The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-01-22

Bradiey's Disgust witt Protestant Epi..
''That day will not come" said the Apostle
Paul, eighteen hundred years ago, ''except
there be FIRST q falling away" couple Of
weeks ago we noted the failing away" of Mr..
Hepworth from the negatlons of Unitarian
ism and his falling into the way Of tho
positive faith of the Evangelical Church.
We have to-day to record the nnal
step-a short one-of lesser light
Of the Episcopal Church into the
fold of the Roman Catholic Church. The
Rev. Joshua D. Bradley, pastor Of the
'Oratory of st. Sacrament" ritualistic
outgrowth Of st. Adams. and himself an
Oxford ''High Church" man, yesterday babe
farewell to his flock and to the Anglican
Church, and made his obeisance to the
Roman. Some years ago an Anglican Church
minister rendered himself to the late Cardinal
Wiseman as q convert to the Catholic faith,
when the shrewd prelate responded that he
wanted the sheep as well as the shepherd.
Whether Mr.. Bradley's sheep know his voice
and can trust him sufficiently to leave their
own pasture and follow him remains to be seen.
For himself the dividing line between bis
faith and practice and that Of the most ortho-
dox Catholic priest in the city was so small
a. to be almost indiscernible. And if he has
succeeded in educating his flock up to his own
standard their change from one church to
another will be simply change of name.
The reasons which Mr.. Bradley gives for
taking this step appear to US rather silly and
peevish. He does not like the bishops Of his
Church because ''they truckle to public opin-
ion and are slaves rather than the lords of their
wealthy clergy and influential laity." They
don't measure up at all to his ideal of
Catholic bishop. He is not satisfied with ''the
state of schism" which prevails in the
Anglican Church and her suspended COM
munion with the Greek and Roman Churches.
The denial, virtually, of the ''real presence"
in the eucharist by the recent Episcopal Con-
vention which sat In Baltimore is another
cause Of discomfort with this good man. Nor
did they in their opening communion services
at that convention show by their acts or man.
ner that they believed they were actually feed
ing on the body of Christ. The Bishops de-
NAL Of the regenerative influences of water
baptism is too much for any Anglican
Catholic priest to accept without protest, and
the reverend brother is justly indignant with
his superiors in the Church, who were not
content with denying that Christ was and is
actually and bodily in the bread and wine,
and that sins of the soul are washed away by
water on the body, but who also went 80 far
as to forbid, in gentle terms of course,
what is known among ritualists as
''eucbaristical alteration" The pastoral
letter of the House of Bishops is, in the
language of the disguised priest, mis-
cradle heretical announcement, ''and chiefly
so because it denies emphatically the inter-
cessory influences Of the Virgin Mary and the
Saints" and considers belief in the same
San indignity to One only Mediator and Inter-
cessor which the authors, His apostolic wit
nesses," could not countenancc, and distinctly
forbade. But the straw which broke the
camel's back is the differentiation of bish-
ops and priests of the Episcopal Church
with Presbyterian and Unitarian and
Methodist and Baptist ''heretics," and
the very much Disguised Joshua D. Bradley
leaves church which is too democratic to
too aristocratic theoretically to hold commu-
MON with Protestant heretics. We hope the
reverend gentleman will soon feel himself at
home and will enjoy the change.