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Show INDIEEERENTISM IS PUNY One Religion as Good as Another a Fetish Fet-ish Whose Votaries Follow None Contradicts Christ and Paul History, His-tory, Tradition and the Scriptures Point Out One True Faith Belief in the Divinity. of Christ Is the Fundamental Funda-mental Doctrine of Christianity It Leads to the True Church. (Written for The Intermountain Catholic.) We have prevalent in the world today as rife as the Aria n heresy the iconoclastic doctrine that any religion is good enough and that one church is as good as another providing the individual lives up 1' that, which he professes. And by way of giving I this twentieth century cult profound and practical I proof of lhe truth of the assertion those in whose " intellects it finds lodgment attend none. The gen- v lleman who has been reared in the Baptist or Epis copalian or in any other sixteenth century creed I niters this sentiment airily, hut he would not dare i " align himself with the Methodists or the howling Iloly Boilers. Such a doctrine sounds well in thunghi. hut in practice it is unmitigated rot and . ends, followed to its ultimate conclusion in reli- y gh'us anarchy ami theological nihilism. Thought- !1'nl men have said that any form of the Christian religion is better than none at all. but it is safe to maintain that earthly humanitarianism would be - an improvement over the Babel of religious opin-i'-. ions a complete indifferentism would establish. ; There is nothing so repugnant to Christ and Paul I; as Christian disunity and contradiction. This be-f be-f lief or idea of any sect being good enough has made deplorable havoc in the world. The Scriptures Scrip-tures are unalterably opposed to it. The laws on which we establish human government are in direct di-rect opposition to it and especially is this true of iour own country. The supreme court at Washington Washing-ton is the legal fane of last resort, and the ecclesiastical eccle-siastical court of the eternal city of Rome was in existence eighteen hundred years before the one at Washington was founded. It would be tiresome and useless to quote Christ, Paul and the Apostles in favor of absolute unity. Their utterances are , many and they are emphatic. And if these did not suffice, reason tells us that God could not, as the fountain and essence of truth, command St. John . , to preach one doctrine and St. Matthew another in complete antagonism as the different conflicting torts do today. One church believes that Christ ; was God. another asserts that he was not. One ' churoh affirms solemnly that the body and blood of the Savior are really present under the appear-; appear-; ances of bread and wine, in the sacrament of the altar. Another that they are not. One church has affirmed for nineteen long centuries that priests possess the powerto forgive sins. .Other churches deny that the Son of God gave any such power, i How, then, in the face of these irreconcible opin- j ions, can it be held that one religion is as good as I another i But many will say how are we to know I conclusively which, is the right one? And the answer an-swer is by Scripture, history and tradition. Every man is bound to seek the truth. To the soul who, believes in the divinity of Christ it is comparatively compara-tively easy to find it. Admitting that fundamental portion of Christianity it follows that a society was established to propagate certain immutable doctrines. That society, by virtue of the God who instituted it. must preserve the truth until the end .f time. '"Go teach ye all nations, baptizing ihem in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, amen. And lo I am with you all i days even unto the consummation of the world. I will send the Paraclete the spirit of truth, who ? will teach you all truth." Of what further need , have we .of testimony and proof? What society bus existed since the death of Christ in union, in (ihe same baptism of one faith and teachi.ig? Look for yourselves. God crave men eyes to see, ears to i .-jj aiH'j an mid. rsianding to seek for the precious gem of truth. But whatsoever creed a man may embrace, he cannot link himself to indifferentism. Or one church is as good as another. If he at-. at-. "ipts it he will build an edifice on sand, and the winds of' doubt will blow, the rains of scepticism will fall, and with the storms of erroneousness will ' sweep his structure into eternal oblivion. I A II EM ARK ABLE BOOK. Apropos to the above argument, one of the ! most powerful ever written books has appeared. ' Tts title, so ant for our times, is: ''Is One Religion 1 As Good As Another?" The title reveals the sub- i ' jret matter to a certain degree, but ho wise pre- ! pares the prospective reader for the literary de- lights lurking brilliantly within its pages. The author, Rev. J. Maclaughlin. without any strain-, strain-, nig or liresomc essays, easily demolishes beyond the hope of resurrection the widely prevailing ! . 1 bought that one creed is as good as another, pro-, pro-, ! 1 viding a man lives up to it. ! The use of the tenth chapter of the Acts of the 1 1 Aposilcs, wherein Cornelius, a very good man in j the .sight of God, is instructed to join the true ' church, reveals a splendid depth of mind on the part of the writer. The Quotations from A. II. . 'rai;r, a non-baptised but impartial historian, are 'I. exceedingly lucid. strong and accurate, and the brief anecdotes culled from history fit in the argument argu-ment well, two of which we will here reproduce, i- "Melanothon. a companion of Luther, wept bit- tterly over the dissensions of Protestantism. He bad not the power to heal the crying evil, nor the courage to abandon the system in which it origi- T ' ' ' '- ' "" i ii i ....I...IU...II wj mj n mi II"""""1 ; ' nated. From many massages in his writings bearing bear-ing on this subject we select the following lament, in a confidential letter to a friend: 'The ebbs with all its waves could not furnish tears enough to weep over the miseries of the distracted reformation.' reforma-tion.' ' When the mother of Melancthon was on her dying dy-ing bed she said to her son : "My son, it is for the last time you see your mother. I am about to die; your turn will one day come, when you must render ren-der an account of your action to your judge. You know that I was a Catholic, and that you have induced in-duced me to abandon the religion of my fathers. Tell me now, for God's sake, in what religion I ought to die." Melancthon answered: "Mother, the new doctrine is more convenient, but the Cath-dic Cath-dic religion is more secure for salvation." TL. S. K. |