Does not this fact conclusively demonstrate the truth that
the Catholic Church can subsist under every form of government?
And is it not an eloquent refutation of the oft repeated
calumny that a republic is not a favorable soil for her
development?
I
dare say you could have found, a few years since, some
persons in the United States who entertained a holy fear lest
the Pope should one morning land upon our shores, and take
forcible possession of our country. A venerable clergyman once
informed me that when he went to pay his respects to President
Pierce, who then occupied the White House, his Excellency remarked
to him: “I had a visit from a nervous gentleman, who
asked me whether I was making any preparations to resist the
approach of the Pope. I replied that so far I had taken no
steps, but that no doubt I would be prepared to meet the enemy
when he arrived. The man retired more composed, though not
fully satisfied.”
Some
of the evils that were predicted to follow from the
occupation of Rome by a foreign power have been too speedily
realized. Already several convents and other ecclesiastical
institutions have been seized and sold, and their inmates sent
adrift. A number of colleges founded and endowed by the
piety of foreign Catholics have been confiscated. Public religious
processions through the streets of Rome have been prohibited.
These and other outrages are perpetrated by a
government which solemnly pledged itself to maintain inviolate
the sovereign rights of the Holy Father when it took
forcible possession of his city in 1870. From the events that
have already transpired, we shall not be surprised to see the
Pope still more seriously hampered by a monarch who has unscrupulously
violated his former guarantees.
Some
time ago, my attention was called to a certain excommunication
or “curse,” then widely circulated by the press of
North Carolina. The “curse” is attributed to the Holy Father,
and is fulminated against Victor Emmanuel. In this anathema,
cursing and damning are heaped up in wild confusion. When
this base forgery appeared, an article exposing the falsehood
of the production was published. We fear, however, that many
who read the slanderous charge did not read its refutation.
While Protestants
consider the cup as an indispensable
part of the communion service, they do not seem, in many instances,
to be very particular as to what the cup will contain.
And the New York Independent, of September 21, 1876, relates
the following incident: “A late English traveler found a Baptist
mission church, in far-off Burmah, using for the communion
service Bass's pale ale instead of wine. The opening
of the frothing bottle on the communion table seemed
not quite decorous to the visitor, who presented the pastor
with a half-dozen bottles of claret for sacramental use.”
Articuli pro Clero, A.D.
1584. Sparrow, 194. I admit, indeed,
that Protestant canons have but a fleeting and ephemeral
authority even among themselves, and that the canons must
yield to the spirit of the times, not the times to the canons. I
dare say that even few Protestant theologians are familiar with
the canons to which I have referred. Some people have a convenient
faculty of forgetting unpleasant traditions.
American
Cyclop., art Divorce. Our Savior declares that
he who marrieth an adulteress committeth adultery. Yet
Luther and Calvin declare that it is unwise to oppose such a
marriage. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”
And Wisdom has said: “I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise.” (I. Cor. i.)