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Show Pope and Bible. rpHK WHIRLIGIG OF TIME brings in his revenges. For 300 years the Pope and the Bible were said to be at war. For Catholics the Scrip-tuies Scrip-tuies Were 'proclaimed to be a closed book. The enlightenment hidden away wit'hin the folds of that supreme volume vol-ume meant death to the Papacy. So said the sectaries who love us not and who elected themselves the sole students stu-dents and the sole disciples of the written word of God. Now we are told that the much reprobated rep-robated Pope has established a special Pontifical commission to consider all questions connected with Eiblical studies. Catholic- scholars the world over will be afforded an opportunity to state their views and difficulties and submit them to the direct notice of the Holy See. Such a step, says the Catholic Cath-olic Transcript, is calculated to stimulate stimu-late Scriptural study and to enable Catholic critics to discuss with confidence con-fidence and with the assured approbation appro-bation of the Holy See debatable questions bearing on faith and morals as well as upon interpretation. Catholics do not fear the advance of so-called higher criticism. They ac cept and will forever continue to accept ac-cept .the Bible as the inspired word of God. When (hoy are not prepared to render this homage to the sacred books there is no longer place for them in the company of the faithful. The decree has gone forth, and it cannot be revoked. The very man who has been so long reviled as the enemy of the Bible is now its foremost champion. cham-pion. Protestants who pinned their faith to the very letter of the Scriptures Scrip-tures behold the ground moving beneath be-neath their feet. Irreverent critics have cast doubt upon almost every vita! passage and things are no longer for them what they seem. They ensconced en-sconced themselves behind the citadel of written truth, and they are now forced to give up, as the musings 'of poets what they once regarded as the inspired word of God. Their position is deplorable. "It is not the Pope, then." says the New York Sun, "but the great churches of Protestantism which need to appoint ap-point a commission or commissions for the consideration of questions connected con-nected with Biblical studies. The time is coming if. indeed, it has not come already, when these churches must take their stand definitively and decidedly de-cidedly on the question whether the Bible is of God or only of man. As it is now, the Pope is the sole bold, positive posi-tive and uncompromising- champion of the Bible as the word of God." |