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Show , BALFOUR ON RITUALISM. In the current number the North American Review, Arthur J. Balfour, discusses -How Ritualists Harm the Church," and in the course of his remarks, re-marks, after saying that he does not charge the extreme ritualists with Romanizing, Ro-manizing, declares: "But I do charge them with a desire to so alter both in its form and in its int the traditional character of the church to which they belong as to make it practically unrecognizable bv its most distinguished and most loyal sons for three centuries; and I hold that this desire, however, honorable however disinterested-and I believe t to be both honorable and disinterested 7T'S n?1 "ftetent with loyalty to the Church of England." f To this an esteemed contemporary heartily subscribes, and adds: The principle is the same whether the tendency be toward what we call lib-sialism lib-sialism or the reverse. Every church I has certain,' tenets, certain forms of worship which-are dearly defined, and the particular kind of Christianity w-hkh--is inrpiied-,in the name of a particular par-ticular .chucqhis notr.the. Christianity of one who refuses to accept the tenets ten-ets "and forms 'of that church without question.:HenOe such' a person's claim upon 'the1 na'me' ceases to be valid. There can, be no question, therefore, alwut the, duty of the minister or the layman who linds the special creed that he has embraced unsatisfactory to him. He should seek his church affiliations elsewhere. Logically speaking, no .other course is open to him, and it is surprising that-so that-so many would-be reformers have failed to understand this. What they attempt at-tempt to do is to arrogate the name cf the organization to their peculiar style of individualism, as if the" name did not already' have a definite and prescriptive meaning. As a matter of fact, it does not belong to them, but signifies something which they are not and cannot be. . When a man begins to dissent he has already lost his case, unless he retires voluntarily. That is his right, and if he asserts it there will be a general recognition of his honesty and consistency. consist-ency. Otherwise he raises a false issue is-sue and courts a forcible ejection. All of which may be very well and good, but we would like to know what is to h?. done in a case where the dis senters declare and firmly believe that they and they alone have kept the faith unadulterated, and that the other side is wrongfully, arrogating to itself the power of deciding what are the tenets of the church and what are not. When a man begins to dissent it is generally not a dissent from the dogma of his denomination as he understands it, but from the dogma as interpreted by his co-religionists. In other cases a man is usually willing and ready to leave the fold, and with him there is no necessity'of further argument. But private interpretation, once allowed, extends ex-tends also to the tenets' of the body to which the so-called dissenter belongs. be-longs. He says they mean one thing, and the others say they mean another. Either he has a right to stay in the fold and use his private interpretation, or the whole system is a failure. We Catholics assert private interpretation must be a failure and settle our controversies con-troversies by the decision of the final arbiter, the Pope. Roma locuta est, causa finita est. Protestantism, accepting ac-cepting each man's opinion as equal to that of any other man's in religious interpretation has, reached a parting of the roads, one division of which leads to infidelity and the other to Catholicism. The highway has been longer than many believed it would be, but the end is now in sight. . . A '. |
