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Show THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. The Catholic Church is cither true or false. It cannot be both. If it is false, the billions of Christians Chris-tians that have gone down into their graves professing pro-fessing that church to be the Church of Christ have ("tied in error, after living in darkness all their lives. For many centuries the world knew no other faith lhan that of thU church. For fifteen hun- r-M 1 year Inland has been Catholic in religion. Filmland, Scotland and Wales, for nearly a thousand thous-and years, adhered absolutely to Catholicity. Ger-in Ger-in uiy knew Christ for seven hundred years as the 'iloinish' Church (the name our non-Catholic friends give us) teaches Him. .For from periods approximating seven hundred years till the time of trie "great revolt" of the sixteenth century all por-' por-' , linns of ihe inhabited globe, believing in the Son f iod made man for the redemption of the world, were Roman Catholic. Tu entertain a conviction that all these in-nr.i.'K in-nr.i.'K rable hosts of human beings were mistaken is a terrific strain on reason and a deliberate contradiction contra-diction of the Saviour Himself, who told His dis- iplos that lie would be with ihem unto the consummation con-summation of the world. And in the 14th chapter St. John He promises to send them a Paraclete, the spirit of truth, who was to abide with them forever. That Christ established a church we find jti.'-ny pjrofs in the sacred text. St. Paul recognized recog-nized the churches of Macedonia, those of Asia. Jerusalem and various other cities and countries, as one and the same church. It is written in the KUh chapter of Matthew that Christ tells Peter He will build His church on a rock and the iratcs f hell shall never prevail against it. A great many antagonists of the Catholic "Church tenaciously tena-ciously and persistently maintain that the Savior meant the rock of revelations, and not St. Peter as the rock. Well, admitting for argument's sake, that Christ did mean the rock of revelations, or the rock of Gibraltar, or any old rock that is lying around loose in Colorado or Utah, He nevertheless established a church against which the powers of hell would rave, rage and bluster powerfully, but helplessly, till the end of the world! We notice that all order throughout the world, whether in church or state, hinges on the doctrine of one su- I preme head, lu our own country it is the presidency. presi-dency. Ln England, it is the king; iu Germany, the kaiser; in the coal miners' union, it is John i Mitchel; in the newspaper, it is the editor; in the state, it is the governor; in the city, it is the mayor; in the home, it is the father, and it seems to be the law of God and man throughout the universe. uni-verse. Therefore, we hope our non-Catholic friends or enemies, as the case may be, will forgive us our i-lupidity and desist from calling us wooden-headed if we continue to believe as we shall that Christ, when He gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and spoke about a rock, intended Peter himself and his successors to be that one supremo head and court of last resort to settle all disputes around which the Christian kingdom should revolve. re-volve. When we make the assertion that no one knows who founded the Catholic Church, if Christ and the Apostles did not, our sectarian opponents grow red in the face, a very unnecessary thing to do. and one of them will affirm, .like a drowning man clutching at a straw or a millionaire holding on to his pocketbook. that it was Constantino, the Roman Emperor. Tt is a very distasteful task to us to perform the part of a surgeon and pull the decayed teeth of fallacious reasoners and contenders, con-tenders, but where did Anieetus, bishop of Rome in the year 160, come from? Where did Clement, bishop of Rome in the year 200; Polycarp,. bishop of Smyrna, in Asia, in the year 1G0; Tcrtullian and Origen, two great Catholic writers of the second sec-ond century; St. Anthony, the hermit of the desert, who was born in the year 251, obtain their conversion? con-version? How could Constantine, whose mother, Helena, was a Catholic, while he was a pagan, perform the tremendous miracle of becoming a eon-vert eon-vert to a church he started himself? As Constantine Constan-tine became a Christian by a -miracle; as he became be-came a followCT of the mighty Galilean through, seeing a cross in the heavens and lis -words "Ry this sign conqner" accompanying it, -could concede con-cede Constantine to be the founder, which we do not; assert, by Teason of his vision, that he was a prophet, and he has better claims than many so-called so-called modern prophets we seould mention, .and still have a shade the best of the argument. We firmly believe, in all hnrnTfitr- that many non-Catholic controversialists are, like Don Quixote and Sancho, conjuring up windmills against which they may battle to the great delight of the inhabitants in-habitants of hell, who in dissension grejat aids to damnation, and see arousing screams of laughter from millions of pagans and infidels. 1 V |