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Show THE HISTORIAN FR0UDE0M THE .;. CHURCH. I ' 'Jo the Editor, Sir: Allow me to supplement I lho tribute of praise and admiration paid to the I . ' Catholic church by the late Methodist bishop, Dr. I Foster, by a citation from James Anthony Froude's work on the "Revival of Romanism." Froude was I in early manhood in Anglican Orders, but, separat- I , ing himself from the ministry, he became an ag- inostic and devoted his time and talents exclusively 1o literature. His dislike to everything' Irish and Catholic perverted his critical sense, and, at times, ,l inflicted upon him a mental blindness which, sub- I " jeetively obscured, if it did not entirely obliterate, I ; truth. Mr. Froude visited the United States some I lliirty years ago, and delivered to a select audience in Xew York City a series of lectures on the "Ei;- j glis.h in Ireland." "While Mr. Froude was yet en- I gaged in justifying the rascality of the Parliaments 1 j of Great Britain in their legislation for the Trish I ! people, the famous Dominican orator. Father I "Tom" Burke, was lecturing to immense audiences I ; 'ii Boston. Father Bourke, learning of Froude's I : mission, cancelled his Xew England engagements I J nd .returning to Xew York, at once took the plat- I i form in refutation of Froude. Mr. Froude sailed I ior home a discomfited man, whose reputation as a I j historian was shattered by the eloquent Dominican. 1 The perpetuity of the Catholic Church and her in- 1 ! destructability were to Mr. Froude, as they had I been to Lord Macauley when Froude was yet a boy I insoluble problems, which he admits in the body of I ihe extract taken from his tract on the "Revival of I Romanism. Here are his acknowledgments, his ad- II missions and his questions: "The tide of knowledge and the tide of outward events have set with equal force in the direction op- I. posite to Romanism. Yet in spite of it, perhaps by j means of it, as a kite rises against the wind, the. I Roman Catholic Church has once more shot up into I' visible and practical consequence. If she loses I I ground in Spain and Italy .she is gaining in the I j modern, energetic races which have been the strong- f i hold of Protestantism. Her members increase, her .j organization gathers strength, her clergy are ener- l -! getic and aggressive. She has taken into her ser- '! vice her old enemy, the press, and has established a j popular literature. "What is the meaning of so strange a phenom- I I cnon ? Is it because science is creeping like a snake upon the ground, eating dust and bringing forth k I materialism, that the Catholic Church, in spite of j her errors, keeps alive the consciousness of our spir- itual being, the hope and expectation of our immor- lality." I ; You will notice in this extract, Mr. Froude in i his bewilderment uses the terms Romanism, Roman 1 ! Catholic, Catholic as correlatives ,forgetting that I j one is an epithet, another a patronymic and the oth- j t a universal. Elsewhere in his remarkable tract I i ihe historian makes the unwilling admission that: I , "Rome counts her converts from Protestantism by tens ,whilc she loses but here and there an un'impor- I j tantunit." W. R. H. |