The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-04-04

| lgous territory lying between the marshlands OF
Agnosticsm and the highlands settled by the Kit
ualistic or Tractarian people of his own church
If so, the Bishop, to be consistent, must admit p
spiritual affinity between Episcopalianism and
those sects (which deny Christ in the flesh
and which ST. John tells us "are of ant-Christ."
He cannot possibly make the term "the church
embrace the Church of Rome, for the Homilies Of
his own church without any reservation state that:
''In the pit of damnable idolatry, all the world, as
it were drowned, continued until age (the Ref
ormation by the space of eight hundred years,
that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned all
ages, sects and degrees of men, women and chill
dren of whole Christendom have been at once
drowned in abominable idoatry of all other vices
most detested of God and most damnabe to men,"
This was spoken of the Church of Rome, and
that Church has in no way and no time since the
short reign of Edward VI, repented or changed for
the BETTER she yet remains idolatrous and, of
sity, outside the pale of Christianity. We notice if
the bishop be correctly reported, that, in the
else of the great Christian virtue of charity, the
right reverend gentleman separates the community
into two distinct bodies-society and the church
working along the same lines but independently of
each other.
In hi saddress the Bishop would lead to in
fer that the Church is a religious and charitable
institution and that society is secular and altru
istic organization; that they mutually act and react
upon each other but are not subject to the
higher law. Hence, we conclude that to help the
needy is, the part of the Church, duty bind
ing under sin, while on the part of society it is
merely matter of convenience. On the side of
the Church it is law of charity; that of society
it is philanthropy or pagan benevoence If this be
not So why does Bishop Spalding separate society
from the Church in the exercise of Christian vir-
tueI
What. them does the Bishop mean by the
Church" He surely does not wish us to under
stand him to have said that in the word church
he included all the ''sects of perdition' and lying
spirits filling the conventicles. halls and churches
of our country. for that sort of church would be
a monstrosity; that is. something that lives
breathes and moves and has no head
Its pity that scholarly gentleman. filing the
exalted office of Bishop in the Protestant Epis-
copa Church. is not particular in the choice
of his words we are disposed to blame the reporter
but what can we do if the Bishop did not trouble
himself to revise the report. We can condone the
ordinary terminoogy of the average newspaper or
magazine writer. but when a Bishop does Us the
honor to address us, we look for accuracy Of ex-
preston and precision of words We take it. then
that by "the church, the Ri. Rev. Father in God
means the Protestant Episcopal Church Of the
United States.
When the Bishop says that his church is not
doing what it ought and can to help the very
needy is he not appealing to mother whose
breasts have been dry for many centuries! When,
as spiritual mother, did she ever give any but q
few drops of milk to children dying of hunger and
thirst Charity to the poor, Bishop, is of the
marks by which we recognize and know the Church
of God. Was it not Isaias, speaking for Christ
who said: HE sent me to bind up the broken
hearted. and to proclaim liberty to the captives;"
and did not another great prophet of God cry out
in the name of Jesus Christ "Evangeizare pau
peribus mist me'-he sent me to preach to the
poor! And when the Church of God, after three
centuries Of hidden life, came out from the gloom
of the caacombs, was not her first concern for the
poor and needy.
All through the Authentic Acts of Ancient
Martyrs, collected by Ruinart and Asseman we
find most touching proofs of the charity of the
Church towards the poor and of the stupendous
change wrought in mems heart by those acts of
love-
If were an enlightened heather searching
today for the Church founded by Jesus Christ, We
would, from our reading of the prophecies and the
practice of the early church. as recorded by his
tory, look for that Religious Body the universally
Of whose charity and the number of whose n8titu-
tons, founded for the shelter of the orphan and
The assuagement of human sorrow and human suf
fering, commended it to all spiritually thoughtful
men.
Now, of all that vast variety of charitable and
benevolent institutions which adorn our country
and do honor to human nature how many of these
institutions owe their inception and support to the
Protestant Episcopal Church, the Church which, in