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Show BISHOP BUIST, y. E. AT SPOKANE, WASH.. Catholicity in Catholic Countries Pagan Ricardo Repf. s With Incisive Logic and Refutes the Charge. The biennial meeting of the board of bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church opened its work in Spokane November 1 with twelve bishops present pres-ent from all parts of the civilized world, ism in Eoman Catholic countries is simply pagan- j ism and is not to be judged by conditions here. On ! the continent the work of our church meets with great difficulty because there it comes face to face with these beliefs." It is a remarkable experience in these times of enlightenment and progress to read of such an utterance ut-terance as the above, by an educated sectarian bishop. Methodism in all its offshoots has always been more or less saturated with terrific hate of Eoman Catholics, or as it vulgarly terms us, Romists and papists, notwithstanding that the King of Saints commanded his followers to hate no man. This dreadful, malicious and diabolical venom of crawling crawl-ing serpents that has been manifested by various Protestant bodies collectively and individually against the ruling pope of any decade since the establishment of the Catholic or Universal church on the Mount of Olives, brands those in whose minds it finds pleasant habitation as votaries of Lucifer and hell rather than meek followers of Christ, filled with brotherly love. By their fruits ye shall know them, says the fruitful Root of Jesse, and as the reformation of Roman Catholic, but Apostate Martin Luther has filled the whole universe with infidels, with IngersoUs end antichrists anti-christs of various hue, we are forced by reason and common sense to come to the inevitable and unccn-tradictable unccn-tradictable conclusion that the Methodist Episcopal church by reason of the falsehoods and hate promulgated pro-mulgated by those bishops in its councils is as barren bar-ren of charity as any withered leaf that falls from the trees of autumn. -J3ut let us examine in a Christian spirit the above unproved assertion "that Romanism in Roman Catholic countries is simply paganism and is not to be judged by conditions here. On the continent the work of our church meets with great difficulty because there it comes face to face with these beliefs." That is, as we understand it, pagan beliefs of Roman Catholics in Roman Catholic countries whose Christianity is absolutely different from American Catholicism. Let our readers mark well the negative but unconscious uncon-scious tribute here paid to the Catholic religion of this country, viz., Catholicism is all right here but in Roman Catholic countries it is paganism. It is a jumbled up assertion, r,o matter how you look " at it, and makes us inclined to think that the esteemed es-teemed bishop was bilious when he- mHrte it. The complaint of the bishop that the Methodist missionaries mission-aries meet with great difficulty when seeking to rob Catholics of a vital faith we pass over with a smile. They might do as did the English Protestants in Ireland, offer clothes and food to the poor Catholics. Cath-olics. But what is paganism? Paganism consists in the worship of false gods, or in the system of religious re-ligious opinions and worship maintained by heathens, heath-ens, therefore, according to this M. E. bishop inhabitants in-habitants of Catholic nations are on a level with the Chinese or maybe below that level! This allegation alle-gation by Bishop Burt is very difficult to answer, first, because it is false, and second, because it is so ridiculous. Every one endowed with a fraction of Jiuman knowledge, whether Catholic, Protestant or infidel, is well aware that Roman Catholics in every hamlet and city of the world worship Jesus Christ and him crucified yesterday, today and tomorrow, to-morrow, and that the sacrifice of the mass is universally uni-versally the same, that great sacrifice, clean and holy which Malachias the Hebrew prophet and monk who flourished 400 vears before (rod was humanlv born predicted in these imperishable words: "For from the rising of the sun even to the going clown, my name is great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the gentiles saith the Lord of hosts." There are in . this country thousands of men and women brought up in the Methodist religion who have revolted from it and call themselves jumping or howling Methodists. These' deluded people who are to be pitied, and who worship the devil, howl, scream, shout, dance, contort their bodies and rave like wild beasts in their "religious" assemblies, virtually mocking the thorn-crowned Son of God whom they profess to honor. Again. There arc innumerable men and women in this country reared in the Methodist Episcopal religion who now are infidels! The writer has met some of them. Xeither is it anything to the purpose tc make the counter retort on us that there are thousands thou-sands of- Catholics who have lost their faith, because be-cause their faith was destroyed by Protestant Thomas Paines, "Bob" Ingersolls and a non-Catholic atheistic atmosphere in business life, and in schools and universities. In the face of these indisputable in-disputable facts it ill becomes an M. E. bishop in this twentieth century to falsely accuse Rpman Catholics of paganism. The Roman Catholic priests and saintly virtuous nuns, foster fathers and foster mothers of untold numbers of Almighty Christ waifs, are as readv and as willing to lay, down their lives, as "they have relinquished all worldly pleasures, for the holy Jewish child of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in every nook and cranny of the world known to man, in this age, as when they hid in the dark catacombs of Rome from the power of the devil-worshipping, pagan emperors. There may be a few among them who might if terrible persecution arose, involving torture and death, prove as weak as St. Peter when he denied through human fear his majestic Lord and God in the sorrowfulest and darkest hour of that lonely Savior's earthly existence, but the"" would only show forth in brighter colors the faithful even unto death. As Bishop Burt does not particularize concerning concern-ing the nature of ''these beliefs" we cannot make individual and pertinent answers to them. There is in every individual, male and female, a vile, contemptible, con-temptible, evil portion of nature which contentions, conten-tions, false and lying wolves in sheep's clothing invariably arouse in their auditors. But we have no desire to bring this ugly beast of anger, or whatever other guise it may assume, to the fore in the individual against whom we -argue. Amieitia est gloria vitae (friendship is the "-lory of life), and this friendship we deplore to violate. But we must say in conclusion, justice demands in an insistent in-sistent tone that we should, that Bishop Burt of the Methodist Episcopal church has maliciously, intentionally like a venemous bigot and murderer, in a manner well calculated to arouse angry passions pas-sions that are best asleep, belied millions of Roman Catholic Christians in Roman Catholic countries, who kneel and pray at morn, at noon and twilight dim before the pious representation of the mangled body and sacred heart, of one who mutely bowed" his gentle head and died on Calvary's ' hill,- for mankind's redemption, contritely petitioning him in tears and regret to .pardon their offenses in thought, word and deed, and to bring them to everlasting ever-lasting life in the surpernal principalities of his father. Oh, Bishop William Burt, the depth and nature of your falsehood, uttered carelessly without with-out adducing any proofs, for you could not, are. devilish in the sight of heaven's angels and God's, white throne of grace and truth. RICARDO. - . |