ATTENTION has already been called in these pages to the great sin committed by our King in attending a Requiem Mass in London. The sin is all the greater when it is remembered that the King took a solemn Oath, in which he swears that he believes the sacrifice of the Mass, as now used in the Church of Rome, to be “superstitious and idolatrous.” The following are the words of the Oath:—
“I, Edward, do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used, in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. And I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I do make this declaration and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever, and without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope or any other person or persons or power whatsoever should dispense with or annul the same or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.” (Act of Settlement, 12 and 13 William III., cap. 2.)
Mrs. Chaplin, whose gift as a writer of verse has been devoted mainly to the cause of Protestantism, has a short poem in the Monthly Record of the Protestant Evangelical Mission, which we think worthy of quotation:—
“God pardon thee, Prince Albert’s son,
Our King, whom we should love to praise,
Who swore, what time thy crown went on,
Abhorrence of these papal ways;
God pardon thee, that thou should’st seek
The welfare of our land to wreck.
The honour of the Lord of Hosts
Is dearer to Him than thy crown;
And though to-day our country boasts
Of peace and freedom and renown,
Where would they be if He should fling
His judgments on our piant King?
It is but natural to mourn
The murder of thy Royal friend;
And many a prayer is upward borne
That thou be saved from such an end.
But what about the ‘Oath’ which won
Thy favour when thy crown went on?”