OCTOBER. "THE FUTURE OF ROMANISM IN THE UNITED STATES." OUR UR nation is standing between two eras. Her feet are planted on territory from which she is about to take her departure into untrodden fields. Like Abraham, staff in hand, about to begin his journey westward at the bidding of Providence to abide in a land he knew not, the American Republic is just setting forth, with a faith scarcely as strong as that of the patriarch, to discover in the future her political Canaan. Behind her lie the ruins of a system at war with every principle of Christian civilization. The temple slavery had erected for herself, out of blood and bones, is prostrate with the earth. Traces of its ruins are still apparent in the vices, prejudices, and manners that were a part of itself. Yet they exist only as broken arches and shattered pillars, to be dissolved by the touch of time and the remodeling hand of Christianity. As a system of civilization slavery is in ruins. The nation is already leaving it. Her back is toward the past, her face is turned to the future. Before her lie the unhewn materials for a grander superstructure-a temple dedicated to humanity, to God. Not an edifice that shall shelter a favored race, and expose a weaker and more needy, but a temple of constitutional liberty that shall throw its protecting arches over the outcast from all nationalities in terms of social and political equality. Can this temple be constructed? If that be possible, will it stand? Will it endure the test of time? Is it a dream of social idealists, a delusion of political maniacs, or an attainable success? The answer to this important question involves a study of influences, favorable or unfavorable, an investigation of forces, social, political, and religious. VOL. XXIX.-16* It must be confessed that wise statesmen and far-seeing patriots differ in conclusions. Very many are acquiescing in the radical tendencies of the American nation without the faith that nerved the heart of Abraham. They doubt the expediency of introducing the principle of universal suffrage into the Federal Constitution without at least some qualification that will serve as a door of escape in possible emergencies. What, say they, if the destructive forces among us should rebound upon us with bludgeon blows? What if this ballot power, more potent with us than the bayonet, should fall into the hands of the ingathering hordes of Europe and Asia? What if the Pope should empty his moral rottenness on our shores, and, with the aid of demagogues and the kindred vice of our own land, outnumber us at the ballot-box? What if Cuba, Canada, and the semi-barbarous States on our Southern borders, should gravitate to us with their ignorance and lawlessness? It must be confessed that no subject, since the presentation of the slave conspiracy, is engrossing the attention of thoughtful patriots like the probable or possible influence of the Amendment. In the consideration Fifteenth, of this subject there is probably no one hostile element that looms up before the national imagination with a darker outline, and a more foreboding aspect than the future of Romanism. Here, in our midst, is a vast religious system, hostile to the genius of our institutions, silently and stealthily grasping for political power, consolidating all kindred forces that will ally themselves in the selfish anticipation of spoils and authority, and using them to further the interests of their religious hierarchy. Can they accomplish their purpose? Will our amended Constitution aid the consummation of their cherished plans? In other words, what is to be the future of Romanism on our soil, protected by the welcoming flag of the Republic? Many are alarmed at the prospect, others are confident of the ascendency of Protestantism, and the peaceful subjugation of the man of sin. But we fear neither party hold very definite reasons for their hopes or fears. We need calm and well-grounded convictions on this question. It will not do to be alarmed at phantoms of our own getting up, nor yet to slumber in indifference while the enemy is sewing his tares among us. The fearful ones should examine the premises from which their conclusions flow, and the confident should fortify their conscious security by diligent investigation of facts and principles. Unreasonable alarm is a confession of weakness, while careless indifference is a crime against ourselves. To indulge either is to betray ourselves to the rout. In forming a judgment of the future of Romanism, it is necessary that we examine the basis on which the system rests. Every system must have a basis, a distinctive foundation principle, on which the superstructure reposes, and no correct judgment can be formed of its future without a clear apprehension of that principle. That once disclosed, we can judge of its probable success or defeat by a calculation of the relative strength of the cohesive forces that combine to give it permanency, and the repulsive and disintegrating forces that combine for its destruction. Romanism has such a basis, and it is not difficult to discover it. Heaving aside the rubbish of form and ceremony, the aggregation of centuries, and digging directly toward our object, we discover its foundation stones emblazoned with that talismanic word of Christianity-"Faith." Faith, the holiest principle of spirit-life, the parent of virtue, the eternal source of activity, sentiment, affection, progress, is the cornerstone of Romanism. Indeed, so far is this assertion true that the Church will not willingly permit any thing else in the souls of its adherents. All faculties and endowments of the mind and heart must be dwarfed, crushed, extirpated, if need be, so that faith may reign without a rival. Now here is truth-" without faith it is impossible to please him." Faith is a prime necessity of probational life. Without it probation is practically ended. Pilate might have been arrested by the tender and searching inquiry of Jesus, "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?" had he not been a universal skeptic in relation to all spiritual truth. The loss of faith in the reality of the invisible is the most deplorable calamity that can befall a human soul. When that is the prevailing condition of the heart the hour of judgment has practically arrived. But here is also error. Romanism says, Faith is the only necessity of probational life. This is a half-truth, and hence erroneous, for a half-truth can no more be truth than a hemisphere can be a full-orbed world. Faith is not all of life. Other spiritual endowments are just as essential. Reason is as essential; intelligence is as essential. For the apostle says, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Now Romanism rejects reason and intelligence, and the Word of God as the natural antagonists of faith. She says to her benighted millions, "You must not reason or investigate even the Word of Life. You must only believe;" and the better to accomplish her object, she closes the Bible, darkens the realm of nature, shuts the eye of the intellect, and stultifies every mental endowment. Her theory is, exalt faith by the extirpation of reason, by the waste and desolation of all the faculties of intelligence. So far as Romanism builds on faith she is right; so far as she rejects reason and intelligence she is wrong. A true Christianity must be constructed by reason and faith conjoined, pulling up the superstructure of truth with the skill of reason, as far as reason can reach by demonstration, and completing the rest with faith when reason fails of a foothold. But faith can not exist without previous intellections. Belief implies an object of apprehension, and apprehension implies mental action. Hence Romanism must yield to the pressure of necessity. She can not wholly extirpate mental action without extirpating faith. But true to her theory she yields no more than imperious necessity demands. She permits just enough mental cultivation to apprehend her own teachings, and nothing more. She educates, but never liberally. Her culture is narrow, bigoted, blighting. Necessarily so. For broad culture is only possible with the cultivation of every faculty, and such culture she discards. She teaches her millions to believe, but what? Ay, here is the fundamental error of her organization-believe the Church. Have faith, but in what? God, revelation? No, the Church. We make the same charge against Romanism that Christ made against the scribes and Pharisees, that they taught not God's words, but their own traditions. Just here Romanism and Protestantism differ. The name indicates the distinction. Protestantism, "I protest." You assert, I differ. Your dogmas are neither from revelation or reason, |