Evening star., 1929-11-30

@. Our clergyman is an Episcopalian.
But he does not like to be called a
Protestant. He criticizes the name I
was taught to honor. Why is this?
A. He probably claims an unbroken
ecclesiastical descent through the An
glican episcopacy from the ancient
church of the pre-Reformation period.
The Anglo-Catholic party Of your
church asserts this claim, and other
clergymen Of that communsion also
favor it.
Protestant" is a somewhat ambigu-
Gus term. If all who have denounced
abuses and Striven for reforms were in
any sense ProteStants, some renowned
figures of the Roman Catholic faith
come under that description. The
writings of Erasmus, Contarini, Igna-
thus Loyola and Pope Paul w are IA
nous for their fearless exposures of
wrongs and pleas for amendment.
1t is of the essence of modern Prot
estantism, however, that every indi-
vidual believer Is free to arrive at his
own conclusions about religion, and
to express them as he pleaSes, without
let or hindrance. Yet the early re-
formers did not concede this freedom.
The Lutherans and Calvinist Churches
followed a long and rough road III
their pursuit Of liberation, both within
their own borders and for each other.
The passage from mere liberation to
genuine fraternity is now in process,
and it likewise confronts numerous OBJ
stacles. Liberty is not a lovely maiden
wooed by all. She is a battle-scarreo
Amazon, constantly on the alert
against unnumbered foes.
The term Catholic" Is also mis-
leading. No one church is universal.
ChrIst's empire is divided. True, its
Greek. Roman and Anglican branches,
respectively, claim catholicism for their
several communions. But as things
are it is an ideal to be realized rather
than an established fact. Hence, Prot
estant and Catholic are technical
terms, leaving much to be understood
which they do not cover.
@. If as Christians we believe in i'm
mortality, why do We value human life
so much and make every effort to
prolong the lives of chronic invalids
and hopeless sufferers?
A. One frequently meet the idea
that belief in immortality lessons regard
for life here and now. 1t is founded
on the further idea that all ills will
be abolished in future existence.
Your question points In this direction.
shorten earthly life since death is not
the end.
The fact that life is ever lord Of
DEATH" however, gives present life q
significance which otherwise it could
not have. Anything in man destined
to live eternally has intrinsic values
which are never to be handled in a
careless, still less destructive fashion.
Life may be hampered by difficulty and
tortured by pain. But to cut it off in
any realm is a virtual denial of its
values and an act of supreme folly.
In the first instance, life is a gift
received and not an acquisition secured
by our own efforts and volition. Its
sources are independent Of human will.
Hence, what man does not beStoW he
has no right to take away, except in
obedience to the self-protecting instinct
Of the individual or the state.
For these reasons the basic measure
ment of any civilization is its esteem
for human life and for whatever con-
tributes to its welfare and prolongation.
Which do you think is the nobler at
titude, that of the savage who abandons
| his sickly or malformed child to perish
from exposure, or that of the physician
who finds In the helplesSness of such
, a case a challenge of his best gifts?
Even when suffering is Chronic" and
speedy death its inevitable outcome,
civilized man exhaustS his resources to
lessen the patients burden and keep
him here awhile. Death is foe to be
fought because it is the denial of life
Hence, we are justified in fighting it to
| the last ditch, and until the supreme
| will intervenes to end the struggle.
| @. What is the meaning and inter-
probation OF Chapter xvii, 13, OF
| Isaiah?
A. The chapter of which these verses
form the conclusion Is q typical ex-
ample of those apocalyptic references
with which contemporary Jewish liter
ature abounded, in which symbols and
/ neurological epithets are employed to
convey certain truths. These figura-
| tive passages are difficult for us to un-
| derstand, but to their first readers they
were perfectly intelligible.
Perhaps a comparison OF the text you
quote with the thirteenth verse of the
fifth chapter of Isaiah will help you
Here the promise is given that the
Jews who had been exileG in lands both
east and west Of Palestine should -e-