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Show THE ONE AND ONLY WAY. How often do we hear from non-Catholics the words, '"We are all trying to get to heaven, although al-though our ways are different," and "I believe in following my father's and mother's religion ; it's good enough for me," in answer to our pleadings to ihem "to come out from them and be not of them." and find in Our Holy Church that great joy that every true Catholic possesses. In this article 1 will endeavor to show the fallacy fal-lacy of the first reply and the absurdity of the second. sec-ond. "One faith, one baptism." These are strong words, and decided in their meaning. Our Lord when he founded the Church built "upon a rock," left no doubt in the minds of his disciples and hearers as to the unity of the faith, and up to the sixteenth century heresy, there was only one church, in which was "one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism" the Holy Catholic Church, and whose chief ruler on earth was the Bishop of Rome (the Holy Pontiff), and no one had even thought so impious a ihing as to believe other than in "one faith, one Baptism." From the sixteenth century down to the twentieth century, the Protestant Bible Bi-ble (both King Edward's and the Nineteenth Century Cen-tury Revised Edition) contain the words referred to, and every non-Catholic knows that they are not trying to get to heaven truly, if their ways are different. dif-ferent. Every intelligent opponent of the Holy 'Church admits that it is the Mother Church of Christianity, and that the words used, "one faith, one baptism." refer to the one Church of Our Divine Di-vine Lord, the one Catholic and Apostolic. If they do not admit this, why have they not omitted the words quoted in their revised edition. Not having done so. they know and to be logical must admit that there is only one way to heaven, and that through the church to which these words were applied. Again, in St. John, 10th chapter, 1st verse (I quote from Revised Edition, Protestant Bible), our Lord is most severe and outspoken in his denunciation de-nunciation of those who egotistically and vainly attempt at-tempt to enter heaven through any other than the one way. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, j but climbeib. up some--other "ya.f," the' same " is' a 1 thief and a robber." In the Prayer of Public Confession Con-fession in the Episcopal Prayer Book you will find these words: . "We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We "have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done and done those things we ought not to have done, and there is no health in lis." A strange acknowledgement this, from our brothers of the Episcopal Communion, and yet not strange when one sees the thousands of that Communion who are rapidly returning along the road which leads to that one fold wherein the little red lamp forever burns in front of the abiding place of our Divine Redeemer. How beautiful are these words from the prayer above quoted: "Restore thou them who are penitent." pen-itent." We echo that prayer for every non-Catholic, and may those who are penitent be restored to the bosom of that church in which is "one faith, one baptism." the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Apos-tolic Church. V. II. L. W. . (To be concluded next Saturday.) |