Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-21
ENGLAND'S CHURCH.
The Importance of Its Antiquity
Learnedly Discussed.
THE PART HENRY VIII. PLAYED.
Under Ills Direction She Returned to Her
0ld-Time Health.
ENGLAND'S
A QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS MOMENT


two ideas therein.
Imprimis 1 would like to say in reply
to the writer of the subject, that the matter
is more of burning question" than he
would have your readers believe. Why, i
will state before the close of this letter. !
beg to state that L have good enough opin-
ion of the people of Pittsburg to be morally
sure that they do, that is, many of them
protesting religion" as the expression
goes, care whether Henry, or a greater than
Henry, founded the Church of England and
say that ii is burning question with them
as to which of the two was the architect
1t matters great deal, very great deal,
though the writer of MONDAYS letter says
not, who did found that Church. II matters
very much to the Episcopalians of Pittsburg
who follow in that faith, and their name
though not legion, is certainly not very
few.
But the writer goes on to say with reck-
1essness which is sometimes called bv for
eiCners in cynical way, Every American"
what we want to know is, "Will it do
good, ETC., etc, land nothing of an anti
quarian nature interests us" Very much
do l beg as a member of that church to
differ from your correspondent, "who has
specially favored THE DISPATCH with his
views" The antiquity of the affair is
everything The cry SO often launched
forth in our country against anything old,
is at times appalling to one, without ones
being at all tainted with that new disease
vcleped 'anglomania. Can nothing be old,
and yet at the same time be good and de-
serving? Where is the culpa in antiquity,
and especially, if that antiquity be deserv-
lug and honorable?
The writer says: 1.-THE test now wanted
is excellence. The Church of England
may be 800 or 800 years old; it may have
been set going by Henry Tudor or by Simon
Peter. Cui bono, if it teaches a. true doc
trine?"
Not the Growth of the Tudor Age.
Now, as touching the origin of the
Church of England, all readers know who
have read unbiased history, both religious
and secular, thai the Church of England
was not the growth of the Tudor age any
more than civilization in the United States
is the outcome of the Harrison or of the
Cleveland administrations, Because the
one or the other, during his tenure of the !
White House, happened to adopt certain |
measures, let us say, of a hvgienic nature |
as regards the sanity of tenement houses,
we must not rashlv asseverate that the sani- |
tarv enactment has placed civilization aside.
When we reason and think, We see that !
civilization was here first, that civilization |
antedaUed the necessary measure brought in |
bv either politician, not the measure civili- |
cation.
Because l say this for strange simile- |
the tenement house needed some goodly re- |
form and such reform was made, and |
probably so done in the face of ardent op- |
position; surely no sane person will try to |
prove that the later evident and merely |
necessary supplement originated that which ,
really called for an account of its very pre-
existence, the remedial agent. But such |
some would apply to the Church of England /.
because through many ages she was op- |
pressed by a foreign power, a power in |
tensely corrupt (as venal as the Anglican |
monarch in question:, when il suited her, |
as Middle Age history lucidlv tells u.s. That |
she is the daughter of that power is not log
ical, because from the sixth century to the |
eleventh, and from the eleventh to the thir- |
teenth, and from the thirteenth to
the fifteenth, the church of the English
people was placed under the thumb of the
foreign yoke by series of weak monarchs, it
does not bring in with any approximate or
at all reasonable satisfaction a claim, that
the last monarch who found lie could make |
a puppet of the Church, founded it afresh |
when, discovering that he could not get |
that which he desired from his co-workers, |
had then the pluck, or audacity, to make
counter-move and throw off the yoke, and |
start new church or religion.
Understanding Reaches Not That Far.
The quarrel Henry had with the Bishop |
of Rome certainly did help to bring in a |
new order of ecclesiastical affairs, all allow. |
How the Tudor kings "took the place |
of the Pope" the careful reader of history |
is at loss to understand. But the careful |
reader of history, | do not mean he who has |
read D'Aubigne only, but also Blount and |
Dixon, and Macaulay even, sees things very |
truthfully set forth, and does not see how |
the foreign prelate gives place to the cor
rupt ruler.
The Church we are told 'sbefore Henry |
was Papal, after Henry Protestant" Never \
anywhere in her documents does the Church |
of England call herself Protestant church. |
And to prove this | cite the celebrated will |
case which occurred in England few years !
ago:
A woman, ! think it was, left thousands |
Of pounds to the Catholic Church. The case
cropped up and went to law as to which |
WAS the Catholic Church in England. 1t |
was emphatically ruled that the Church of |
England was the Catholic Church in Eng
land, and none other had any title to that
name; and again the Roman Archbishop of
Westminster has no legal title or jurisdic-
tion in that realm. Before Henry the |
Church was not Papal any more than the
city of New York is Irish, because her poll
tics may for time be in the hands of the
Irish party. New York is American New
York, even if 100, 900 foreigners were to !
usurp the votes belonging de jure to the
American citizen. To make a long story
short, for centuries the Anglo-Saxon race
had been praying, while groaning under op-
preston, for release from foreign spirit
ual usurpation. They always were opposed
to the arbitrary dominance of the italian
yoke, unsuited as it was to English people
Good Often Comes From Evil,
Out of evil sometimes comes good.
Granted not out of Christian wishes or well
fare so much for the Church of Christ in
England, did Henry, we know, quarrel with
the Primate of Italy, but rather the out
come of his own weaknesses; nevertheless,
out of these disgraceful janglings came the
release of the Anglo-Saxon race, that is,
their spiritual release. But no new re-
ligion was formulated. Merely the throw
ing off of this yoke of line of bishops, ever
grasping and tyrannous Merely the asking
to be let alone and to be allowed the tree
dom OF national church
Henry never dreamed of starting a re-
ligiOn" as we have seen done in the Cum
berland Mountains of Tennessee, or the
Salt Lake iasco of few years further back.
lie had that much good about him that the
of churches, as was kings
with man in his namesake's reign, was
one of his many sins against the Holy
Ghost. Plainly he told the Bishop of Rome
to be gone, to let him rule England and the
Church (quantum per legem Christi licet).
Simply foreign prelate and his clergy