The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-22
A COMFORTABLE FAITH.

From the Boston TFaUetier
Another of the Popes lodges is an indu-
gence, lust issued, which provides that who
ever, while confessing and receiving the sacra-
ment Of the Lords Supper, shall repeat the
Ave Maria fifty times and the Lords Prayer
five times a day for a week, in hope of the
council being brought to q successful issue
shall receive full absolution for his own SINS
or those of any dead person he may wish to
benefit. A handsome offer, certainly, on the
part of the kind-hearted old gentleman, and
we wish we could avail ourselves of his libe-
rality. Wasn't it Tony Forster who said the
Romish was a comfortable faith ? Whether
it was Tony or some other sensible fellow who
said so, the remark is a good one. We
shouldn't mind giving as large an amount of
another man. money as we could get hold
of could we but swallow that faith whole,
and believe it blindly; for in that case
we should be -Maria-ing and
Pater-N Noster-ing at q tremendous pace, not to
get any other person out of penal fres--for
we are quite willing the devil should keep all
he has honestly got-but to keep ourselves
out of his claws and clutches We have such
an aversion for hot rooms, and so fixed and
firm an abhOrrence of birthstone that it would
be the devil and all to US were we to get
banked below. Thus we are nightly disposed
to believe with our Catholic friends-but we
stronger is our unbelief-so that if Protes-
tantism isn't the correct thing, we are booked
through, express, by the down train. As
the Templar said to the Jewess, ''Dreams,
Rebecca dreams idle Visions rejected by
the wisdom of your own wiser Saddu-
cees'--so must the Protestant say of the
belief entertained by so many devout
Catholics. Yet tbs a pity that the point
can't be settled by authority that all could
!
all to get through this wretched, weary, vast
ing, working, washingday wakeful world
with some approach to comfort; for what
would be even an hundred years of it, could
the sufferer but knOw-we do not say believe
that eternal bliss surely lay beyond the
river?" 1t would pass, and the knowledge of
what it would lead to would enable all to bear
burdens which are all but intolerable-to
many are entirely so, as the daily legion of
suicides painfully makes palpable. We do
not wonder that Catholicism flourishes and
increases, when it boldly cuts so many knots,
and holds out hopes so great to suffering hu-
manity. The hymn of the Lady Rowena and
her maidens expresses what many who do not
believe would be glad to believe-if they
could; but belief is not matter of will
"Dust unto dust
To this all must;
The tenant hath resigned
The faded form
TO waste and worm
Corruption claims her kind.
Through paths unknown
Thy soul hath flown
To seek the realms Of woe,
Where fiery pain
Shall purge the stain
OF actions done below.
"In that sad place.
BY Mary's grace,
Brief may thy dwelling be-
Till prayers and aims,
And holy psalms
Shall set the captive free"
Gould men believe in the efficacy unto sal
walton of prayers and aims, and holy
psalms, there would be much more praying
and giving and chanting than there is
but with Protestants and Rationalists all that
has passed away.