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Show BISHOP SPALDING AND "THE CHURCH." The Rt. Rev. F. S. Spalding, spiritual head of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Utah, when de- ilivering an address on Socialism in his own cathedral cathe-dral in this city, on the evening of March 20, vas reported by the morning papers to have said: "We must realize that society and the church I are not doing vhat they can and ought till they Iruake an effort to help the very poor vho, first of all, need the help." Brave vords and bravely spoken, for from the Bishop's appeal to them, "to make an effort," Ave imust. conclude that until now very little has been done by either to help the poor and needy. Incidentally, ve may remark that Bishop Potter Pot-ter of Xew York, when delivering, last summer at Chautauqua, one of the closing lectures of the sca-f sca-f and that clerical acrobat, Ben Fay Mills, when ! lecturing in this city the other day, said the same thing in almost the same vords. If the charge be true, it is a righteous arraign-' I mont. and one to which churchmen will do well to I give most earnest heed. The Bishop, of whose iu- I tellectual standing, education and competency to i speak there can be no doubt, fails to inform us vhat he means by ''the church." Does he mean by '"the church" all the incongruous and denomina- iional sects occupying the religious and auasi-rc- i ! ligious territory lying between the marshlands of Agnosticism and the highlands settled by the Ritualistic Rit-ualistic or'Tractarian people of his own church? If so. the Bishop, to be consistent, mustadmit spiritual affinity between Episcopalianism and those sects "which deny Christ come in the flesh" and' vhich St. John tells us "are of anti-Christ." He cannot possibly make the term "the church" embrace the Church of Rome, for the Homilies of his ovn church vithout any reservation state that; "In the pit of damnable idolatry, all the world, as it were drowned, continued until our age (the Reformation), Ref-ormation), by the space of over eight hundred years, so that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects and degrees of men, women and children chil-dren of vhole Christendom have been .at once drovned in abominable idolatry ',of all other vices most detested of God and most damnable to men," This was spoken of the Church of Rome, and a that Church has in no vay, and at no time, since the. short reign of Edward VI, repented or changed for the better, she yet remains idolatrous and, of necessity, neces-sity, outside the pale of Christianity. We notice, if the bishop be correctly reported, that, in the exercise exer-cise of the great Christian virtue of charity, the right reverend gentleman separates the community into two distinct bodies society and the church working along the same lines but independently of each other. In hi saddress the Bishop Avould lead us to infer in-fer that the Church is a religious and charitable institution and that society is a secular and altruistic altru-istic organization; that they mutually act and react upon each other, but are not subject to the same higher lav. Hence, ve conclude that to help thp needy is, on the part of the Church, a duty binding bind-ing under sin, while on the part of society it i merely a matter of convenience. On the side of the Church it is a law of charity; on that of sooiety it is philanthropy or pagan benevolence. If this be not so. why does Bishop Spalding separate societv from the Church in the exercise of a Christian virtue vir-tue '. What. then, does the Bishop mean ' by "thj Church.'" He surely does not wish us to understand under-stand him to have said that in the word "church'' he included all the "sects of perdition" and "lyir.y spirits" filling the conventicles, halls and churches of our country, for that sort of a church would be a monstrosity; that is. a something that lives breathes and moves and has no head. It is a pity that a scholarly gentleman, tilling the exalted ofiVe of a Bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Epis-copal Churrh. is not more particular in the choice of his words: we arc disposed to blame the reporter, but what can we do if the Bishop did not trouble himself to revise the report. We car. condone the ordinary terminology of the average newspaper or magazine writer, but when a Bishop does us the honor to address us, we look for accuracy of expression ex-pression and precision of words. We take it.-then, that by "the church." the Rt. Rev. Father "in God means the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. When the Bishop says 1 hat. his church is not doing "what it ought and can to help the very j needy," is he not appealing tp a mother whose J breasts have been dry for many centuries '. When, j as a spiritual mother, did she ever give any but a few drops of milk to children dying of hunger and thirst ( Charity to the poor. Bishop, is one of the marks by which we recognize and know the Church of God. Was it not Isaia?, speaking for Christ who said: "He sent me to bind, up the broken hearted, and to proclaim liberty to the captives;" and did not another great prophet of God cry out in the name of Jesus Christ: "Evangclizarc pau-peribus pau-peribus misit me" he sent me to preach to the poor? And when the Church of God, after three centuries of hidden life, came out from the gloon of the catacombs, was not her first concern for the poor and needy All through the Authentic Acts of Ancient Martyrs, collected by Ruinart and Assemani, Ave find most touching proofs of the charity of the Church toAvards the poor and of the stupendous change wrought in men's heart by those acts of love. If ve vere an enlightened heathen searching today for the Church founded by Jesus Christ, ve vould, from our reading of the prophecies and the practice of the early church, as recorded by history, his-tory, look for that Religious Body, the uniA-ersality of Avhose charity and the number of Avhose institutions, institu-tions, founded for the shelter of the orphan and the assuagement of human sorrow and human suffering, suf-fering, commended it to all spiritually thoughtful men. Xow, of all that vast variety of charitable and benevolent institutions vhich adorn our country and do honor to human nature, how many of these institutions owe their' inception and support to the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Church which, iu proportion to its numbers, embraces a more Avcalthy constituency than all the other churches of America Amer-ica i The Bishop is. right, severely' right, when he says it is time his church ought to make an "effort" to help out the very poor and needy. But will it Froude, the historian, contends that there is not a single instance in our ovn or any other history of a great political speaker who has added anything to human knoAvledge or human Avorth. In modern times, is there a single instance of an ecclesiastical orator tvlio ever built up an institution for the poor or did anything of a lasting nature to found a society for the orphan and the needy ? So, my Lord Bishop, ve may lecture and de-liA-er addresses until the day of ujdgment, but unless un-less w-e take action, our vords Avill be as "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." It is all very Avell to say "we ought to this and we ought'to that," but unless we take off our coats and go to work ve will accomplish nothing. There is one great religious institution that has done comparatively little talking, but 'silently, unobtrusively, unob-trusively, has accomplished more for the care of the orphan and the poor, and has given to us all more manifold examples of the charity ofJesus Christ, than all the churches, denominations and "isms" in North America. Will these figures, my Lord Bishop Bish-op and Reverend Sirs, be rhue and wormAvood to your ecclesiastical palates, or will they carry consolation con-solation to your hearts that in our country one church, at least, i obeying the commandVf the Master "to feed the hungry and cloth the naked." "BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM." In the United States there arc, according to the Catholic Directory for 190S, under the direction, of the Catholic Church, 272 orphan asylums, taking care of 42,597 orphans. Besides this, there arp 1,054 charitable institutions taking care of 1,310,-300. 1,310,-300. READ OX. XeAV Yorkjias three schools for deaf-mutes, 11 day nurseries, 5 emigrant homes,- 4 homes for the aged, 22 hospitals, 32 industrial and reformed schools, 7 orphan asylums, 2 asylums for t he blind In all these institutions there are 25,100. Chicago has 9 orphan asylums Avith 1.499 inmates, in-mates, 1 infant asylum with 670 infants. 2 industrial indus-trial and reform schools for boys and girls Avith 710 inmates, a working boys' home Avith 350 boys; the same for girls, where 195 girls are taught. There are 9 homes for the aged poor with 1.150 inmates. St. Louis has a neA'sboys' home, a hotel for Avork-ing Avork-ing men, 7 orphan asylums, 1 home for fallen wo-mentwo wo-mentwo deaf-mute schools, 4 industrial schools. B hospitals and infirmaries, 4 insane asylums, 2 houses for the aged poor. In these institutions there are over 12,000 inmates. Boston has 6 hospitals., which admitted lat year 4.367 patients. It alsp treated last year-60.703 outpatients. out-patients. It has 7 homes containing 870 inmates. These four large cities giA-e an idea of the charitable char-itable institutions mentioned ir: the beginnintr. which, throughout the United tSates, contain 1.310.-300 1.310.-300 inmates cared for by the Catholic Church. Xow Avhat think you of the Catholic Church Whose spouse is sheY So that. Avhen the Rt. Rev. F. S. Spalding impeached im-peached "the ehureh" for neglecting the poor and needy, he could not possibly have in mind the Bride of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church. Mother of all Churches., and herself "a glorious Church, no having a spot or wrinkle or any siic-h thing." |