THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 9

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

’ THE EUCHARIST OONGRjESS. ; Front ths many reasons given by the Protestani Alliance anil correspondents for opposing the” procession of the Host through the streets pf ; London last month (September 20) we select the following’:—; A “British’ Chaplain” writes to the ‘Daily.Chronicle’ as follows: —“Now that our Roman'brethren; are complaining so loudly of Protestant’!, intolerance, may we ask them to use their influence to obtain for unoffending members of the Church of England civil treatment in countries where their Church exercises supreme control? Only three summers ago I was refused admittance to a small hotel in the North of Spain, in which I had taken rooms the previous week, because the priest objected to my presence in the village. Let it not In thought I had any desire to proselytise. My respectability had been vouched for by a Roman Catholic gentleman well known to both of us, but in vain. I, with my wife and daughter, had to return to our home twenty miles away. I commend this incident to the notice of all indignant Roman Catholics.” AMr Jonathan Mason writes;—“ The Church of Rome differs from every other denomination in this respect: that in addition to teaching man his duty to God and his neighbor, she claims the right to dictate to him absolutely the course he should take alike in matters spiritual, moral, and political. Were Romo to rule universally (which may she never do again in this country) she would extend her sway to the setting up or deposing of rulers, and t ) the extermination of those she calls heretics, even to the death. In short, tho Church of Rome is a political as well as a religious organisation, and therefore cannot ho treated in the same manner as purely religious communities.” AMr John Swain says:—“ Lord Llandaff and tho Duke of Norfolk appear to have used strong language with reference to the Royal Oath and the Royal Declaration, the latter being described by the duke as “ a most blasphemous and outrageous collection of words and phrases shocking to tho cars of any decent man.” What havo these noble peers of the realm to say concerning the declaration of belief imposed npon that, poor, deluded child Princess Ena of Battenberg (now the Queen-Consort of Spain) on her admission into the Romish Church? The ceremony was not made public, because at the time the duke and others hoped to get The Government of the day to amend the Coronation Oath, but tho terms of the declaration wore published, and after the Princess had formally abjured and anathematised Protestantism as “a heresy to which she had hitherto had the misfortune to belong,” she bad to confess her belief in tho Apostolic See and the Roman faith, and to add :

I do pronounce those worthy of eternal anathema who oppose this faith with their dogmas and their followers, and should I myself at any time presume to approve or proclaim anything contrary hereto, T will subject myself to the severity of the canon law.

Can anything be more (to use the words of the duke) “ blasphemous and outrageous ” and “ shocking to the ears of any decent man ” than the above ?” The Dean of Norwich wrote as follows to Mr Henry Miller, secretary of tho Church Association:—“ Let mo thank you and all with whom you co-operated for the great service you rendered in contributing to the volume and power of the evidence which encouraged tho Prime Minister to discredit the unlawful and audacious ceremonial of Sunday last. The Roman hierarchy attempted in England what would not be endured in any country in which Romanism dominates. Short work would be made of such a programme in Spain, in Portugal, in Austria, in France. And tin irony of the affair is that it would have been visited with penalty in the City of Rome! Malta is, as everyone knows, a British possession. Rome rules there, and her toleration of the Church of England is indicated by the fact that no clergyman dare wear his surplice in crossing from his house to hia church, or even in a cab, used to carry him to a funeral! He may assume his surplice inside the churchyard walls._ The Prime Minister has risen to tho right of the occasion. He richly deserves the confidence of the country in such circumstances ”

THE POPE ON THE PRESS. Addressing a Venetian pilgrimage headed by the Cardinal Patriarch on September 23, the Pope delivered a fervent harangue against Modernism in tho Catholic Church. His Holiness deplored the fact that his sacerdotal jubilee coincided with the marked progress in the ranks of tho Roman Catholic priesthood of Modernist ideas, which, ho declared, had their source in disobedience to the instructions of the Holy See. The Pope said that he was laboring under deep emotion, because he felt that his pontificate was fast drawing to its close, and, knowing too well how pestilential was the poison diffused by the Press in general, and even by divers Catholic journals and reviews, he felt it incumbent to bid his beloved Venetians renounce newspaper reading. “The fewer newspapers you read the better you will be !” exclaimed His Holiness. “ I bid you lay up my advice in your hearts.”—Romo correspondent ‘ Chronicle.’

ST. BERNARD MONKS IN LONDON. | iVo of the most in forest ing visit ore to the recent Eucharist Conference were the Provost of the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard and Father Jules Darbellay, another, of tho famous St. Bernard monks. The Provost, a middle-aged man with a fascinating charm of maimer and the dignity that cornea from a life of hardshfp and danger, in an interview said : “ There are fifteen monks in the hospice, and a few attendants. Wo have many beds,'andate able to welcome between 20,000 and 25,000 ■travellers every year. Thanks to the splendid piano which was presented to us by tho King of England, and which was safely brought up the mountain, we are able to entertain our guests with singing and music, and spend many happy evenings.” The Provost was 'charmed with l/oiidon and its magnificent institutions, though, as ho himself put it, “the noise is a little bewildering after the silence of ■ our mountains.” DEATH OF SCOTLAND’S POETPREACHER. The Rev. Dr Wither Chalmers Smith, who died on September 22, was tho last : of an Edinburgh literary coterie which in- : eluded Professors Blaekie and Masson. I Though in his eighty-fourth year, Dr j Smith, who was the senior minister of the ; United Free Church, Edinburgh, was to the last deeply interested in current events and literary subjects, as well as in the work of the denomination of which he was Moderator during its jubilee year. Many distinguished men attended his Sun- * day afternoon Bible class, among them I being Mr J. M. Barrie, who has given a 1 delightful sketch of tho Scottish poeti preacher in ‘An Edinburgh Eleven.’ He was a man of broad and liberal views on ■theological questions (says 'The Times’), ; and was a strong opponent of the majority ■ of the General Assembly which deposed the late eminent Hebrew scholar Professor Robertson Smith, for heresy. Dr Walter Smith's beat-known poems include 1 Olrig Grunge,’ ‘ Hilda,’ ‘Raban,’ ‘North Country Folk,’ and ‘A Heretic,’ all marked by I fine imaginative power, an ingenious : fatuity for verse, and subtle spiritual insight. A collected edition of the poems, several of which were out of print, was pub- ; lished about two year's ago, and had a large sale. j The recent death at Southsea, England, ‘ of the Rev. F. H. M. Blaydes, who would have been ninety had ho lived a fow days j longer, recalls the lact that bo was a ' lineal descendant of Andrew Marvell, the ; assistant Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Dr Blaydes was one of the finest . Greek scholars in tho British Isles. Tho following have been nominated for the Moderatorship of the Presbyterian General Assembly, which will meet in j Dunedin on Tuesday next:—Rev. I. Jolly j (nominated by eight Presbyteries) • Rev. J. H. Mackenzie (bv fowl ; the Rev. Wm. j M‘Ara, Rev. Wtn. HcwirfKir, and the Rev. ’ G. B. : Inglis, each by on*