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Show tin Cw BrotbeijRffisS& Controversial Dialogue Between a Presbyterian and His Catholic Brother, Leading Up to Former's Conversion. ' At the close of last week's debate between John Milwood (Catholic) and his brother James (Presbyterian clergyman), clergy-man), the former cornered his antagonist, antagon-ist, forcing him into a virtual repudiation repudia-tion of a point in the controversy which he upheld in the beginning. In surrendering surren-dering his insistence on the first proposition, propo-sition, James consented to stand on the second, i. e.. "the non-essentials (in doctrines of faith and revelation) are matters which one may either believe or disbelieve without erring essentially." essen-tially." To which John Milwood made reply: "We now seem to be in a fair way of determining what Protestantism is. It is, you say, the essentials, and the essentials es-sentials are the truths clearly and .'manifestly revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Tell me what these truths are and you will tell me what Protestantism is, and take the preliminary step towards answering an-swering my question,' Why are you a Protestant?" (Ed. Intermountain Catholic.) V. Much to the relief of James, while he was considering what he should reply to John's last demand, the conversation was suspended by the entrance of Mr. Wilson, a brother Presbyterian minister, minis-ter, settled over the oldest Presbyterian congregation in the city. He was of Scottish descent, and upwards of 70 years of age a man of antiquated notions, no-tions, with little respect for the younger-ministers younger-ministers in his denomination. Presby-terianism, Presby-terianism, in his view, had nearly lost its original distinctive character. Wesley Wes-ley and Whitefield, by their appeals to heated passion and mere animal excitement, excite-ment, instead of reason and voluntary affection, had well nigh ruined it. Presbyterians Pres-byterians were now Methodists, Armenians, Ar-menians, in all except name and outward out-ward organization and government; and the new methods and measures lately adopted for the conversion of sinners appeared to him likely to prove In the end its total destruction. He saw with pain the lecture-room and rostrum superseding the pulpit, strolling stroll-ing evangelists and revival preachers taking the place of the regular pastors, pas-tors, and "Inquiry" and "anxious" meetings the orderly ministrations of the word. Between him and James there was little sympathy. James was a man of his times. He understood the tendencies tenden-cies of his age and country, and held that it was the part of wisdom, it not of duty to yield to and obey them. To have power over the people, he held it to be necessary to consult them, to change with them, to take the direction they indicate, to be always just in advance ad-vance of them, and never to lag behind them. He availed himself of their passions pas-sions and tendencies as the readiest way of occupying the post of leader, and, if he could only occupy that post, the' direction he followed or the final j goal he might reach was comparatively indifferent. He was adroit, shrewd, unscrupulous, un-scrupulous, but he did not know that he who leads the mob only by yielding to them leads them only by being their slave. The true leader is he who makev the multitude follow him, not he who follows them. He who has principles and will stand by them, though he stand alone, or be hewn down by the maddened multitude for his fidelity . to them, is by many degrees superior to him who sacrifices his -principles, if he have any, to popularity, or who has no principles but to ascertain and yield to the passions and tendencies of the age and country. But of all this James knew he at least cared nothing. He lived in an age and country of demagogues, dema-gogues, and he did not aspire to be thought superior to his age and compatriots. com-patriots. The greatest modern achievement achieve-ment in the state, he was accustomed to hear it boasted, had been to establish estab-lish the rule of demagogues; and why should it not be as glorious to establish this rule in the church as in the state? Little as James sympathized ordinarily ordi-narily with Mr, Wilson, he welcomed him in the present instance with great cordiality, and introduced him to his brother. After some commonplace remarks, re-marks, he told him he had just learned that his brother, who had been absent for many years, had become a Catholic. He recapitulated the conversation they had just had, stated the point of which it had arrived, and begged Mr. Wilson to answer the question they were debating. de-bating. Mr. Wilson was not pleased with the course adopted by James, and replied: "If I had had the management of this discussion from the beginning. I should have given it another direction. Your brother has, doubtless, been under un-der the training of the Jesuits, is versed in all their scholastic refinements and subtleties, and a perfect master of all 1 the sophistical arts by which they entrap en-trap and bewilder the simple and unwary. un-wary. When you dispute with such a man, mind and keep the management of the argument in your own hands. Consent to ply the laboring oar yourself, your-self, and you are gone. The great secret se-cret of dialectics is in knowing how to put your questions. You gentlemen of the modern school are far abler demagogues dema-gogues than logicians, and much better bet-ter skilled in exciting the passions of the mob than in managing a discussion. I have often told you the folly and madness of neglecting severer studies. You hav.e studied only to conform to the multitude; you have made the mob supreme, and taught them to lord it over their pastors, loosened them from their old moorings, set them adrift upon a stormy and tempestuous sea, without helm or helmsman, or 'rather with the helmsman bound, to obey the hf.lm. Their passions are a favorable gala for you today; but what certainty have you that they may not make the port of Rome, or be stranded on the rocky beach of popery, tomorrow? At- . tempt to guide or control them, cross in anything their prejudices or their wishes, and where are they where are they? How often must I tell you it is hard making the port of the gospel with the devil for pilot. If you had had a grain of common sense you would have insisted on your brother's answering an-swering your question why he had become be-come a Catholic instead of consenting, as a great fool, to answer his question why you are a Protestant. If you had te?n acquainted with the old Protestant Protest-ant controversialists, you would have seen that they leave Protestantism to take care of itself, while they reserve all their forces for the attack upon Rome." "Never mind that, now, brother Wilson. Wil-son. I could hardly forsee the turn the conversation would take, for those Catholics I have known have general-!y general-!y contented themselves with replying to'- the changes brought against their Church, without going far in their attacks at-tacks upon Protestantism; and, besides, it is no more than right, since Protestantism Protest-antism is a positive religion, that they who profess it should define what they mean by it. and give their reasons for believing it." "If the old' Protestant masters of whom Mr. Wilson speaks' interposed John, "had thought of that, and, before attacking Catholicity, had defined and estab'ished a religion of their own, my brother wou'd have had an easy task no"', if indeed any task at all " "The true polemical policy is. always to keep yourself and rarty on the offensive: of-fensive: but if, you imagine that Protestantism, Pro-testantism, as a positive religion, is j indefinable and indefensible, you are I very much mistaken." j "The readiest way to convict me of 1 that will be to define it. and give me good and valid reasons for believing it." "In becoming a Catholic you abjured Protestantism. Am I to infer that you abjured you knew not what?" "Mr. Wilson pays me but a sorry compliment, if he supposes I shall voluntarily vol-untarily surrender what he terms the true polemical policy. The question is not what I may or may not know of Protestantism, what I may or may not have abjured, on becoming a Catholic, but what Protestantism is, as understood under-stood by those who profess it?" "But, if you were not fully informed as to what Protestantism really was. how could you know that in abjuring it you were not abjuring the truth?" "He who has the truth has no need of knowing the systems ocnosed to it. in order to know that they must be false. But suppose you proceed with your definition. You profess to be a Protestant, and so able, experienced and learned a man cannot be supposed to profess to believe he knows not what. If you know what it is. you yan easily tell me." "I will give you Dr. Owen's definition. defini-tion. I dare say your brother James has never read Owen's works nrr B"s-ton's. B"s-ton's. nor those of any other man wh was in breeches fifty years ago. It is a shame to think how the old worthies are neglected. Nobody reads them nowadays. The study of school divinity divin-ity is wholly neglected. Our theologians are frightened at a folio, tremble at a quarto, can hardly endure even an octavo. oc-tavo. The demand is for works, short, pithy and pungent. It is the age of petty tracts, penny magazines. Peter Parleys, Robert Merrys, trash, nonsense non-sense and humbug." "And yet it is the glorious age on j which the glorious sun of the glorious reformation beams in- all its effulgence. If the reformers were here, they would exclaim. Kt tu. Brute!" "I hope Mr. Wilson will not heed my brother's sneer," interposed James, "but proceed with his definition." "Brother Milwood, have you Owen's works? No? No. I dare say not. But I presume you have Dowling. D'Au-bigne D'Au-bigne and the last new novel." "I do not read novels." "The best thing you have said for yourself yet. Well, I see I must qut-j from memory. Protestantism remember remem-ber I quote the great Dr. Owen, one of those sound old English divines who 1 cared as little for prelacy as for pa- pacy, and would no more submit to king than to pope. They were the men It will be long before we shall look upon their like again. They were God's freemen. The pomps and vanities of the world could not dazzle or blind them. They cared not for crown or mitre, and the blood of a king was to them as the blood of a common man. They went straight to their object. England was not worthy of them. The Lord directed them here. Here they laid the foundations of a noble empire. This is their work; this land Is their land, and their children after tnem, and a crying shame it is, that a miserable, miser-able, idolatrous papist should be suf fered to pollute it with his accursed foot." "But you are thinking of the Independents Indepen-dents rather than of the Presbyterians. The Presbyterians were from king and covenant, and pretend to have disapproved disap-proved of the execution of Charles Stuart." " "No matter. The Independents only completed what the Presbyterians began, be-gan, and soon sank into insignificance when left to struggle alone. In the glorious war against prelacy and papacy pa-pacy they were united as brothers, as I trust will always be their children." "But the definition." "Remember I quote the ords of the great Dr. Owen, great and good, notwithstanding not-withstanding he left the Presbyterians and became a Congregationalist; excepting ex-cepting in matters of church government, govern-ment, rigidly orthodox, and as much superior to the degenerate race of ministers min-isters in our day. as a huge old folio is to a modern penny tract, and whose works I recommend to both of you to read. 'Protestantism is: 1. What was revealed unto the church by our Lord and' his apostles, and is the whole of that religion which the Lord doth and will accept. 2. So far as needed unto faith, obedience, and salvation of the church, what they taught, revealed and commanded is contained in the Scriptures Scrip-tures of the New Testament, witnessed unto and confirmed by the Old. 3. All that is required, that we may please God. and be accepted with him. and come to the eternal enjoyment of him. is that we truly- and sincerely believe what is so revealed and taught, yielding yield-ing sincere obedience unto what is commanded in the Scriptures. 4. If anything any-thing they (Protestants) teach be found to deviate from them, if it (what they teach) exceed in any instance what is so taught and commanded, if it be defective in the faith or the practice of anything so revealed or commanded, they are ready to renounce it.' What do you ask more clear, brief, comprehensive compre-hensive and precise than that?" (To Be Continued.) |
