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PAGE TWO
those lands, like Scotland and Holland, where
Nature had been so niggardly.
And, in regard to Rome's wonderful or
ganization, the Romanists do not quote Ma
caulay’s highest tribute to its art and its
craft, for he says, that nothing else than just
such an artful and crafty organization could
have supported such, doctrines as those of the
Roman church.
Ask yourself whether that high tribute to
the Roman organization is not a smashing
blow at its peculiar type of “religion.”
Does the doctrine of Christ depend upon
artful, crafty organizations?
Does Christianity need complicated wheels
within wheels?
Apostolic pioneers conquered the pagan
nations, with the H ord’, why did the bishops
of Rome, 900 years afterwards, begin to
create an artfid. crafty organization, whose
secret springs are oath-bound societies, which
the Catholic laymen know nothing about?
Protestant churches have never resorted to
these elaborate secret organizations: why does
Romanism have to do it?
As tor Ma card ay’s reference to the venera
ble age of Popery, there is this to lx said: the
Roman church, in its present form, is 600
years younger than Christianity ; younger
than the Nestorian, Armenian, and Syro-
Rulian churches; 1.000 years younger than
y-iddhism. 1)00 years younger than Con
ianism. and 1,500 years younger than the
religion of Zoroaster.
'bulged by faith and doctrine, all the Pro
testant chnrcb.es are 600 years older than the
Roman Catholic papacy.
Christian churches must be judged, not by
t’ eir names, but by their creeds.
I f my creed is in accord with the New
I estament, then my religion is 1917 years
oil.
Christ never made a religion that needed a
box-car, to travel in; or a house built, with
1 nd<. to live in: or a professional minister's
voice, to make itself understood.
I he reason why the Roman church is so
complicated, so elaborate, and so complex in
its secret organization is, that the priesthood
aspired to wealth and power; and therefore
/Zoy gradually constructed a system which
i- ''her the priest indispensable and supremely
sovereign.
Christ- didn't do that: Paul and Peter did
not: none of the Fathers did: the priestly
hierarchy was built up, piece by piece, after
the Bishops of Rome began to merge their
spiritual office in the political.
(See Mosheim. Waddington, Garretson,
Ihi' khouse, Hopkins, INewman, on Church
T; istory. Also. Bryce's Holy Roman Empire,
”he Papal Monarchy, DeCormenin, Bower,
and Gucttee, on Popes and Papacy.)
Mr. Callahan selected for his use. in de
livering his Message, Rev. Charles B. Mitch
ell, of Chicago. (Methodist), who testified in
behalf of Popery in Chicago, April. 1914.
Brother .Mitchell says, that he loves the
Roman Church because it never “questions
l ! ie deity of Christ.”
How a Christian church could afford to
dynamite its own foundations, I cannot see.
Bro. Mitchel IN next reason for loving the
Roman organization is, that it believes in the
religious training of its children.
Do Protestant churches not believe in that,
and practise it ?
Except the Roman Catechism and a few
prayers to the Virgin. Rome never trained
rhe children of the masses, until Protestant
ism compelled her io compete.
There were no schools for common children,
until the Protestant Reformation.
(See Bancroft's “Historical Miscellanies,*’
page 406. Also “Puritans in England, and
America :'* Campbell.)
Even now, the Roman church never edu
cates the common people in Catholic
countries; and that's why the Romanists
THE JEFFERSONIAN
fought so hard to prevent the reading test
from being applied to Immigrants.
The illiterate countries are not Protestant,
but Catholic!
Bro. Mitchell says that his third reason for
loving the Roman church is, that “it stands
for the purity of home life, and the sanctity
of the marriage vows.”
M by, then, does it grant divorces to the
rich and powerful, denying them to the com
moners?
Why does it sanction aristocratic bigamy,
by allowing the favored few to keep “mor
ganatic” wives, and regular wives, at the
same time?
Why does it sanction, in Latin countries,
the lover for the wife, and the mistress for
the husband?
Why does it allow the greedy priests to
charge such exorbitant fees for marriage,
that the common people, unable to pay, live
together without a ceremony, and add to the
population a vast majority of illegitimate
children ?
This is notoriously true of countries where
Romanism rules.
It is not true of any country where Pro
testantism prevails.
Which is better for Christian civilization—-
a few thousand legal divorces, based upon
statutory grounds, or millions of concubines
and bastards, degrading to society?
Fourthly Bro. Mitchell loves the Roman
church “for its defense of th.e Bible.”
Is it a defense of the Bible to elevate
“tradition" to an equality with it?
“Tradition" is th.e word of popes: the Bible
is believed by Christians to be the Word of
God. It is remarkabble to hear a Methodist
preacher say, in effect, that the Bible is
defended, when the pope's word is put on an
equality with God's.
If to have virtually concealed the Bible,
for more than 1,200 years, is a defense of it,
then I admit that the Roman church de
fended it— ruthlessly murdering those few
Catholics who dared papal wrath by reading,
in secret, the Book!
If to have forbidden the translation of it,
into the common language of the people, (so
that all could read it.) was a defense of the
Bible, then I admit that the popes defended
it, for they punished most horribly the early
Protestants who dared Rome's wrath by
translating “God's Word.”
If it is a defense of the Bible to print, on
the fly-leaf of every Catholic version, an
Admonition against reading it, then I admit
that Rome defends it: I have two copies of
the Catholic Bible, and both of them warn
me—and other laymen— not to read the Book,
icithout priestly license!
Brother Mitchell should remember that the
Roman Church also defends the Bible, by
burning it, when she finds it in the hands of
unlicensed laymen.
For example, the priests burnt 2,500 Bibles
at Vigan, Philippine Islands, three years ago.
Lastly, Bro. Mitchell loves the Roman
church because it protects us against “the
seething masses of foreigners of a certain
type.”
Does it? The worst type of foreigner that
I'm acquainted with, is the Italian organizers,
of murder-gangs, and they are always Cath
olics.
And. by fighting for unrestricted immigra
tion, the Roman church sided with “the seeth
ing masses of foreigners,” whom we “pat
riots” wanted to keep away.
Mr. Callahan’s next witness, is Rev. C. L.
Harbord, (Kansas City, Mo.) and this minis
ter of the Christian church is extremely fa
vorable to Papacy.
First, Bro. Harbord says, that the Cath
olic church dates back to the Ist century,
while Protestantism is 1,500 years younger.
That’s a queer statement for a Disciple of
Alexander Campbell to make. It is my un-
derstanding that the Christian Church — one
of the youngest organizations— prides itself
in deriving its creed from the fountain that
is 1917 years old.
Is Roman Catholicism more ancient?
Bro. Harbord has evidently never under
stood the true meaning of “the Protestant re
ligion.”
Will he please try to grasp the-idea, that
all Protestant churches are the same, in their
main purpose, which is, the restoration of the
religion of Jesus Christ?
AV hen Pope Leo X. sent his Cardinal Caje
tan to argue with Martin Luther, and to con
vince the young German monk of his errors,
these two Catholics found themselves unable
to debate.
Why was this?
Luther claimed that the Bible was the
highest authority, while Cajetan claimed that
papal decrees were supreme: hence, there was
no common ground upon which they could
meet in argument.
(See ; Michelet's “Luther,” page 50 et seg.
Kostlin s “Luther, 5 p. 115 et seg. Every
work on the subject is to the same effect. All
the historians agree on this point.)
Secondly, Bro. Harbord says, that the Ro
man Church has always “been one of unity
of faith and doctrine, while Protestantism has
bred division, strife, contention, and un
rest.”
1 his is the impression which Rome con
. and eagerly seeks to make, and sho
succeeds with men who won't investigate.
No church in the history of mankind ever
was rent by a greater number of internal dis
sensions, than the Roman; and her Councils,
composed of hundreds of bishops, have often
been the scenes of riotous tumult, personal
violence, and even of murder.
r l he Roman Church has changed its faith
and doctrine, dozens of times, on the most
vital matters; whereas the Protestant
churches never have.
The Catholics took the communion cup
away from the laity, after the laity had en
joyed communion of both kinds for a thous
and years.
The Catholics never professed to believe in
the change of bread and wine into the actual
blood and body, until more than a thousand
years after Christ.
The Catholics rejected and scouted the idea
of Universal Bishop, until the year 606.
For hundreds of years after the Bishop of
Rome became the exclusive Pope, the Cath
olics did not dream of asserting his Supre
macy in Temporal matters.
That calamitous and un-Scriptural doctrine
was born in the 9th century after Christ.
On the question of Image-worship, Purga
tory, Celibacy, and Infallibility, the Cath
olics, for centuries; violently fluctuated.
Do we not know that Infallibility was not
decreed, in its final shape, until the Vatican
Council of 1870?
(See Dr. Samuel Edgar's citation of Cath
olic authorities in his “Variations of Popery”
—a work of prodigious learning that should
again be a text-book in Protestant Semina
ries. It proves the many changes that the Ro
man church has made in its “faith and doc
trine.”)
Bro. Harbord arraigns Protestantism for
“division, strife, contention, and unrest.”
Thank God! We're guilty!
We separate from all Paganisms, and go
back to Gospelism—that's our “division.”
Our strife is against image-worship, Mary
worship, Saint-worship, Papal assumption of
God's power to forgive sins, Purgatorial hum
bug, take miracles, a clergy condemned by
celibacy to secret vice, and' womanhood de
graded from the wifely estate to provide con
cubines for Unmarried priests— that's our
“strife.”
Our contention is, that the Christian reli
gion can be, and should be, restored to its
original purity; and even though
Thursday, May 3, 1917<