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Show DE COSTA JOINS ROME. (From the Deseret Evening News, the ' Organ of the Latter-day Saints.) It is now announced that Rev. Benjamin Benja-min F. De Costa has identified himself with the Catholic Church. Some time ago he created a sensation by leaving the Episcopal church because Dr. Briggs, the famous "higher critic," was given fellowship there. Dr. Costa, in explaining his change of faith, says he has no apology to offer. "Standing in the midst of modern religious re-ligious systems toppling to their fall like columns in the temple of Karnac, no defense need be offered for accepting I a firm and unshaken Catholic faith." j He declares that the Catholic Church stands before the English-speaking peo- ! pie and Protestants everywhere as the unique and solitary defender of the Bible in its integrity and entirety. He adds: "The Church never changed her method meth-od of dealing with science. In this city a scholar should not allow his mind to become befogged. The issue is not simply one of science or simple interpretation. inter-pretation. Primarily, it is the mystery of the incarnation that criticism puts on trial. The case is dogmatic. It means a revision of the Bible. This the Holy Catholic Church will never approve." ap-prove." j One Avould think the doctrine of papal infallibility would be highly objectionable objection-able to one accustomed to the Protestant Protest-ant way of thinking, but the reverend doctor meets this point as follows: "It is time for candid non-Catholics to learn that the notion that it (infallibility) (infalli-bility) interferes with individual liberty is as true as that a mariner's compass renders the sailor an abject slave." rler thnt thouirhtful Protestants seek refuge in the outstretched out-stretched arms of Rome. It is true enough that in Austria, where religious life is ' not especially verdant, no less than 5.C00 conversions from Catholicism to Protestantism are reported recently; but in Great Britain, which for centuries cen-turies has been noted; for religious activity, ac-tivity, there is a steadily increasing current cur-rent toward Rome. In fact, some of the most prominent English clergymen have espoused the cause of papacy, and the life-work of Manning. Newman and others has not failed tctbear fruit. There are numerous causes for the Romeward movement. But one of the most conspicuous is the Protestant denial de-nial of a visible church. They have all abandoned the Scripture Idea of "one body" with "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," as weH as the position of the early fathers who knew of no church except an association of" "elect," or "faithful Saints." They have set up a theory about a mystical, invisible body as the only true church. "On this theory," Dr. Costa well remarks, "Christianity has failed; the empire that triumphed over the Roman empire has perished. Reformed religionism, therefore, offers no moral or intellectual intellec-tual outlook for coming generations, and leaves the world forced at last to choose betveen rationalism' and the Catholic Church." This, we believe, is the secret conviction convic-tion of a great many Protestant theological theo-logical scholars, and if they were free to follow their own convictions, they would abandon their pulpits. But what can they do? With their locks. shorn in the lap of Delilah and their feet tied, with a salary, .no-wonder if the mighty Samsons are found grinding grain in the home of the Philistines! The movement toward Rome, however, how-ever, is one of the signs of the times. That, too, will hasten the day when, according' to the Divine word, "Zion shall flourish, and the glory of the Lord shall be upon her. and she shall be an ensign,' unto the people, and there shall come unto her out of every nation under un-der heaven." . |