The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-26
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
EXPRESSIONS FROM VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
The Religious Thought Of the Day
as Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press.

1.-THE accession of Professor Charles
| A. Briggs to the Protestant Episcopal
Church, SO far as he has any influence,
| will increase the tendency toward mi
grafton to Rome" says the New York
| Christian Advocate" (Meth). Last
week he delivered an address ON the
changed relations of Rome toward
| Professionalism, in which, among other
things, he said: I know three prorni-
nent Protestant theologians of different
denominations who have deliberately
rejected the Protestant doctrine of
justification by faith, and adopted the
Roman doctrine as set forth IN the de-
crees of the Council of Trent. This
movement has only got to go on, and
you will have unity; if the Roman
| Catholic Church recognize the author
ity of the Bible as they ought, and the
Protestants will only recognize the
church as they should, there will not
be so much objection to one another
What differences there have been will
eventually disappear This simply be-
longs to the long category of Professor
Briggs eccentricities. The Roman
Catholic Church is working now with
some success in many places on the
ton. From beginning to end the Ro-
man Catholic Church is unlike Prot
testanism, and it's distinctions of i'm
portance have been superinduced upon
the Bible and are not found in it.
Catholics believe in the infallible au-
thority of the church. Professionalism
believes in the fallibility of the church,
and tests it by the Bible. AS an or
ganism Professionalism is and must ever
be the foe of Roman Catholicism, con-
sidered as a sacerdotal and gigantic
combination to consolidate and exer-
else absolute domination of the think
ing processes of the lay mind upon all
questions of morals and religion.
I'm a line with this (modern super
stition)," says the interior (Pres) of
Chicago, comes the marked revival OF
Romish observances in the English
Church, just at the time when Ameri-
can Romanism is in a measure freeing
itself from it's medieval excrescences.
Religion after the New Testament pat
tern is virile and cheerful. 1t is not
afraid of devils and not, distrustful of
God. 1t wears neither a 'good-luck
ring nor a jeweled cross, neither fiber
from a hangman'S rope nor scapular
blessed by the Pope. But while IN
America the revival of superstition
takes on it's pagan form, as rule IN
England it is marked by it's ecclesl-
astical symbols. The mysterious ana
visible wafer supplants the Invisible
and free forgiving Christ as the hope
of the supplicant. The proper service
of Almighty God becomes not mat
ter of spirit and truth but of vest
ments, and postures, and genuf1exlons.
and anointings True religion has
life as free as the air, as wide as the
sea, and as clear as a morning without
clouds What our Puritan forbears
used to call the rags of popery' are
only SO many indications that the men
who trust to these things are not able
to believe that God is as large in His
benevolence as he is gracious in His
promises. And yet, despite all these in
dications of reversion, the great cur
rent of human affairs moves on. 1t is
only the man of restricted vision who
mistakes the eddy for the stream. We
note these return movements of SUI
perstition. pagan and churchly, because
they are reversals, and so conspicuous.
Whatever a few men may do, the whole
world is never going back to its old
time bondage of fear
"The declarations of the Pope Gin his
letter to Cardinal Gibbons) are logical
and consistent" says the Christian
Register (Unit) of Boston, but in
one respect they are not in accord with
the facts. While he admits that there
are certain endowments which belong
to the American people which create
tvpe of national character. and does not
object to calling that Americanism, he
affirms that the church in America can
not be different from what it is in the
rest of the world Now, in fact, it is
different. Excepting a formal and ex-
ternal likeness in doctrine, discipline
and order of worship, the Catholic
Church in America resembles the Cath
Ole Church in Spain scarcely more
than the Unitarian Church resembles
the Presbyterian. Doubtless, by this
time Leo XIII. has discovered that
Bishop Keane and the Archbishop of
Manila do, represent sections of the
Catholic Church between which there
is gulf almost as wide and deep as
that between some forms of Cathol-
icism and some forms of Protentanism.
When the Pope says the Catholic
Church of America cannot be unlike
the Catholic Church in other countries,
we are reminded of the anecdote OF
Lola Montez. While riding in a rail-
way car, she lighted a cigarette. Where-
upon the conductor approached her.
and politely said: Madam, you cannot
smoke here Taking the cigarette from
her mouth, and slowly exhaling the
smoke, she replied: But you see do
The Catholic Church in America is diff
ferent from any other part of the