and Peoples," Rancke, Vol. i, p. 241. 
 
322 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 men equal to God: We ask and entreat the King and 
 Queen by the tender mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 to imitate him whose property it is ever to show mercy 
 and to spare, and so to spare the citizens of Seville 
 and its diocese," etc. The Pontiff finally granted the 
 right of appeal to the Roman See, to which already 
 large numbers had fled for protection. 
 
 These poor people who fled to the Pope, must have 
 been able to recognize a friend in need with greater 
 certainty than those writers who make history to order 
 can be supposed to know or to be willing to admit. 
 There is an old saying to the effect that "the city of the 
 Popes is the paradise of the Jews." The Roman Pon- 
 tiffs never regarded the Spanish Inquisition with favor. 
 Leo X. desired its abolition and in 1519 excommuni- 
 cated all the officers of the tribunal of Toledo for their 
 cruelties. Paul III., ^Pius IV. and Gregory XIII. op- 
 posed its introduction into other dependencies of the 
 Spanish Crown. 
 
 Archbishop Spalding says : 41 "To charge the Popes, 
 or the Catholic Church, with the abuses of the Spanish 
 Inquisition is most unjust. It is certain that they did 
 everything in their power to restrain the excesses of 
 that tribunal, and if they at times failed, it was the 
 fault of temporal princes, not of the Church. One 
 fact would alone suffice to show how utterly unable the 
 Pope, and even a General Council, was to reverse one 
 of its decisions. While the Council of Trent was in 
 session, Bartholomew Caranza, Archbishop of Toledo, 
 and Primate of all Spain, was arrested by the Inquisi- 
 
 41 "Miscellanea," Vol. i, p. 232. 
 
History Since Advent of Protestantism 323 
 
 tion (1557) at the command of Philip II., and kept 
 eight years in prison, for having incurred the royal 
 displeasure, and on a charge of heresy. As soon as the 
 distinguished prelate's innocence was known Paul IV. 
 and the Fathers of the Council entered energetic pro- 
 tests against such proceedings, and demanded the lib- 
 eration of Caranza. But their efforts were unavailing; 
 the Inquisition remained inflexible, and the imprisoned 
 Archbishop was released only after eight years of cap- 
 tivity. If this fact does not prove that the Church 
 had no control over the Spanish Inquisition, and con- 
 sequently cannot be held responsible for its abuses, we 
 are at a loss to find better evidences of our contention." 
 
 It should be taken into consideration by those who 
 indulge in severe strictures concerning the Spanish In- 
 quisition, that cruel punishments for crime were cus- 
 tomary among all nations even long after that time. 
 In England under the protestant Inquisitions of Henry 
 and Elizabeth, peaceable and unoffending catholics, who 
 denied no tenet of the faith that Augustine had taught, 
 were for the one offense of being catholics treated far 
 more cruelly than were those enemies of all religion, 
 law, and order in Spain. 
 
 The scope and design of the Spanish Inquisition was 
 the punishment of offenses against law, both human 
 and divine; that of the English Inquisition, to punish 
 those who, through unjust laws, reduced to the ex- 
 tremity of choosing between obedience to God, and 
 obedience to man, chose the former. The recounting 
 of all the ingenious means which, in these Inquisitions, 
 cruel men devised to furnish so many with a martyr's 
 
324 History Since Advent of Protestantism 
 
 crown, would be serving but a poor purpose. It is 
 often better to forget than to remember. Let prot- 
 estants forget the Spanish Inquisition where none of 
 their belief were called upon to suffer, and catholics 
 forget the English Inquisition where all did suffer for 
 professing the ancient Catholic Faith, and both remem- 
 ber the beautiful words of our present Pontiff, that 
 "no good cause was ever built on the ruins of charity." 
 
 The Catholic church notwithstanding what protest- 
 ant writers may say to the contrary because she is 
 God's church and the reflection of his will, is always on 
 the side of justice, mercy, and peace. With her, faith, 
 hope, and charity abide, "and the greatest of these is 
 Charity." 
 
 The supreme Pontiff rebuked the Catholic Sovereigns 
 of Spain, and excommunicated the officials of the In- 
 quisition when other means failed. The Church used 
 all her influence to inspire the inquisitors with that 
 charity of which she, in the spirit of the Master, is 
 the example. The Papal power encouraged the op- 
 pressed to appeal their causes from their cruel judges 
 to the Holy See, which court of mercy was free to all; 
 where human life was sacred, and death penalties for 
 heresy unknown. 
 
 To the Eternal city under the benign rule of the 
 Popes, we see Jew and Christian alike, from the storm 
 of a relentless and cruel persecution under kings turn 
 their steps as to a haven of rest. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 Having largely exceeded the limits set for this work, 
 and having dealt at sufficient length with the doctrines 
 of the Catholic Church, which have been the subject 
 of controversy, there remains but the summing up 
 and the final closing. 
 
 The claim advanced by protestants is, that the first 
 Church established, in the course of a few centuries 
 exact time not agreed upon fell into many dangerous 
 errors, and instead of remaining "the pillar and ground 
 of the truth/' became a pillar and ground of untruth ; 
 a teacher of idolatrous beliefs and practices foreign to 
 the purpose of its institution. 
 
 To justify a new departure from a long established 
 course, it is customary to put forth the best possible 
 reasons for the action taken. We may well suppose 
 that the assertion that the old was incompetent, and 
 the new a necessity, was the best that could be devised ; 
 and it has been so industriously hammered upon, driven 
 in and clinched in the protestant mind, as to be relied 
 upon as a complete refutation of all catholic claims. 
 
 There is an appearance of plausibility in this ex- 
 cuse, traceable to the wrong ideas and bad example 
 of many careless lives in the Church at this time. 
 The most dangerous foes are often those of our own 
 household: the lame, the halt, and the blind in the 
 faith, in the lure of the gay world's splendors, find 
 in its promise of a quick return for small investments, 
 
326 Conclusion 
 
 a charm more potent than that long deferred promise 
 of happiness which religion offers as the reward of a 
 well spent life. 
 
 The accusations of protestants, anent the evil living 
 and the worldliness of so many at this time we cannot 
 deny; but until it can be shown that this falling away 
 from former standards, was the outcome of the 
 Church's teaching and that too in an age that pro- 
 duced such men as a Francis Xavier, Sir Thomas 
 More, Bishop Fisher, Loyola and others these accusa- 
 tions fall far short of the mark. 
 
 In the New Testament's account of the Church's 
 founding it will be noticed that the care bestowed 
 upon it was largely in the interests of perpetuity, and 
 no hint is seen regarding its possible failure in coming 
 time. The "reformers" who have invented this theory 
 concerning the Church's failure, have done the best 
 they could to justify the breaking of Christian unity; 
 but which, by its lack of forethought, has brought 
 them in direct opposition to revealed truth, which so 
 clearly proclaims the Church's indefectibility, whilst 
 they dishonor God, by ascribing to 'him an imperfect 
 work which needed for its improvement the finishing 
 touch of man. The Scripture, as though in anticipa- 
 tion of this heresy that God's Church must fail that 
 his creatures might make a better one, sends its ring- 
 ing denial down the ages in the divine Master's words, 
 "the gates of hell shall not prevail against my Church." 
 
 By denying the necessity of a supreme head, and 
 the substitution of the wfong of 1 "private interpreta- 
 
 i II Peter i, 20. 
 
Conclusion 327 
 
 tion" in place of that authority; the "rival churches" 
 are always in doubt, having opinions only where they 
 should have faith, and are in like condition with civil 
 courts having no judge. 
 
 "The difficulties of belief are great," says Dr. Fair- 
 bairn, and if we contemplate the mighty army of un- 
 believers who by reason of these "difficulties" have lost 
 the faith, the truthfulness of the confession must be 
 conceded. But from whence came these difficulties? 
 Was it our Lord's design to place obstacles in our 
 way that the search for truth might be the more illu- 
 sive? No, he desired the truth for all men, for in 
 truth lies the way of salvation. The difficulties of be- 
 lief then have come through mankind themselves. 
 Who were the guilty ones? 
 
 It is acknowledged that up to the time of "The 
 Great Reformation" although no age had been without 
 its heretics the faith of the masses was definitely set- 
 tled, and the air reasonably clear of fruitless discus- 
 sions concerning it. The Church, as far as it was 
 possible, familiarized the illiterate people of early times 
 with the great truths of the Bible, and taught the 
 doctrines she had been divinely commissioned to teach, 
 with authority; and difficulties of belief were compara- 
 tively unknown. 
 
 The "difficulties of belief" then, came with "The 
 Great Reformation," and the innovators who made the 
 criminal mistake of essaying to reform God's Church, 
 rather than men's lives, were the guilty ones. Be- 
 wildered by a host of contradictory teachers whose pri- 
 vate opinions regarding the meaning of each text and 
 
328 Conclusion 
 
 psalm serve to obscure rather than reveal the truth, 
 causing the mind to become unsettled, and appalled, 
 at the utter hopelessness of the task of investigating 
 the legion of opinions that have intruded themselves 
 upon the world through the medium of private judg- 
 ment, as a natural result, men have been driven at last 
 to give up all hope of being able to unravel the tangle, 
 and so settle down into an apathetic slumber from 
 which one might as well attempt the awakening of 
 the dead. 
 
 Among these disheartened ones wrecks that strew 
 the shore line of protestantism are to be seen the host 
 of one time believers, who may be styled the religious 
 fad followers, who have made a finish of the faith in 
 the superstitions and heretical beliefs of the day ; such 
 as Spiritism, Theosophy and Christian Science, to- 
 gether with other ghosts of past heresies, that seem in 
 their turn to come upon the stage, excite a nine days' 
 wonder, and fade from sight, as moving pictures that 
 have served to grace a holiday on their way to ob- 
 livion. 
 
 2 "The Protestant churches," says Mr. Ray Stan- 
 nard Baker, "may be said, indeed, to have no longer 
 any very positive convictions or any very definite pro- 
 gram. They no longer believe their own creeds ; and 
 the old fervor of hostility with which they becudgeled 
 one another a sign of life at least has departed. No 
 longer fighting one another, neither do they unite : 
 there is no fire to fuse them. Scarcely two ministers, 
 
 2 American Magazine, June, 1909. 
 
Conclusion 329 
 
 let alone two denominations, agree either on doctrine 
 or methods of work." 
 
 The unenviable opinion here expressed regarding 
 the present condition of the protestant churches, is 
 largely shared in, both by some within and many with- 
 out the fold the latter, recognizing that other sad 
 fact, that the cessation of old time hostilities may not 
 be caused so much from change of heart, as from 
 indifference. 
 
 The history of protestantism from the acceptance of 
 its appropriate name at the Diet of Spires, A. D. 1529, 
 to the present day, is one of continuous but unavail- 
 ing effort in the search for truth. What is religious 
 truth? Where shall we find it? No answer entirely 
 satisfactory has been found, and yet this truth, which 
 our separated brethren think they cannot find, is abso- 
 lutely necessary to salvation. Perhaps no saying among 
 protestants is oftener heard, than that "there's good 
 in all churches." Good presumably means truth. 
 
 Has protestant thought ever considered the effect of 
 one church among the four hundred and one with 
 sufficient scope to take in all truth, and leave all the 
 error to the four hundred? Why would not such a 
 division be preferable to the equal distribution of truth 
 and error among all? Those preferring truth, could 
 find it in the one Church set apart as its home; while 
 those who regard error as being preferable could find 
 it in its numerous abodes, with little effort. 
 
 The only objection might lie in the loss of that 
 spirit of commercialism whose maxim is, that "com- 
 petition is the life of trade." But then, religious teach- 
 
330 Conclusion 
 
 ing was not primarily intended to provide the many 
 with an easy, respectable, and remunerative vocation 
 in life. 
 
 In the New Testament it is found that 3 Christ not 
 Luther, Knox, Wesley nor Henry VIII. built the 
 Church, and that 4 all were to hear it as it was the 
 5 pillar and ground of the truth ; 6 kept in all truth by 
 the Holy Ghost for all . time. Is not this that one 
 Church mentioned which enjoys a monopoly in the 
 truth? 
 
 The churches founded by the distinguished gentle- 
 men named, fifteen centuries after Christ founded his 
 Church, can lay no claim to being churches of Christ, 
 because Christ founded but one Church, and that one, 
 upon a foundation that the "reformers" do not recog- 
 nize. It follows then, that the churches of the "re- 
 formers" are not pillars of truth preserved from error 
 by the Spirit of truth, for the reason that they were 
 established for the express purpose of perpetuating a 
 diversity of faiths having in each a portion of error; 
 while the mission of the Holy Ghost was the preserva- 
 tion from error of that one Church of Christ, that in 
 her, eternal truth might abide. The four hundred 
 other churches mentioned are then most certainly the 
 churches of error, whose founders were men. 
 
 The way of truth must be an easy way to find 
 an open thoroughfare for all, where not only the rich 
 and the learned, but the poor and the unlearned trav- 
 
 3 Matt, xvi, 18. 
 
 4 Matt, xviii, 17. 
 
 5 I Tim. iii, 15. 
 
 6 John xv, 26; xvi, 13. 
 
Conclusion 331 
 
 eler, should, with unerring certainty, be conducted to 
 the goal of his aspirations and desires. That God in 
 his wisdom did provide such a way wherein 7 the way- 
 farer, though he be a fool, need not err therein, is 
 shown in the Scriptures and in the teaching of the 
 Fathers. "And a path and a way shall be there, and 
 it shall be called the holy way . . . and this shall 
 be unto you a straight way, so that fools shall not err 
 therein." (Isaias xxxv, 8.) 
 
 It is recorded in the divine Word, 8 that a certain 
 proud man, having apparently an incurable disease, 
 refused a proffered remedy because of its simplicity 
 and ease of application. So with the truth, humility 
 rather than great learning is the chief requisite for the 
 search. We need not go abroad ; truth is the nearest 
 of all things to us. What is truth, asked Pilate of 
 the Divine Man of Galilee? What is truth, ask the 
 "rival churches," where is it to be found? The answer 
 is found in "the open Bible," and in the words of the 
 divine Saviour of men expounded to us by his rep- 
 resentative, the Church. This answer once accepted 
 sets at rest all doubts. It is the one sure guide-post 
 to the truth eternal. Among the cross-roads this 
 points to the only true way. 
 
 Strange to say, "the plain and simple language of 
 the Bible," that answers this question, seems to awaken 
 in the hearts of our brethren of the Christian name, 
 sentiments akin to those of the contemptuous Syrian, 
 as he first beheld the semi-turbid waters of the Jordan. 
 
 7 Isais xxxv, 8. 
 
 8 IV Kings, 5. 
 
332 Conclusion 
 
 "Upon this rock (Peter) I will build my church and 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It is 
 necessary then in the search for truth but to look for 
 the Church built on Peter, and any fool should be 
 able to find that, as in the assertion of the Catholic 
 Church to the right of that particular foundation, she 
 has never heard of a rival claimant. Among the 
 countless authors of sects, cults, and fads, no one 
 has been allowed to claim a participation in the rock; 
 thus leaving that foundation as the great distinguish- 
 ing mark of the one, true and only Church founded 
 by the eternal Son of God ! 
 
 How easy then to find the truth; how easy to rec- 
 ognize God's Church, founded upon the rock, as dis- 
 tinguished from the temporal works of man founded 
 upon the shifting sands, emblems of insecurity and 
 endless change. Seeing that in the foregoing pages 
 the more thorough the investigation, the more conclu- 
 sive the conviction, that in the one Church built on 
 Peter, by Christ himself, we have found the truth for 
 which we so long have vainly sought; let us not under- 
 value it because we have found the priceless treasure 
 in the old well trodden paths, rather than in the new, 
 or because it comes unattended by blare of trumpets 
 such as Naaman thought to be the fitting accompani- 
 ments of his cure; but with true humility wash in the 
 Jordan near at hand, without thought of broader, 
 fairer, rivers in distant lands. 
 
 But if, in blind and unreasoning submission to an- 
 cient prejudices, our friends will seek to maintain that 
 this Church whose foundation, being solidity itself, 
 
Conclusion 333 
 
 effectually preserved the superstructure from change 
 and decay as time went on finally succumbed to hu- 
 man wiles and fell from its original uprightness like 
 a strong tower overturned, we ask: If this were true 
 of the Church built upon a rock, what confidence can 
 be reposed in the various so-called churches of "the 
 reformers" built upon the sand? Moreover, on whose 
 warrant do we rely for the permanent stability of the 
 Church of Christ? Is it not on the words of Christ 
 himself, its founder, who said, "Heaven and earth 
 shall pass away but my word shall not pass away." 
 (Luke xxi, 33.) 
 
 What perversion of reason this, to reject the teach- 
 ing of the only Church claiming divine foundation and 
 the ability to declare the truth infallibly: and put trust 
 in churches whose chief dogma and the one to which 
 all subscribe is their liability to teach error ! If our 
 divine Lord was not the founder of the Church of pre- 
 reformation days, will our friends kindly tell us who 
 was? We are able to tell them the name of the 
 man, or men, who were the founders of every prot- 
 estant church in existence. That the Catholic Church 
 was the first Church is shown by protestants them- 
 selves, who every time they pronounce their own 
 name acknowledge that Church a prior fact. Had 
 there not first been catholics, there could have been 
 no protestants. 
 
 The doctrines of the Church herein specialized have 
 been traced to the beginning of the Christian era and 
 are conclusive as evidence concerning the establish- 
 ment of those doctrines in the first ages of the faith, 
 
334 Conclusion 
 
 with which we are familiar at the present day. As 
 St. Peter received the keys of the kingdom, we find 
 him the head shepherd of the flock; it was an every-day 
 expression in those days that "the Church was built 
 on Peter." St. Paul says "we have an altar," and 
 lo, in every Church an altar is found. As an altar 
 presupposes a sacrifice, we find the sacrifice of the 
 new law called the Mass, everywhere offered "from 
 the rising of the sun to the going down of the same." 
 
 Confession as required by the New Testament, is 
 found among us, and those also who separated from 
 us before "The Great Reformation." In the light of 
 the early Church History written by the Fathers not 
 in a controversial spirit, because there was no con- 
 troversy then can be seen how the working machinery 
 was first put in order, together with the Gospel teach- 
 ings, beliefs and practices of the Church at this early 
 day. 
 
 The shrewd "reformers," seeing in this early history 
 of the Fathers, the condemnatory witness to their in- 
 novations, made haste to declare that everything neces- 
 sary to salvation was contained in the Bible. By the 
 Bible, was of course, meant Wycliffe's false transla- 
 tion, and the explanation of its texts was by private 
 interpretation, without reference to the understanding 
 of the same by the first professors of the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 Here then were effaced the records of fifteen cen- 
 turies of Church history. In this complete break with 
 the past no further attention was to be accorded to the 
 first teachers of Christianity, many of whom had been 
 
Conclusion 335 
 
 instructed by the pupils of apostolic men. What the 
 primitive Fathers taught, or what they thought, "the 
 reformers" did not care to know. Because the past 
 was an undesirable witness to their new departures 
 from the form of sound words, its voice must needs 
 be stifled in a stentorian trumpeting of "The Great 
 Reformation." Here, if we will hear "the reformers," 
 the "pure Gospel," freed from the shackles of Rome, 
 was to have free course and be glorified. Here, by the 
 assistance most opportune of the art of printing, all 
 were to drink from the Gospel fount before kept under 
 lock and key by those seeking profit from the people's 
 ignorance. 
 
 Now that four centuries have passed, have these 
 Utopian dreams been realized? Private judgment as a 
 rule for explaining Scripture, has resulted in as many 
 conflicting interpretations as there have been inter- 
 preters, until all certainty in doctrinal belief has been 
 lost. The children of "the reformers" are proverbially 
 reticent when creeds are referred to, and some among 
 the more progressive have declared from rostrum and 
 pulpit, that 9 "creeds are passing away." Now, if prot- 
 estants can no longer listen to the summary of the 
 faith contained in a creed, what may be assumed re- 
 garding their attitude toward the faith entire? Are 
 these the days mentioned in Scripture when men "will 
 no longer endure sound doctrine"? 
 
 As a further consequence of "reforming" the doc- 
 trines of God, is seen the great increase in crimes and 
 disorders of all kinds, and those who reason on right 
 
 9 Trinity Episcopal Church, San Francisco. 
 
336 Conclusion 
 
 lines will not long" be in doubt concerning the cause. 
 The representatives of twentieth century Christianity 
 have been quick in their appreciation of those hired 
 shepherds who, yielding to pressure from the pews, 
 have kindly consented to reassure their sheep anent 
 the fire unquenchable, and to consider hell as a phan- 
 tasy of the dark ages. They readily enough accept 
 Scriptural authority for life everlasting, but deny the 
 same, as proof of everlasting death, which means 
 eternal damnation. In an excessive hope anent the 
 mercy of God, they forget the majesty of the great 
 Lawgiver, whose sword is one of inexorable justice. 
 
 It looks well in magazine articles and poems to 
 dilate our fancy with the statement that "punishment 
 is reformatory; that right actions spring from a love 
 of our fellow man, of justice, of right; and not from 
 slavish fear." This is a happy thought, but the falsity 
 of it is, that for the greater number, the knoivledgc 
 of right is insufficient to insure right doing. 
 
 It is not an unwarranted supposition that many who 
 have been strongly tempted to do wrong did not suc- 
 cumb, largely through fear of detection and punish- 
 ment. If the motive that deterred them was question- 
 able, the result was unquestionable, which leads one 
 to think that to obey God through a wholesome fear 
 of his judgments, is greater wisdom, than to disobey 
 him through lack of fear of his retributive justice. 
 
 "Fear God and keep his commandments." 
 
 Although our best motives are superior to those 
 mentioned, they are often inferior to what we think 
 them, and at best will not stand the searchlight of 
 
Conclusion 337 
 
 God's scrutiny, for we are but weak children of a 
 parentage, which, through temptation, sinned and fell 
 from its high estate. Since the happening of that 
 for us unfortunate event the tendency of all mankind, 
 unrestrained by God's grace, spiritual enlightenment, 
 and belief in rewards and punishments, is to descend 
 the moral gamut to the depths of that paganism from 
 which our progenitors were raised by the first preach- 
 ing of the Gospel. 
 
 To the efforts made for the abolishment of hell, by 
 modern protestants, may be largely attributed what 
 may be called a general breakdown in the morals of 
 mankind. We are as the children of a much too 
 indulgent parent, from whom the scepter of family 
 authority has been wrested, and in which punishment 
 no longer follows disobedience. It is above all things 
 sad, that we should need a hell to drive us into heaven; 
 but salutary fear of the judgments which God has 
 pronounced against the sinner, has done more to peo- 
 ple heaven with the redeemed of Christ, than per- 
 haps any other motive. Those who fear reptiles, take 
 heed to their steps. Those who fear hell, shun the 
 broad way, and easy grade, leading to that destination. 
 
 As the attempted abolition of hell has been attrib- 
 uted to modern protestants, a quotation from one of 
 their number is introduced in confirmation. " Rev. 
 Rector W. A. Guerry says: "In our reaction against 
 the hard and rigid theology of our puritan forefathers 
 and the views which prevailed even in our own 
 
 10 Eccle. xii, 13. 
 
 11 Rev. W. A. Guerry, "The Churchman," Sept. 29, 1906. 
 
338 Conclusion 
 
 Church a generation ago, touching the irrevocable fate 
 of the damned, the pendulum bids fair to swing too 
 far in the opposite direction. We preach to-day an 
 easy and consoling Gospel rather than the strong and 
 virile Gospel of Jesus Christ, which did not hesitate 
 to talk about the horror of the outer darkness and the 
 weeping and gnashing of teeth of those who had been 
 cast out." 
 
 The protestant Doctor here admits that his Church 
 has changed its belief, in one generation, concerning 
 hell. Admits that his Church does not preach the 
 Gospel of Christ, but a manufactured gospel conde- 
 scendingly consolatory to the pew holders! 
 
 Having now traced briefly the history of the decline 
 of protestant faith from the time of its institution to 
 the present day, where, in its devious wanderings and 
 turnings, it is lost to view in many new and dangerous 
 superstitions ; let us turn and for a moment fix our 
 attention upon the one true Church of the one true 
 God, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. 
 
 If there were many abuses of doctrines in the 
 Church prior to "The Great Reformation," they serve 
 to remind us that all good things have at some time 
 been misused. The desirability of a true reformation 
 in the lives of the many was acknowledged by all who 
 had the welfare of the true faith at heart. If "the 
 reformers" had been what their name signified, they 
 might have rendered valuable aid in the accomplish- 
 ment within the Church of a true reformation, but 
 unfortunately they were revolutionists rather than re- 
 formers. 
 
Conclusion 339 
 
 We have listened to the panegyrics of Macaulay and 
 Gladstone, in their unguarded moments ; let us now 
 hear another gifted descendant of the reformers. Dr. 
 Lord says : 12 "And what a marvelous vitality it (the 
 Church) seems to have! It has survived the attacks 
 of its countless enemies; it has recovered from the 
 shock of the Reformation; it still remains majestic and 
 powerful, extending its arms of paternal love . . . 
 over half of Christendom. 
 
 "As a temporal government rivaling kings in the 
 pomp of war and the pride of armies it may be pass- 
 ing away; but as an organization to diffuse and con- 
 serve religious truths ... it seems to be as potent 
 as ever. It is still sending its missionaries, its prelates, 
 and its cardinals into the heart of protestant countries, 
 who anticipate and boast of new victories. It derides 
 the dissensions and the rationalistic speculations of 
 protestants, and predicts that they will either become 
 open pagans or re-enter the fold of St. Peter. 
 
 "No longer do angry partisans call it the 'Beast' or 
 the 'Scarlet Woman' or the predicted 'Antichrist/ since 
 its creeds in their vital points are more in harmony 
 with the theology of venerated Fathers than those of 
 some of the progressive parties which call themselves 
 protestant. 
 
 "In Germany, in France shall I add in England and 
 America? it is more in earnest, and more laborious 
 and self-denying than many sects among the protest- 
 ants. In Germany in those very seats of learning and 
 power which once were kindled into lofty enthusiasm 
 
 12 Lord's "Beacon Lights," Vol. ii, p. 136. 
 
34-O Conclusion 
 
 by the voice of Luther who is it that desert the 
 Churches and disregard the" sacraments, the catholics 
 or the protestants ?" 
 
 This unlooked-for manifestation of fairness, so con- 
 tradictory to previous writings, can be received only 
 upon the supposition that, in seeking inspiration from 
 nature, this gifted writer had encountered some wan- 
 dering zephyr blowing over the sun-lit fields of spring, 
 which had, kindly for him, lifted the prenatal veil of 
 prejudice that enshrouded his mental vision, and be- 
 stowed a gleam of light in which to pen these words. 
 
 In God's good time, by the hands of his saints, the 
 Church was reformed without the shedding of blood 
 or the changing of a doctrine. She teaches the same 
 faith at the present day that she taught in days past 
 to the Christians in the catacombs on the Appian Way; 
 the same that gave the martyrs courage to face the 
 lions in the amphitheater at Rome ; that Augustine 
 brought to England, and Boniface to Germany ; by 
 which St. Francis Xavier Christianized the Indies and 
 Japan, and in fine, the same by which all the nations 
 of the earth first heard the name of Christ. 
 
 The Church of the past, the present, and the future, 
 venerable with age when protestantism first saw light, 
 yet still in the spring-time of life. She has seen the 
 rise of all the nations of earth, and will be here to 
 chronicle the downfall of all governments and peoples 
 who in the days of their prosperity forget God. 
 
 The Church that in all ages has suffered persecu- 
 tion by the world, because it was not of the world. 
 The Church which is the foe of the oppressor and the 
 
Conclusion 341 
 
 liberator of the slave. At her hands the orphan finds 
 succor and the aged a home. At her altars the rich and 
 the poor, the beggar and the prince, are equal. The 
 Catholic Church is the most perfect expression of pure 
 democracy on the earth to-day, and as her divine Lord, 
 so she is no respecter of persons. While sternly de- 
 nunciatory of sin, yet she ever extends her arms im- 
 ploringly towards the wandering sinner inviting his 
 return. 
 
 Though shame be on the name or contagious diseases 
 threaten the body; should chains, the scaffold even, 
 confront; the true shepherd would not ignore the dis- 
 graced or infirm sheep of his flock, for the ear of 
 the catholic priest is ever open to the cry of the af- 
 flicted and distressed. While showing due care for 
 the best interests of those in high stations of life, he 
 is better known as the friend and counselor of the 
 poor. 
 
 The voice of the true shepherd will be the last sound 
 to reach our ears, as the ebb tide rolls out to the wait- 
 ing sea, and the mists and the darkness of that night 
 in which no one can see to repair the imperfections of 
 their work settles down upon us as we float out to 
 that "new and undiscovered country" beyond the nar- 
 row boundaries of time. 
 
 Not even death can place us beyond the faithful 
 shepherd's ministrations; for not until released from 
 purgatorial fires the hay, wood, stubble, burned and 
 we the face of the great Shepherd, Jesus the Son of 
 God, behold, will the voice of fervent supplication 
 
34 2 Conclusion 
 
 cease to rise on high for us in the Church Militant 
 here below. 
 
 The Catholic Church stands to-day by far the noblest 
 institution on earth, the unchangeable Church of the 
 unchangeable God, rightly claiming the submission of 
 every soul on earth. The infallible, the indefectible, 
 the holy. The mouthpiece of God to declare his will 
 to the nations, and the channel of his graces to the 
 souls of men. Her portals are as the gates of heaven 
 to weary souls, her tabernacles the dwelling places of 
 the august "Prisoner of Love," that silent sentinel of 
 the altar sweetly reposing but watching always for the 
 hour when foot-sore and weary with the chase after 
 earthly goods and honors transitory, his children frail, 
 but yet the objects of a Redeemer's love, will return 
 to the altar of God, "to God who rejoiceth their 
 youth," where he, under the sacramental veils hides 
 his resplendent face, but floods the souls of contrite 
 sinners with the light and glory of his love. 
 
 This is the heavenly benediction. This is that per- 
 fect peace that comes to us when we, freed by the 
 great consolatory Sacrament of penance from the bur- 
 den of our transgressions, receive, not bread and wine, 
 the emblems of earth's joys and feasts, but the bread 
 of heaven which is the Body and the Blood of our 
 divine Redeemer Christ the Lord. 
 
 Then is heaven opened and peace as a broad river 
 under God's sunlight turned to gold, and flowing in 
 beauty and great majesty to the sea, fills all hearts, as 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one eternal 
 God, looks down upon his children with countenance 
 benign, and gives his blessings manifold to all. 
 
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