The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-07
ROME OR RATIoSALIsM.

IL was only the other day that the Rev.
DR.. Spaulding. Of Boston, for many years
leading preacher in an orthodox Protest
ant pulpit, went over TO Rome. ''Going
over 10 Rome" does not carry with it that
odium in Protestant circles that it did in
the days of Puritan New England. when,
in 1851, Paul Dudley, chief justice of
Massachusetts. bequeathed 500 TO Har-
ward college for the support of an annual
sermon on one of these four subjects,
treated in succession: Natural religion,
the Christian religion, the errors OF the
Roman Catholic church, and the validity
OF the ordination of ministers according to
the ancient custom of New England.
Fifty-eight members of the Harvard
faculty recently petitioned that the So
called Dudleian sermon should not be
delivered this year, because the subject,
in the language of Judge Dudley's will,
must "expose the idolatry of the Romish
church. its tyranny, usurpation, and
damnable baseness, fatal errors, abom-
Unable superstitions, and other crying
wickedness in their high places.''
The corporation answered that the
subject could not be changed without
breach of trust, which might terminate
the whole trust, but said 1.-THE opportunity
may well be taken in delivering this
third lecture to soothe and allay the ari-
mosities and bitterness of the past, and
deal with these questions in a broad,
scholarly. and magnanimous spirit
h.
earnest of its feeling by obtaining as
the Dudleian lecturer on the Christian
religion the Right Rev. John J. Keane,
rector of the Catholic University of
America.
Harvard college, like the rest of intelli-
gent, rational America. has risen far above
the ancient bigotry and intolerance,
which treated the Church of Rome as
nothing but q CHASTITY structure painted
red with the blood of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, with the torture room of
the lnquisition as an annex of ecclesiasti-
cal tyranny and cruelty. Among the
things that the majority of the great
Presbyterian church named as desirable
to be eliminated from their Confession of
Faith is its Identification of the Anti
Christ of Scripture with the pope of
Rome, and the conclusion that no pope
can be Christian and that all papists are
idolaters.
The modern orthodox Protestant no
longer looks with horror upon the change
of faith once denounced as an act of
damnable heresy whenever 8 follower of
Luther dared to return to the bosom of
the great mother church of Rome.
This change in the attitude of ill.,
telligent Protestants dates back to the
Puseyite movement within the Church of
England, which sent John Henry New
man and the late Cardinal Manning over
to Rome. Newman was AZ years OF age
when he joined the Church of Rome. and
Manning was 43. Newman came of pure
CaiyInistic stock, was educated at Oxford,
was powerful pulpit orator and cham
pion Of the Anglican church for at least
fifteen years of his clerical life. If there
ever was ripe scholar. a man of absolute
purity of purpose and conduct, of infcxi-
bic determination to do the right as God
gave him light to see Alright, in the Eng
lish church, it was Newman. He went
over 10 Rome as conscientiously as Luther
left Rome exclaiming, "May God
help me, | can do no otherwise" Cardinal
Manning who followed Newman six wears
later, was a man of equally lofty charac-
ter and ability. He carried of the highest
honor Of his class at Oxford by birth and
education he belonged to the best type of
English gentlemen; his father was a men,
Der of parliament; he rose rapidly in the
church, becoming archdeacon of Chi
chester at 81, and for nearly twenty years
was next to Newman, the ablest and most
brilliant preacher of the English church.
The secession of these two great English
scholars and thinkers TO the church of
Rome had powerful influence in both
England and America.
The example of Newman and Manning
was followed by Preston, Ives, Doane and
Brownson in America, and from that day
no intelligent Protestant could afford 10
deride the Catholic church by shouting
the old Puritan mo popery" war cries.
In one important respect the prediction of
Newman has been fulfilled. When he be-
gan his movement in the direction of
Rome he declared that the drift Of the
modern Protestant church was toward
rationalism; that he had TO choose
between Rome AMI rationalism and
was compelled 10 choose Rome.
since the logical ultimate of Protest
antism was inevitably rationalism.
The history Of the fifty years that fol-
lowed the expression of this conviction of
Newman confirms the souudness of bis
judgment. The steady drift of Protestant
ism has not been toward atheism but to-
ward rationalism. The Rev. Or. LYMAN
Ah5ott breaches in Presbyterian churches
| sermons that even Beecher never yentured
upon ten years ago. DR.. Abbott, in an
swer 10 a question asked him by the Con-
| gregatioDal Council called to install him
| as Beecher's successor. said:
Think there Is but one God. no. three Gods.
! and dcnt use the word Trinity l believe in
| cue Divine Spirit who fills tie universe with
/ His cHaIlpressHes and Is revealed 10 Us Is His
| manifestation u the desh and the dwelling Of
1 His spirit IN Us.
DR.. Abbott recently affirmed the position
Of Professor Briggs, when he described the
Bible IS merely human production. liable
/ 70 the errors and imperfect.ons insepar-
( able from humanity. II carries iuspira-
/ tiyn, instruction and strength which no
/ other book has approached" DR.. Abbott
/ granted. but it is not infallible, and now
/ adays there are few people" who hold
that II IS so. Il is merely the select re!i-
gious literature OF the select religious
l Mrltars Of q sa,n-t -. Ia ..--.A -.