Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-11-03

ligious fervor was more esteemed than
learning. Faulty grammar was pardoned
ifthe speaker manifested the proper spirit
of zeal and enthusiasm. The rule which
required the annual change of pastors had
the double purpose of assuring to each
church fair share of the services of the
ablest ministers of the sect, and of prevent
ing the clergy contracting too intimate
ties with worldly objects, and of fixing their
affections too much upon those sublunary
things which are liable to be affected by
moths and rust and thieves. The clergy
were to be to some extent homeless like
their Master, and to traverse the world
though in it, not of it. Gradually
change is coming over Methodism. Many
of its members are wealthy and many of
them cultured people. 1t has established
schools and colleges. Its clergy are now
expected to be educated as well as devout
men. Its congregations are no longer sat-
isfed with mere fervor in the pulpit.
They consider the matter as well as the
spirit of the sermon, and when they secure
pastor who satisfies their intellectual as
well as spiritual cravings, they do not like
to part with him. Of late years the rule
has been relaxed in Difference to this spirit,
and, instead of annual, biennial changes
have been conceded, and in some cases a
longer term has been allowed. The re-
cent changes made by Bishop Newman in
this city, and the vigorous protest of the
churches against them, prove how strong
the spirit of revolt against the old rule is
growing. Such demonstrations indicate
that at no distant day it will have to be
abandoned, and the congregations left to
choose their own pastors, as is done by the
other Protestant sects."
The Cturchmdn says: An American
Roman Catholic newspaper speaks of the
English authorized version of the Script
ures as a Protestant translation, admitted
to be incorrect and dishonest, of such books
only as Protestants choose to recognize.
To call that book the Bible it goes on, is
utterly absurd and false. 1t is no more
the Bible than muddy inlet is the ocean,
nor as much OF course the writer advo-
Gates the superiority of the Vulgate and
the Douay version. We are not going to
tell again the queer story of the Vulgate
and its printers errors, sanctioned by Pa
pal Bull. The Douay version was made
by French priests destined for the English
mission and little acquainted with the
English language. 1t is, accordingly, I'M
couth and in bad taste. Nowadays, when
learning, taste and scholarship have died
out in the Roman Catholic Church in
England, as far as the production of liter
airy works may testify, and are only repre-
sented by few perverts from Oxford, we
are prepared to see our noble English YER
sion, whose music says Newman, still
haunts his memory amid the mumblings
of the Oratorians' chapel, deprecated, and
the barbarous lingo of Douay Jesuits pre-
ferred to it. But it is sad reflection upon
the knowledge of honesty of Roman Cath
Ollie journalism to find the choicest exam
pie of English literature extant thus
treated with contempt. 1t is not too much
to say that in point Of correctness and
scholarly accuracy King James version is
infinitely superior to either the Vulgate
or the version of Douay. The editor above
alluded to insinuates that the Protestant
Bible, by which he is presumed to mean
the English Bible of James l., is mutt
lated edition of Gods Word. He cannot
be supposed to know that this Bible con-
tains as inspired Scriptures the books that
the Jews, ancient and modern, have con-
sldered as within the canon, while they
reject, as not in the same sense the Word
of God, those apocryphal Scriptures which
Jerome, the maker of the Vulgate version,
rejected as without the canon. The point
is that to Roman Catholics the Council of
Trent is above the Scriptures in authority.
Yet some Roman Catholics will doubtless
regret its short and sweeping method in
decreeing the canonicity of books which
Jerome had classed as apocryphal. 1t is
no secret that at the Council of Trent
there were no divines of sufficient critical
skill, historical knowledge, and linguistic
attachments to decide the question of the
canonicity of the Scriptural books on its
merits"