The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-03-06

this ideal of absolute Capitalization in the
church even, not to speak of the state, when
he organized His apostles into a corpora
tion Tor the government of His church for all
time, and gave them q charter of prerosatiyes
and limitations after He was risen and mot
long before His ascension. Christ showed by
HIS arrangement that He was the center and
His disciples around Him the innermost cir
c-e and the nearest approach to centraliza-
ton which He authorized on earth He placed
no one disciple above or below His fellows
He drew no one apostle to Himself and
bade him take His place when He was gone
put he spoke to them all alike and gave them
showing that so far as the divine command
went, 1t stopped short of absolute centrali-
zatlon and limited the approach to monarchy
at the eplscopate as solidarity. This is not
saying tnat Tor purposes of practical admin
lstration there must not be metropolitans and
arcnDlshops, and patriarchs, and a pope even
put these officers are simply and purely eccle-
s1astcal; they come into existence as a mat
ter OF necessity in the conduct of business
whether sacred or secular, and have no more
claim to be directly the creation of God than
United States.''
You will notice in this statement that the
apostles were declared to have been organized
into corporation. No one of them we are
told, had more power than the other: they
were absolutely equal. Yet the bishop goes
on to say that for purposes of practical ad-
ministration there may be an archbishop.
metropolitan, or even a pope. AS if Catholic
ever believed that pope was for any other
purpose than administration and instruction
AS IL a Catholic ever believed that pope
mad any right to temporal or material power
Whatever authority he divinely has is purely
spiritual. How could it be possible il the
first bishops were absolutely equal, that one
should have jurisdiction over the others? How
could that power arise II it had not come
from Christ?
Bishop Seymour goes on to say that there
rose upon the view three popes almost in
immediate succession. diverse from each 9TH
er, but all as far removed as possible from
the mind Of Christ. These were Alexander
w.. who was pope when Henry. VIII was
child, and when America was discovered,
the monster OF sensualism and vice;Julius H.,
who granted dispensation, in spite of Gods
law, for Henry Prince Of Wales, to marry
widow, and thus planted the seed whose fruit
was the severance of England from the see
of Rome, and Leo x, who was pope when
Luther posted his theses in the public square
Of Wittenburg. Leo was the elegant scholar.
devoted to letters, and if not tainted with
infdelity at least caring little for the cause
OF religion. The sensualist, the warrior and
the unbeliever succeed each other in the
chief see of Christendom, and shock the
world with the frightful contrasts thus pre-
sented between Christ and the popes''
The idea here conveyed is that, through the
manipulation of the papal power and through
the degradation Of the papacy ITSELF The
greatest evils were inflicted upon the world
1t is true that there have been popes who
were no credit to the church, and there have
been Christians that were no credit to Chris
tianity; but do you pick out one Christian
and say that on account Of his faults the
whole system Of Christianity is wrong? Do
you select two or three popes out OF more
than $50 ana, because they were not ideal,