The Irish standard., 1890-04-26
A Clerical Circus in Chicago

A cOnvocation Of Methodist ministers
in Chicago the other day got into row
over the doctrines and aims of the Ro
man Catholic church. These learned
and Jealous divines had evidently been
reading the dlscourses of Joe Cook and
of his brother evangelists, Fulton,
Moxom and Dunno.
One brother read paper upon the
school question. in which he ventured
to suggest, in djfident and tentative
sort OF way, that, after all, perhaps the
"Romish" church would not destroy
the free institutions OF America. In
fact, he worked out the conclusion THAI
it was her own institutions that would
suffer.
Another brother, Foster by name,
protested against the mildness of this
speech and "pitcbed iu'' with vigor
and lack OF knowledge that would de-
light Music Hall convention. He
saw danger while the Golfers of the
church, in New York alone, gathered
in $4,000 600 year for carrying on the
work OF Romanizing America. Doubt
less he reflected sadly upon the slim
contributions in bis own church. II
tell you," he shrieked with true Full
tonlan fever, ''there is a most deter
mined effort to capture and control, if
not to undermine and destroy, our in
situations by this church of Rome.
Why, in front of my church there is a
large school with thirteen rooms in it
ana fifteen teachers, and these teachers
are Catholics, although the neighbor
hood is Protestant one. Does the
gentleman say there is no danger in
such state of affairs as that? In a
Protestant neighborhood there is a
school with twenty six teachers, twenty
one of whom are Catholics. I think it
is high time to protest."
DR.. 9. w. Bennett, professor in the
Methodist institute, started the clerical
hornets on lively hunt for blood when
he told them that they ought to fra,
understand. before they undertook to
discuss, Catholic doctrines. This was
rank heresy. The idea that 1T was ne
cessary to understand the "Romish"
creed in order t. denounce it as a, men
ance to our institutions was too pre-
posterous to be tolerated. But Pro
lessor Bennett went further. He said:
Il assert that there are not three in
this meeting who can point out the dis
tinctlon between the Methodist doctrine
of salvation by justification ana the
doctrine adopted by the council of Trent
on the same subject"
The storm broke with full fury and
the dignlfied dlvines were plunged into
a very vortex of excitement and inf am
matorv denunciation by the following
manly declarations made by Professor
Bennett, and Which we quote from the
report OF the meeting:
THE Catholic church hao been criti
ciZed for having q supreme head, but
the Methodist church and every other
rate and fall to pieces must have
supreme authority as we'll as the Cath
olic church, and it IS nonsense to deny
it, The only difference between our
church aud the Catholic church on that
head IS that the Catholic clergy keep
their pledges of obedience to this su
preme authority better than ours do
There are some things, my brethren.
from which we might derive useful
lessons IN the Catholic church. We
might with profit sit at the feet Of thai
church and learn from her lesson on
subject that Is of more vital Importance
to our government even than tenn
perance, and that is the preservation of
the family, the sacredness Of matrimony
and the curse Of divorce.