Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 19 May 1910, Page 782

Notes

An Appropriate Prayer At an important Synod held in Paris just prior to the recent French elections, the Archbishop reminded his hearers that in a few weeks they would have a powerful weapon in their possession. Whoever you may be,' he said, 'I remind you that your duty is to ascertain that the man for whom you vote will respect the faith of your children, the rights of your families, and liberty of teaching,' and he quoted, with singular felicity and appropriateness, the prayer of the Belgian Catholics: From schools without God and from teachers without faith, deliver us, 0 Lord! The 'Scotsman' and the Conference The «Reformed Churches of the World' are to have a ' World Missionary Conference' next . month in Edinburgh, at which no end of missionary societies are to be represented. .Instead of being impressed at the prospect, the Scotsman staidest and most representative of Scottish papers—bluntly raises the question whether the kind of Christianity which will be represented at the gathering is really worth exporting. In. an article in which it moralises at some length on tho subject of. the conference the paper observes that ■' the question may occur whether, from one point of view, the Christianity seen and known among us is worth exporting to heathen lands. That Christianity which has so often filled the land with bitterness and strife, which erects churches to perpetuate ancient feuds, which sets three and four men to do the work of one hindering each other all the time, which built rival colleges in India" and which is unable to veil its differences before the Hindoo, is that really worth sending beyond the seas? Were a Hindoo to visit a Highland village and inspect'"its" five Protestant churches, each with a skeleton congregation, and ask, What meaneth this waste of human effort? what answer could the Christianity of this country give to that Hindoo? Would not the poor heathen be pardoned if he said that a religion which tolerated such abuses and waste could be no religion for him?' According to many competent and impartial witnesses, the • 'poor heathen,' ". both in India and in China, is thinking and saying that very thing.. .'':;■ ■, •• .;;'! :\:' '; . , -

I. An Anglican View of the King's Oath Prior to the coronation of the late King the terms of the impious oath required of the Sovereign engaged the attention, from time to time, of various Protestant bodies,

and the general trend of enlightened non-Catholic opinion was strongly against the oath. At an Anglican Synod held in Goulburn, New South Wales, the Rev. J. A. Newth moved a formal resolution protesting against the insult to Catholics involved in making the King declare their doctrines ‘ superstitious and idolatrous,’ and in doing so gave one of the most cogent expositions of the objections to the oath that we have yet seen.

After referring in a courteous and Christian way to the doctrinal differences between the Church of England and the Catholic Church, Mr. Newth continued: And because, forsooth, we do not hold- Rome’s doctrine of the invocation of saints and of the Mass, we must insist on the King’s making a declaration that they are “ superstitious and idolatrous,” must we? The Presbyterians in the General Assembly in Sydney have said No,” even the Wesleyan Methodists in their conference have said No,” and we, I hope, for the credit of the diocese, will also say “ No.” In the first place, because it is absurd for the King to have to make this declaration; for the King is not a theologian, and no one supposes him to be competent to lay down the law on these vexed theological questions, to really know anything about them, and why, therefore, should he be expected to say anything about them? In the second place, because it seems preposterous that the King, who is only the temporal head of the Church of England, should, as a condition of receiving the Crown, be subjected to a more rigid religious test than' is demanded of even the Archbishop of Canterbury, its spiritual head; for the Archbishop of Canterbury is, -I need hardly say, only required to give a general assent to the 39 Articles as a. whole, and not to declare that he receives what they say of the Mass, etc., “ without mental reservation of any kind whatsoever ” the third place, because it is no safeguard, for if the King were secretly a Romanist, it is not likely that he would not find some way of making the declaration for all that. He might be advised that it was virtually an oath taken under compulsion, and, therefore, null and void; or that he might take it “without any mental reservation of any kind” that his subjects were entitled to claim for him, or with some other grain of salt that might be offered.

‘ And last, but not least, we object to this oath, because it is wrong, because it amounts to persecution, for which no good cause can be shown, wounding to the quick as it does a large and influential section of the community, many of whom fill the highest positions of rank and honor in the Empire, and are among the most loyal of his Majesty’s subjects. No wonder that King Edward’s voice is said to have barely risen above a mutter when he made the declaration on the last occasion upon which, we hope, >t ever will be made. If the Roman Catholics were not allowed to celebrate Mass in the British dominions, as was of course the case at one time, then there would be some consistency in the King’s declaration ; but if, as we do, we leave them perfectly free to carry out their own forms and ideas of worship, and not only this, but if these very same forms and ideas of worship, if the Mass and' the invocation of Saints, are tolerated in the Church of England itself, surely we are only straining at a gnat while we are swallowing a camel if we object to the King being excused from calling them names.’