The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-02-04

EorrowING the recent news from
Rome. we have had a debate in Con-
press in regard TO paying a minister
there, and it has been determined after
this year TO have Consul only. Rome
has no Minister at Washington She is
only an ecclesiastical city, and Min
lister there is as much out OF place as
one would be in the Isle of Man. Hith-
erto we have kept Minister at Rome
out ofcompliment to the dead Cses'irS'
NumA Pompilius, and the PI odle.louS
generally of the Imperial city. 4 Con
sui will answer every purpose ana Iook
after the interests of the croWds OF
Americans who flock there to muse
among the ruins and marvel at the
church spectacles-
n, ,ba course of the debate, the SUBJ
ia,.t of the late action Of the Popetoward
-Protestauts, was brought up, and some
faint efforts were made to make politi-
cal capital by exhibiting special defer
euee for the Pope. The matter, how
ever, can stand on its own merits, and
we are content to leave the exclusion of
Protestant worship as shining exam
pie Of what religious liberation is in Pa
pal countries.
We find an article on this subject in
a late number OF the FreeHIdn,S Jour
nal, which proposes novel method of
settling the question. The Journal
takes the ground that Rome is a sacer-
dotal and ecclesiastical city; that it is
so set apart by the consent Of Catholics;
that it is, in fact, a great Church; that
every foot of the soil has been "bought
and paid for" by Catholics; that strang-
ers flock there solely because OF the
presence of the Pope; that II the Pope
were not there, Rome would be aban-
doned as the seat OF disease and malaria,
and would be, like Tyre, a mere ruin,
and that 'as the Pope and the Catholic
religion, and nothing else, have kept
| +" Rome from being an uninhabited de-
"sert, the nearly three hundred mil
1 - lions of Catholics in the world have q
right 20 claim for that, as holy city
" in some ways, an exception from the
''rest of the world ~
| The Journal observes that Rome is g
Catholic Church, and asks: 'What
fright have I 10 go into the largest
= convsnticle OF any of the paltry Pro.
" bestRnt sects in their country, to dis.
Z" turb their Worship"
1t comes to this, then, in the opinion
of the ETeeWGn'S Journal, that to wor.
ship in Rome otherwise than as Cath.
Ole, is an intrusion and disturbance
The remedy it proposes is as follows:
A human and political view of the
affair would lead us to put the poor, ig-
norant, or hypocritical Protestant
preachers, in Rome, to the torture, in
another way. Had ace the policing o
Rome, we would let all the Protestant
/ preachers preach, but we would have
shorthand reporters, to take dOwr
1 their various vagaries, and have then
published in newspapers, with pithy
and witty comments, such as would b.
so easy for Italians, in ridicule of tn,
nonsense and stupidities of thes,
preachers. 1t would be a potent argu
ment against heresy! Professionalism il
really, as dead as Paganism. 1t ha!
nearly merged into the same vague
nesses OF philosophy, falsely so-called
and into It's iudecencies. None of thu
professors of this dead apostacy any
longer knows what to hold or what Z
say. None of them, or only one, her
and there, holds to the same notions b.
was taught as child! The public ex
hibition of the incongruities, and con
tradictions of Professionalism, at Rome
would be a just counterpart to the ex
hibitiou of dead Paganism, given in
we belieue il is, the Pantheon-wher
the false gods are grouped, harmlessly
under the Altar of the God of Heaven