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May 8, 1912 ] THE:
more and more tainted with fraud and injustice.
The Christians involved, sometimes with
but little direct personal responsibility, must
needs share in the odium which justly adheres
to tlie whole system. They are known by the
company they keep. Unfortunately we are
having too many examples of prominent
churcn members who have grown rich not on
]y oy the practice of the economic virtues, but
also Dy the use of the Devil's mot'-ds. The
Church sutlers grievously. It finds itself unable
to speak with authority to the poor, held
fast in their poverty not only by conditions
which can be removed by regeneration and
a new personal life, but also by conditions
which are in part discreditable to the Church
and in part are removeable by the Church.
For the Church is responsible for the conduct
of its members. Discipline may be dead. If
so, the Church itself is responsible for its
death, and should hasten to secure its resurrection.
Thus we are brought to consider the great
problem which now confronts the Church in
this country. 1 may say, which confronts especially
the Protestant churches, the churches
holding closest to the primitive Christian
ideals. These ideals, as we have seen, foster
a mode of life admirably adapted to enable
Christ's people to overcome adverse economic
and social conditions, to emerge from poverty
and to amass wealth. Can and will these
ideals foster a mode of life in the Church now
become rich and powerful which will enable
it to command a hearing from men of every
class, and especially from those who are held
down by poverty; a mode of life which will
enable the Church to speak with divine authority
and power?
Upon the answer which the Church shall
actually give to this question depends its future
in this country and in every other country.
It may continue to seek its wealth in
questionable ways, and to spend its wealth
in self-indulgence; self-indulgence of the
grosser sort. It may seek to imitate the
Devil *8 rich in personal and domestic extravagance,
in the satisfaction of every sensuous
and earthly desire. It may spend its
wealth, however gotten, in a more refined religious
but not Christian self-indulgence; costly
churches, a highly artistic, formal and barren
ritualistic worship, a splendid pulpit oratory.
It will thus widen the gap that separates
and alienates it from the poor.
It is melancholy to note just here that in
the past this has always been the choice of
the Church in the days of its prosperity. With
an amazing uniformity it has shown that it is
as difficult for a rich church to stay in the
Kingdom of God, as it is for a rich man .to en
ter into that Kingdom.
But it is not too late to mend. The Church
or some portion of it, may yet anoint its eyes
with eye salve that it may see. It may yet
be clothed with white raiment that the shame
of its nakedness may not appear. It may yet
buy of its Lord gold tried in the fire that it
may be rich. It may zealously renounce all
Huestionable methods of seeking wealth. It
may yet renounce a life of ease and luxury, a
life indifferent to the awful guilt, depravity,
poverty and wretchedness of countless millions
of men hasting to death, to judgment and
on endless hell. It may yet use its wealth,
oecured by the practice of the Christian virtues,
to accomplish the great end' for which it
was created. This is, first and chiefly, the
gathering and perfecting of Christ's people
?ut of every land and every race. It does this
by preaching and by living the primitive
ln8tian region; the religion which exalts
P RE SB VTERIAH OF THE SO
God and humbles men; which proclaims the
man's guilt, depravity and helplessness, and
yet offers salvation without money or price
through a crucified Redeemer; the Tcligiou
which inculcates the practice of those virtues
1- ' l ' '
which creates wcaitn and refuses to be enervated
by wealth; the religion which moves
men not only to practice justice and generosity,
but also to remove all that is removable
from those economic and social conditions
which tend to make and to keep men
poor; the religion which uses wealth to furnish
work to those who will work and which
pays a just wage to every worker.
Thus living and thus preaching, thus showing
the mind of its Master, thus visiting the
fatherless and the widows in their affliction,
thus keeping itself unspotted from the world,
the Church will commend itself, if not to the
rich and th'e powerful, to the poor and wretched,
from among whom, for the most part, its
uui; cuuveris nave always come and always
will come. It will be able to sneak with a divine
authority out of a genuine Christian experience
to those who sit in darkness and the
shadow of death, saying: Come with us and
we will do you good. We offer you salvation
from sin, its guilt, its depravity and its power.
We offer you work, remunerative, comfort
producing work. We offer you the discipline
of a frugal, earnest, self-denying life; a life
which issues in eternal blessedness. For godliness
is profitable unto ali things, having a
promise of the life that now is, and of that
which is to come.
Some of us have been hearing a great deal
in these last days about religious leaders; the
need of such and how to get them. Some
of us are as ignorant as we ever were of what
these "experts" mean by "religious," and
whither the proposed leaders are to lead us.
What the people of the United States need,
what these university and other expert purveyors
of leaders need, are Christian leadel's;
men and women who will lead the Church
hack to primitive faith in a crucified Redeemer;
back to a simple life of hard work and
self-denial; back to the practice of the primitive
virtues, which can honestly acquire and
rightly use the wealth of this world, so that
when it fails the owners may have treasure in
the Heavenly kingdom, where neither moth
nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
not break through nor steal.
St. Louis, Missouri.
DOTV/rtl'O WOmTlf A mTi mTTW A vrviTkTM A
AUiiifi o liOlllTlAili ur liLEi AULEiAXUAn
CONSTITUTION; OR THE SYLLABUS
OF POPE PIUS IX.
Let my readers now see how the Roman
Catholic Church also declares herself sovereign
aiid independent in her Constitution, the Syllabus.
She declares her sovereignty and independence
in such a way as to conflict totally
with the independence and sovereignty of
all other governments whether religious or political,
yea more, the Roman Catholic Constitution
is such that there is no room for other
independent sovereignties. She alone may enjoy
freedom for herself and her doctrines.
Let my readers see for themselves. I use
the translation of the Jesuit Schrader, Pro.
19. "The church is a true and perfect society,
entirely free, and possesses her proper and
A ?X? 1- J X- 1 v v - -T
ijeriuuueui rigiiis grumeu 10 ner ay ner aivxne
Founder, and it does not belong to the State
to define what are the rights of the church,
and what are the" limits within which she can
exercise them."
A glorious and even evangelical declaration
of the independence and sovereignty which
the Christian Church ought to enjoy were it
U T H (511) 3
not because the proclamation of the union of
Church and State to the exclusion of all other
religious denominations makes the Roman
Catholic Church the nlo^t despotic and tyrannical
of all systems ever Seen on earth.
Let my readers see for themselves; Proposihftn
91 lino 4->V*a
uuo tuc pvuci UU^liUltlcally
to decide that the religion of the Catholic
Church is the only true religion."
Proposition 22, "The obligation which completely
binds Catholic teachers and authors
must not be limited only to subjects which are
propounded to all, to be believed as articles
of faith by an infallible utterance of the
church."
Proposition 23, "The Pope of Rome and the
general councils have not exceeded the limits
of their power. They have not usurped the
rights of princes, and in detining doctrines
of faith and morals they have not erred."
Proposition 24, 4"The church has the power
to use external force. She has also a direct
and an indirect temporal po\Ver."
Proposition 26, "The church has an innate
and legitimate right of acquisition and possession."
97 < < 1H. ~ ; 1 J._ -C
~ * u^vmtivu *. , x iic uiuamtu acr vums u i
the church and the Roman Pontiff are by no
means to be excluded from all control and
dominion over temporal affairs."
The Roman Catholic Church claims also
the most extravagant independence for her officers
:
Proposition 30, "The immunity of the
church and of ecclesiastical persons has not
its origin in civil law."
Proposition 31, "Spiritual jurisdiction for
temporal causes of the clergy, both civil and
criminal, is not, by any means, to be abolished,
and not without consulting the apostolic see
or against its protest."
Proposition 32, "The abolition of the exemption
of the clergy and students for the
priesthood from military service can not take
place without a violation of natural right and
Of justice; and the progress of the State does
not demand its abolition, especially in a State
which is constituted with a free government."
When I speak of what Rome demands of
public servants my readers will see that any
layman who prosecutes a priest before a civil
court not only commits a mortal sin but incurs
excommunication and the judge who
willingly undertakes such a prosecution becomes
ipso facto excommunicated.
Let my readers see how the Roman Catholic
Church proclaims the union of Church and
State:
Proposition 55, "The Church is neither to
be separated from the State, nor the State
from the Church."
Then she condemns religious freedom:
.Proposition 15, "Every man is not entitled
to embrace and to profess that religion which
he may hold for the true one, led by the light
of reason."
Proposition 16, "Men can not find the way
of eternal salvation, and obtain eternal blessedness,
in the practice of every kind of religion."
Proposition 17, "The eternal salvation of
all those who do not live in any way in the
true church of Christ is not to be hoped for."
Proposition 77, "In our time, it is still essential
that the Catholic religion should be
held as the only State religion, to the exclusion
of all other forms of reliurion."
She condemns freedom of the press:
Proposition 79, "It is true that freedom of
worship granted by the states, and permission
given to every one to publish all manner of
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