The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-02-18

own favored land. Dying OF heart dis
ease, she seems to manifest renewed
vitality at the extremities. A very great
battle is to be fought yet in England and
this country with Rome-strange as it
appears. The resources of the Devil are
infinite; the vanity of the human heart
Is incompatible. There is no caper that
men will not cut in religion We laugh
at the Hindu devotee who fastens his
wrists and ankles together, and causes a
tire, made of chopped straw, mud, and
hlth, to be placed along the back bone,
with a bamboo-stick passed through
the angle made by the knees and elbows
for an axle, and then rolls himself like a
wheel from village to village we wonder
at the Chinaman who worships his god
and gives vent to his religious emotions,
by sending off explosives, and setting fire
to large bundles of pop-crackers; but pre-
clsely the same sentiment which prompts
these poor misguided heather to worship
their gods in these strange ways, has often
manifested itself in the Romish Church,
amid the most cultivated populations of
Europe And after all that we have
learned, after all the history of these last
twelve hundred years, and after Sixtus
~, Innocent VIII, Alexander.VI. and
Leo X, after Bloody Mary and Alva, the
fires of Smithheld and the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes, and the wretched
spectacle exhibited to-day by Portugal
Spain, Italy, and Ireland, there are men
and women here, even in Virginia, who
are ready to 60 over to Rome. There is
a large party in the Church of England
that is profoundly agitated on the subject
and one by one, as the fruit ripens on the
tree OF Rituahsm, we see it drop from the
bough, and gathered into the baskets of
the Vatican.
These remarks have been suggested by
the news received from London last week
with regard to the apostasy of the Rev.
Arthur Wagner, the Brighton ritualist.
The cable dispatch went on to say
Mr.. Wagner's conversion marks the beginning
OF longimpending and carefully prepared
movement, which may ere long bring most of
the rituallstc Anglican clergy over to Roman
Catholicism. meeting ground has been found
that may unite the timid high church Anglicans
OF the MacKonochie and Wagner stamp with the
Vatican. Among the conditions specified is the
following Those converts who are already mar
RED are to be reordained (su5 tacita conditioner
will ha oil
istering in Catholic churches in mass benedic-
ton, preaching, and catechism, but will not be
permitted to parochial functions, especially to
confessions. The males and females in Anglican
religious orders are pass through the novitiate
under experienced superiors appointed by Rome
and at the end of their novitiate are to be pro
fessed with simple vows and will continue the
phianthrophic work under Vatican jurisdiction.
special metropolitan perhaps Cardinal Man
ning Is to be consecrated by the Pope himself for
the government of the reconciled reordained
Anglican clergy. The younger clergy are to
take the usual VOWS of celibacy when ordained
sub-deacons
When we write thus of the progress of
the Roman Catholic Church, we are fully
aware that there is commencement oaonv
from that Church. Witness France.
where Professionalism is now making rapid
strides And here in America thousands
Of European. Catholics or their descend
ants land in Professionalism. 1t is, never
theless, true that among certain types of
people in England and in this country the
superstitionis spreading, and chiefly across
the bridge of Ritualism.
IT is an unquestionable fact that in all