How Roman Catholics keep the Lord’s Day.—The following extract from Mr. MacCarthy’s Priests and People in Ireland is interesting as throwing light on Roman Catholicism:—“After Mass,” he says, “our ‘Sunday’ is spent by the laity and the clergy either in pleasure or idleness; it is not spent in devotion. The young men hie themselves off to the country. The priest arranges his afternoon programme of amusement. Hurling, football, cycling, coursing, rabbit-hunting, ratting, and even hunting with beagles and harrriers are indulged in. And one always finds that our [Roman] Catholic young men on the Monday morning are tired, out of sorts, and ill-disposed to begin their week’s business owing to the way in which the Sabbath has been spent. In the large cities the opening of the public-houses at 2 p.m. is the greatest event of the [Roman] Catholic Sabbath afternoon. I can hardly remember a time when I did not contrast the Protestant ‘Sunday’ with the [Roman] Catholic ‘Sunday’ to our disadvantage. Nor could I ever bring myself to see anything disgraceful in the term which we opprobriously apply to Protestants. When I was a child, on the ‘Sunday’ evenings when there was
nothing to be done, I used to envy the Protestants and their children whom I saw setting off for church about seven o’clock, and I used to think what a comfortable thing it must be to go into church with one’s friends and spend an hour or two on ‘Sunday’ evening in that way.”
The Election and Protestantism.—It would be well for all true-hearted Protestants at the coming election to put Protestantism before politics. From a political standpoint there can be no doubt that very important issues will be before the country, but in all probability outstanding Protestantism will have no prominent place in the policy of either party, and it is therefore to be hoped that Protestant electors will use their influence and votes to get candidates pledged to support Protestantism to be returned.
Pastor Wise returns to Prison.—Having declined to enter into his own recognizances to keep the peace for twelve months and to refrain from holding his Bible-class parades, Mr. Wise, of the Protestant Reformers’ Church, Liverpool, went to prison on Saturday afternoon, 23rd October, to serve a term of four months’ imprisonment. Earlier in the day Mr. W. Rutherford, M.P., and Mr. E. L. Lloyd, solicitor, asked the Liverpool stipendiary magistrate that, pending the holding of the forthcoming Home Office inquiry into the whole question of sectarian disturbances and religious processions in Liverpool, Mr. Wise might be allowed to carry on his religious work. He was prepared to abide by a promise not to refer to the dispute at any of his meetings. The magistrate refused the application, and accordingly Mr. Wise went to Walton Gaol in the afternoon.
Rome’s Methods.—The recent death of the Marquise des Moustiers-Merinville merits a brief notice here. She was an American lady, whose maiden name was Caldwell. She was educated as a Roman Catholic, and remained in communion with the Papal Apostacy until her early womanhood. It so happened that she was very rich, and in her enthusiasm for Popery she, when only twenty-one years old, founded the great Roman Catholic University at Washington. She was, as a consequence, greatly honoured by the Pope. But soon after her marriage she created a great sensation in the United States by publicly declaring that she had ceased to be a Roman Catholic. In a letter to the papers, dated 30th October, 1904, she wrote: “For years I have been trying to rid myself of the subtle yet overwhelming influence of a Church which pretends not only to the privilege of being ‘the only true Church,’ but of being alone able to open the gates of heaven to a sorrowful, sinful world. At last my honest Protestant blood has asserted itself, and I now for ever repudiate and cast off the yoke of Rome.” And she kept her promise to the end of her life. She would have no priest near her in her dying moments.—English Churchman.