The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1898-03-07
FATHER PARDOw'S SERMON.
''The Bible Before the Tribunal of
Reason -

St AIoysius's Church was taxed to its
utmost capacity yesterday to accommo-
date the vast assernblage attracted by the
course of Lenten sermons by Rev. Will
lam O. b. Pardow. S. j.. the second of
which he delivered at the II o'clock mass.
Father Pardow said in part: 1--WE con-
sidered last Sunday how Christ i'm COM
ing on earth TO communicate divine truth
to men, submitted to the requirements of
the tribunal of reason and showed His
credentials. He came not to propose
truths, as ordinary teachers, but to i'm
pose them. He was teaching says the
Bible, with authority Now the human
mind yields to two forces-the authority
of evidence and the evidence of authority.
Christ made His authority to teach emil
nently credible by His miracles.
To-day we touch not only on the COM
munication of the truth to the world. but
on the means of transmitting it intact.
Martin Luther boldly affirmed that the
Bible was the means of transmission, and
he accused the Catholic Church of keep
ing the Bible from the people. Luther is
set up on pedestal as the rescuer of the
Bible from oblivion, and for three hun
dred years this has been accepted as true
by many who boast of doing all their
own thinking. But we live in a critical
age. and it is time that people do lit
tie deeper thinking to whether Luther
really rescued the Bible from oblivion or
not. The facts are these: Printing was
invented in 143S. Luther was born in
1iS5. As soon as printing was invented
the Catholic Church had Bibles printed in
the vernaoular tongue. A German edition
of the entire Bible was printed in l447. an
other in 1866, and so on, so that prior to
Luther's translation the Bible had been
printed in German sixteen times-once at
Strasburg, five times at Nuremburg, ten
times at Augsburg-and thus, long before
Luther was born, the whole Bible was
read by the German people i'll the German
language. This no doubt. contradicts
what nen-CathoIic writer's have published
| in schoolbooks and books of literature
concerning the opposition of the Catholic
Church to the Bible but it is time that
| true history should be learned. There
can be no Sainsaying these facts as many
copies of the Bible in German, as in 9TH
er languages. are still eXtant with their
| date of publication and may be examined
| in the British Museum and the great Ii
| braries of the world. The Catholic Church
does say that the Bible cannot have been
intended by Christ as the rule of faith,
| from the fact that before the invention of
| printing Bible would have cost 81. 600 and
would have been absolutely beyond the
reach of millions of people. The church
had the works and the nuns copied out
| the Bible, letter by letter. The epitaph
was carved over the grave of a nun in
~ r.
copying out two Bibles, from cover to
cover. Luther far from honoring the
Bible. degraded 1t. By teaching that ev
eryone was free to interpret it as he
pleased. he opened the way to the ever
increasing numbers of Protestant sects,
all basing their religion on the Bible. The
| London Times recently gave the number
! of sects as 100. 1t may take time for rea-
son to draw its conclusions, but finally
| the human mind is logical and the unbe-
| lief of the last decade of the nineteenth
| century tn which we live is the logical
| outcome of Luther's false step in the six
teenth. A Protestant minister in Greater
| New York recently said to his fashiOna-
| Bile congregation, The Bible is the Word
] of God repeating the old belief. Then he
continued: This l deny, and l defy any
| one to find that assertion in the Bible.
Another Protestant minister said in his
| Sunday sermon. L would not read parts
| of the Psalms of David TO my congrega
ton on account of the devilish doctrine
| they contain
This sounds very unlike Luthers war
| cry-"The Bible. the whole Bible and moth
ing but the Bible'-but the only difference
| is that the former assertions are the lat
ter. plus the logic of three centuries.
1.-The Catholic Church has always
taught that the Bible is the Word of Cod
| but that it cannot be the only rule of
faith, since no book can interpret itself.