IT is now denied that the Vatican will ask the Government at Washington to receive a papal nuncio.
IT is said that the Pope will shortly publish an important document relative to the Catholic University at Washington.
AN Illinois paper of August 31, says: “Sunday’s paid attendance at the World’s Fair numbered 20,709, the receipts amounting to about $10,000. The expenses were about $3,000.” September 10, the attendance was over 34,000. But the Christian Statesman says that “Sunday-closing has been practically achieved”!
THERE is to be held in Chicago the last three days of this month, a “Sunday Rest Congress.” The committee in charge of the arrangements, of which Rev. Dr. Atterbury, Secretary of the New York “Sabbath” Committee, is chairman, includes members of the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Methodist, Universalist and Roman Catholic communions, and a representative of the labor organizations of the country.
THE programme of the Sunday Rest Congress, it is stated, provides for addresses by Protestants of various shades of religious opinion, Roman Catholics, Jews and men who will appear simply as specialists, without reference to their religious affiliations. The question will be discussed in its physiological, economic, social and moral, political religious, and miscellaneous relations.
NO definite action will be taken by the Sunday Congress, and it is understood that each speaker will be solely responsible for the views he may advance, and thus be free to say what he pleases. The Bulletin, of the French Popular League, for Sunday rest, among whose leading spirits are Jules Simon and Leon Say, says that while it might have been expected that a Sunday Congress held on the borders of Lake Michigan would be exclusively Protestant, the programme provides for Roman Catholic and Jewish representation, thus showing that there is no greater liberality displayed on the banks of the Seine than on the shores of the American lake.
BUT there need be no surprise either felt or expressed at the “great liberality” displayed in the matter of this Sunday Congress. It matters not how or by what means Sunday is exalted, if only it be exalted. Viewed only from a human standpoint one might well wonder that Jews would join in exalting the day which has ever been the rival of the time-honored Sabbath of the God of Abraham; but it is only natural that Roman Catholics should have a prominent place in doing homage to an institution which is preeminently the badge of papal authority.
THE article on another page, which we reprint from the Catholic Mirror is apropos to this subject. Its appearance in the leading Catholic paper at this time is significant. Just as the leaders of so-called Protestantism are about to assemble to do homage to Sunday, the taunt is by the Catholics thrown in their faces that the claims of Protestants to any part in Sunday are “groundless, self-contradictory, and suicidal.” And what can such Protestants answer? Nothing at all, for Sunday as a “Christian” institution is wholly of papal origin; and back of that its only religious significance was as “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times.” Sunday-keeping Protestants stand abashed before the well-grounded claims of the Papists to proprietorship in the so-called Christian Sabbath.
THE Catholic Mirror publishes the statement, and apparently sees nothing wrong in the fact, that “the reason that President Cleveland appointed Colonel Jesse Sparks, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., to a Mexican consulship, was because the gallant old confederate officer, during Cleveland’s former term, sent him a present of a couple of fat, juicy, Tennessee opossums, which Grover seemed to heartily relish. To show his gratitude for this unique present, Colonel Jesse was tendered a consulate.” If this is not a slander on the President, it certainly is on the Nation. A consulate for two opossums! And yet some people think our liberties secure because we are living in such an enlightened age!
THE Examiner (Baptist) of this city, has this to say about the Congress of Religions:—
There have been intimations—somewhat hazy, it is true—that an attempt is to be made to use the preposterous “Congress of Religions” to convene at Chicago as a sort of catapult for slinging a new religion into the world. The basic proposition is that all religions are true and all are false, and the new cult is to be made up of the best in all of them. Who is to decide what is “best” does not yet appear. A gentleman who professes to have some knowledge of the movement expresses the opinion that it is rather premature; and with that view of the subject we heartily concur.
The congress may not be the occasion of giving a new composite religion to the world, but it will certainly have a tendency to create the impression that one religion is about as good as another, after all; indeed it has done something in this direction already. And as merely moral systems the difference may not be so very great; but while other religions have no power in them or back of them but the power of the human will, there is in Christianity the power of God to transform the soul. This fact has, however, been very largely lost sight of by the promoters of the Congress of Religions. They propose to make an exhibit of Christianity, but they cannot thus exhibit its hidden power, without which it is not Christianity. The Congress of Religions is simply an exhibition of human vanity.
AT its recent meeting at Saratoga, the New York “Sabbath” Association adopted the following resolutions:—
Resolved, That we rejoice in and indorse the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, on February 29, 1892, that “this is a Christian Nation.”
Resolved, That we see in such contrary decisions as that of Judge Stein, of an inferior court, the necessity for putting the decision of the Supreme Court into our national Constitution that all our Christian institutions may have an undeniable legal basis in our fundamental law.
Resolved, That we rejoice in the World’s Fair Sabbath-closing law and in the equally impressive failure of Sunday opening, and we urge that these great victories be vigorously followed up with State and local victories over Sunday papers, Sunday trains and Sunday mails.
Resolved, That we recognize the Church of Christ as the chief reform organization and religion as the very heart of all reforms.
Thus, on every hand, the evidence multiplies that it is the settled purpose of the so-called Protestant churches to control the politics of the country in the interest of their dogmas.
THE much talked of “Faribault plan” of settling the public and parochial school question has proved a failure and is about to be abandoned. The matter is thus explained: The Catholics of Faribault, Minn., whose children attend the parochial school, which was placed under the jurisdiction of the city Board of Education, now insist that only Catholic teachers be engaged there. The Board of Education is willing to have two Catholic teachers only. Otherwise, it says, the purpose of the plan would be lost. As usual the Catholics are modest—they are willing to take everything.
THE 19th of March, the Feast of St. Joseph, will henceforth be officially recognized as a holiday in Portugal. So says the Catholic Review. But what of it? St. Patrick’s day is officially recognized in New York; and Sunday, another popish day, is recognized nearly the world over.