ROME has always been noted for her activity in advancing her interests. At the present time, when she is receiving encouragement in some quarters and discouragement in others, she is specially active in trying to impress the nations with her fancied religious superiority. The British dominions seem to be the special objects of her solicitude. Not long since she had an imposing “Eucharistic” Congress in the metropolis of the home country. During the past month she has had another display of the same kind in Montreal, one of the chief cities of our great Canadian colony. The Montreal Congress was in some respects the more successful of the two. The French Roman Catholic element in Canada no doubt contributed to this. We are indebted to the English Churchman and other papers for notes of the Congress.
It appears that Cardinal Vanutelli, the Pope’s Legate, who presided at the English Congress, arrived in Montreal on Saturday afternoon, the 3rd September. He was accompanied by several important ecclesiastical dignitaries and two hundred delegates. There was a great display of flags and flowers by the Roman Catholics, and even by nominal Protestants, on the houses and in the streets, costing, it is said, £200,000; but the show had largely to be curtailed owing to the unfavourable weather, the downpour of rain being heavy and incessant. There is nothing that the Romish spirit delights so much in as outward pomp and display, and this providential circumstance must have been the occasion of great disappointment. It appears also that the opposition of local Protestants prevented any grant of the regular troops and militia as a guard of honour to the Papal Legate, and also “the placing of Government vessels at the disposal of the Romish dignitaries.” Though the Congress received too much countenance from the authorities, it did not get as much as was desired.
On Sabbath morning, the 4th, Father Bernard Vaughan, of London, preached a sermon in St. Patrick’s Church, in which he
made an attack on the Protestant religion, and declared that without the Sacrifice of the Mass it was a religion without a soul—a soul-less religion. He also said that Protestantism in England was divided into two sections. One section was drifting into Agnosticism and Rationalism, while the other was “creeping back to Catholicism.” Though Father Vaughan is far from right in his general views, it is to be feared that he expresses too much truth in some of these statements. We cannot well understand what is his point in regard to a “soul-less religion,” unless he is striking at the lack of sincerity and devotion that marks a lot of nominal Protestants. They attend religious services in a bare formal manner, and their souls are quite callous and unmoved by the religion they profess. The Papists, on the other hand, are deeply stirred by the extraordinary mysteries of their religion, and exhibit devotion and zeal in the various rites of their worship. The contrast is between lifeless Protestantism and devout Romanism. Father Vaughan is not aware that false religion will come to the same end at last as heartless formalism—eternal death. Both proceed from corruption, and both shall end in corruption. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John iii. 3). It is no doubt sadly true that of two sections of nominal Protestants, one is drifting to Rationalism and the other to Popery, but Father Vaughan forgets that there is a third section which, by the grace of God, still hold fast the faith of the Reformation—the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,”—and that however small in numbers it may be, it has the power of Omnipotence behind it, and shall survive every flood of opposition. The Church which is built on the Rock—Christ—shall withstand the onset of all the gates of hell.
On Tuesday, the 6th, the Premier of Quebec gave a luncheon to the dignitaries of the Congress. At this function a very unusual—perhaps unprecedented—event took place. Cardinal Vanutelli actually proposed the health of King George V. before that of “The Pope.” On public Roman occasions of this kind, “The Pope” has been hitherto always toasted before “The King,” whereby Papists have shown unmistakably the plain truth that they hold allegiance to the Pope first and to the King second. But the present time calls for diplomacy and conciliatory measures, and so they reverse the order of the toasts to suit the occasion. Or, perhaps the meaning is that one good turn deserves another. Great Britain has foolishly changed the King’s Protestant Accession Declaration to please the Papists, and they now show, in the way indicated, their appreciation of Protestant simplicity. In any case let no one imagine that Rome has essentially changed—the whole thing is diplomacy—and the Pope has, no doubt, privately given a dispensation for the liberty taken of relegating him to a second place for a few minutes. There is no indulgence too great for the “holy Father” to bestow, if he is only certain that it will advance the interests of the so-called Church.
We learn that the Congress concluded on Sabbath, the 11th, with the Procession of the Host through the streets and an open-air Mass. Rome succeeded in this particular in Montreal, where she failed in London. Not only was this blasphemous procession allowed by the authorities, but permission was given to Colonel Labelle to parade the 65th regiment of the militia as an escort to the Host in the procession. Some of the Protestant papers, it is stated, protested against the proposal, but their protest was unheeded. The Government of Canada is subordinate to that of Great Britain. Has the latter no say in such matters? Or may the former violate, when it pleases, prescribed laws, to gratify the Church of Rome? This pandering to the ambitious demands of the Papacy will yet bear evil fruit.