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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 13, 26 July 1895, Page 29

the Charob to prove the proposition which Bays " that the Pope of Borne ia supreme head of the Church " is not a modern assumption, but is a vary ancient doctrine, that, indeed, it waa acknowledged, acted on, and formed the great pivot on which the whol° policy aid history of Christianity has turned in defence^s in attack, In sorrow as in joy, the JBe of Pe*er stood supreme on the hill top. Sometimes, no doobt, the attackers were powerful, at no time greater than when the spiritual progenitors of Mr Richards went into the battlefield. The avalanche came on slowly but terribly, sweeping doctrines and customs hoiry with age into the deep abyss of religious confusion and corrup'on.; When the mighty cloud of dust cleared away onlookers could see ,the Church upon tha hill in the Eternal City showiug itself with renewed beauty, power and glory. It surely caa lay claim to be the house bailt on tha rock, and the fl k>l cime and the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and it could not shake it. Like the rock upon the sea shore against which the waves are eternally dashing only to return broken to pieces ia the 833 of Peter, the rock against which the mighty waves of infidelity, heresy and immorality are ever beating and ever driven back defea'ed. Dr Carr remarks with truth, " Those who make a claim to antiquity cannot repudiate the testimony of those venerable witnesses." The witnesses he brings are St Jerome and St Augustine than whom none better could be found, tit Jerome says, "I, following no leader bnt Christ, am united in communion with youi Blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter. On that rock I know the Church ia built . . . whoever may not be in the ark of Noab will perish in the deluge." 8t Augustice says :" Two councils have been sent to the Apostolic S«e, and thence also have the rescripts come. The cause ia ended. Would that at length the error were ended." At another place be said he was kept in the Church by the unbroken line of Boman Pontiffs. Then he enumerates the Popsa one by one, and exclaimi in evident triumph : " In this order of auccesioa no donatist (heretical) bishop is found." Notwithstanding this testimony from 8t Augustine Mr Richards says, in his leter to the Daily Times, " It is evident, tben, from this t h it Roman supremacy was unknown in Africa in the time of St Augustine of Hippo." Those Fathers lived at the end of the fourth century, an 1 none can deny that they had special qualifications for knowing what was the true teaching of the Church in their time regarding the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, St Jerome was born an the confines of Dalmatis, about 340_ He travelled through France, visiting the principal schools there, Thence he went to Antiocb, wl ere he remained many years ; thence to Constantinople, spending threo years in that city ; theuce to Borne, Jwbere he became stcrtUry to Pope D>m*sus. After the death of thia Pope he went to Behlehem, where he remained over thirty years, transiting the Bib c into Latin from the original Hebrew. Was he not a mat. specially qualified to give expression to the general teaching of the Cburcb in his time — not the Church of any particular country, but the Church spread through all countries 1 He also knew of the special pnvi'ejes uf the Churches of Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria, tnd yet he says : " I am united with the Chair of Peter. On that Uick I know the Church is built." Ia it not curious that at this end 1 f the Nineteenth Century we have people who profeßS to be leirrei, and who appeal to bistory, an i ytt who lay it down as an infaliib'e dictum, that those Roman claims which are so clearly and fore bly acknowledged by 8t Aiustine and St Jerome, have noi existed from the fir3t, not b en known indeed for centuries after 314 A.D. ? Speak of the infallibility of the Pope after that 1 Why the Catholic Church is modest in her demands, because she teaches that only one of her menibera is infallible, that is the heal, Christ's Vicar on earth ; but it seems that each member of the 0 her Churches teaches, at least, his own infallibility. There is one o her saint whose name I shall mention. Mr Richards practically says tb it the Bishop of Ahxandna in ancient times Dad the sa-ne authority as the Bishop of Rome. Now the beat witness es :o the authority of the Bißhop of Alexandria at the time we are writmg of is t u ie Bish p who fi le 1J hat See. Mr Bicharda will admit tbat he ought to know more about hie own rights and privileges, and the rights and privileges of his See, than we do. Athanadus was appointed Bishop of Alexandria five months after the Couacil of Nice in 325, He waa driven into exile no less than five times by the Emperor Cons au'ine at the instigation of tha Arians. Hd who suffered so was not the man to weakly forfeit the rights and privileges of his Sac, yet we find him appealing from the decision of a counc.l assemblel in Antioch, composed of heretical B shops, to Popa Ju'tan I, who sat in the Cnair of Peter from 337 to 352. When bus it been heaid of that the Bishop of Borne appealed to the Bishop of &ny o.her See to decide any civ c ? An appeal shows some supeiionty in the court appealed to. Therefore when Athanasius appea'ed '0 Rome he thereby acknowledged that the Bishop of Rome waa entitled to judge bis cause, an acknowledgment which thu literati will not grant at tie end of the nineteenth century. May we aot conclude with the burning words of th dgimmortal maßter of the Englißh language, Cardinal Newman ? " Were those

two tain's, St Atbansfiua and St Ambrose, who once lojouroed in exile or on embassage at Treves, to come back. . . and travel till they reached another fair city, seated among groves, green meadows, and culm breams, the holy brothers would turn away from many a high aisia and eolemn cloister which they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where Mass is said, in the populous alley or forlorn suburb. . , . Athanasius who spent his long years fighting against kings for a theological term." In the concluding sentence of Mr Richards' letter ha acknowledged che good done in England by St Agus'ine of Canterbury and says that in early times Britain acd Borne were united in one Holy Catholic Fai'h (an admission, I may add, which others of his Church nill not grant), Evidently he is travelling towards Borne; May we hope he will continue to travel, and that when he finds that the " ancient cus'oma are prevailing " he, like many good men who have gone before him, will abandon the frail raft in which ha is now trying to sail, for the Ark of Noah which will save him from the deluge.— l am, etc. J. Coffey.