MODERN DISSENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 38, 15 January 1897, Page 6

MODERN DISSENT.

(From a Paper read at the Catholic Truth Society Conference by Mr. John Hobson Matthews.) The descendant of two lines of foreign Protestant refugees the present writer was, for the first twenty years of his life, nominally a member of the Wesleyan Connection ; the next twenty yeans are nearly completed, and them he has spent within the fold of the Catholw Church. He therefore feels that circumstances have qualified him to speak with the authority begotten of experience upon the relations between Catholicity and Dissent. THE BACKBONE OF THE NATION. To a convert from Puritanism it is a matter of great joy that the present conference of the Catholic Truth Society is directing special attention to the religious needs of British Nonconformists • for to such a one it seems that the leaders of Catholic thought in this country have hitherto had insufficient regard to that lar«-e and important section of their fellow-countrymen whom born Catholics lump together under the convenient term '• Dissenters." It cannot be doubted that these modern representatives of the old Puritans are, as regards thrift, social influence and general solidity, the backbone of the nation. Their sterling qualities are Buch that we cannot afford to ignore them, if the Church's hold upon the country is to grow firmer. The Dissenter is strong in those respects in which your High Churchman is weak— though I know the converse is also true. The Dissenter may object "to strict dogma, to ecclesiastical authority and discipline, to forms and ceremonies ; but neither can his mental nature understand or tolerate the shaping of religion by legal and historical fictions and doctrinal paradoxes. He may dislike a priest, but he abominates a sham. Again, speaking from a pretty wide personal experience, I have no hesitation in saying that for a Catholic controversialist to turn from arguing with an average Anglican to discuss religion with an average Dissenter, is to pass to a more bracing- and refreshing controversial atmosphere, and one into the composition whereof commonsense and the logical sense more larg-ely enter. It behoves us to consider in what way the Church can best oppose to the various errors of the dissenting bodies the standard of Catholic truth, while utilising that remnant of Christianity which each of them, more or less, has retained. How can we best appeal to the Wesleyan's devotion to the personality of Jesus Christ, and to his craving- for the spiritual life, and at the same time persuade him of; the necessity of believing in the visible Church and her sacramental system, as instituted by our Lord for the perpetual guidance and sanctification of the human race ? How are we to lead into the right channel the Calvinist's stern sense of the practical reality of religion, and induce him to exchange his gloomy and loveless " views" for the calm faith, hope and charity of true Christianity ? How persuade the Baptist that the living and teaching 1 Church may be better trusted than his own linguistic and historical speculations on the subject of the rite of admission to her fold ? How convince the Quaker and Plymouth Brother that the •pintuality of religion does not consist in an indiscriminate avoidance of external forms, and that spiritual things mv.st ordinarily be conveyed to corporal beings through the medium of sensible •igns ? How show the Mormon that the kingdom of God. which is indeed among us, is a far more glorious realm than the one dreamed of by Joseph Smith and founded in the State ot Utah ' How explain to the Irvingite that the Apostleship lives in the person ot Peter's successor I THE USE OF SOUND LITERATURE. Well, for one thing, it appears to me that we of the Catholic Truth Society ought to lose no more time before giving to th<» British public some sound literature, treating especially ot the points of doctrine in which the various- dissenting bodies are most interested. Though such treatises will have to be written with great care and discrimination, it it, easy enough to suggest titles for them. Here are some : " What is Believing in Christ » " •• True Conversion," "Modern Calvinism," "The Catholic Doctrine on Baptism," " Spirit and Truth in the Worship of God," •■ The Kingdom of God. what is it / " '• The Living Apostolate." " The Sacramental System," "Is there a Visible Church /" The booklets and leaflets of our society at present comprise few which are of practical use for putting- into the hands of a We«leyan or a Baptist. Our armoury is amply furnished with weapons of defence and offence against the fallacies of the Established Communion, and perhaps even of atheism and agnosticism, 'but there seems to be urgent need for a literature which shall influence popular dissent in favour of the Catholic claims, which shall convince the Methodist and Presbyterian that their spiritual aspirations can be truly satisfied only within the fold of the historic Church. LECTURES AND SERMONS. Then as to the lectures and sermons. It is but seldom that our preachers address themselves to the difficulties felt by the ordinary English lower middle-class Dissenter in accepting Catholic doctrine and in understanding Catholic worship. Vet Dissenters frequent our churches as much as the Anglicans, and are just as interested in what they see and hear there. Lectures, again, are nowadays often delivered in our large towns in support of Catholic doctrine and practice, but rarely are these discourses directed to any but Anglican Protestants. We have plenty of lectures and pamphlets on continuity, papal infallibility and Anglican orders, but tew or none on subjects which would attract an audience of Nonconformists. If the Catholic Church could properly "get at" these honest^ prosperous citizens, they would be brought into the real ChristendoiH in large numbers and very quickly, and excellent, staunch, practical Catholics they would make. The Church has need of this solid middle-class of Englishmen ; she has been deprived of them to her sensible detriment, and we must make every effort to recover the

loss. Many circumstances will favour the Church in such a missionary enterprise. The beauty and poetry of Catholic devotion and the joyous atmosphere of the truest Catholic life, will be contrasted with the arid worship and acrid discipline of moribund I untanism. For Puritanism, already dead in its original home is expiring rapidly among the English-speaking people ; and unless the Catholic Church is ready to step into the place of the obsolescent misbeliefs, the future of this country will be a sad one, both for Catholics, and for the nation at large.