Edinburgh Protest against the Ne Temere Decree.—
Under the auspices of the Knox Club, a national protest demonstration against the Ne Temere decree of the Church of Rome was held in the United Free Church Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, last month—the Rev. Lord Blythswood presiding over a crowded attendance. The Chairman, in the course of his remarks, read communications from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London in support of the purpose of the meeting, and said he was thankful for those letters. When this matter of the Ne Temere decree first came before them they were inclined to open their eyes and wonder where they were living and in what age they were living. He thought it would be well if people woke up at the present time to the danger that was threatening. It was not a question of denomination. It was a question of the whole realm. They had to raise their protest against any potentate attempting to interfere with any of the laws of the country. Councillor Rose, Edinburgh, moved a resolution—”That this meeting expresses its strong protest against the Ne Temere decree of the Church of Rome now being enforced in this country, and urges the people of Scotland to continue their demand for legislation to nullify its operations.” So far as Scotland was concerned, he said, the decree was only in the bud and they would be wise men if they nipped it in the bud. He could conceive nothing so likely to cause dispeace throughout the whole nation as the decree. The Rev. William Corkey, Belfast, in seconding, said that if it was so that Mrs. M’Cann’s children were in safe retreat, as has been stated, then the time had come when the country should rise in its might and demand that no freeborn British person should be kept behind locked doors—at least, not without Government inspection. The religion which tried to save children by dragging them from their mothers stood self-condemned. He did not find fault with the priests. He found fault with the Roman Catholic Church from promulgating such a decree, and he found fault with the British Government for not taking steps to see that the people would not suffer once again for their religious faith. So far, so good. We hope the Knox Club through its energetic Secretary will now organize a protest meeting against Home Rule.
Los Von Rom Movement in Italy.
The Rev. William Muir, Glasgow, Lecturer to the Protestant Institute, Edinburgh, lecturing on “The Los von Rom Movement,” said that while that phrase had special reference to the movement away from Rome, in Austria, pre-eminently the land of the Arrested Reformation, there had been a kindred movement in other lands. In France it had been computed that if the payment of Easter dues were made the test there were not more than four millions of loyal Catholics out of a population of thirty-nine millions. As many as 200 priests were abandoning the priesthood every year, but unfortunately the anti-clerical feeling manifested itself largely in hatred of all religions. That was even truer of Italy, where a gross materialism threatened the family as well as the Church and State. There was promise, however, in the large place given to Bible circulation. A Roman Catholic society circulated nearly a million copies of the Gospels between 1902 and 1908. Since then, however, it would appear that this Society of St. Jerome had been practically stifled.
The Los Von Rom Movement in other Countries.
In Spain, said Mr. Muir, the issue of the war in Cuba did much to show the thoughtful the inevitable results of subjection to the priests. The recent revolution in Portugal, in spite of widespread hatred of all forms of religion, would probably open the door to the Bible societies and evangelical schools. The Jesuits were credited with saying that if they got the children till they were seven they cared not who got them after that, but in this generation they had lost millions whom they had till long after they were seven. In Belgium the heroic Christian Missionary Church had over 11,000 members, almost all of whom were once Romanists. In one district alone since 1906 more than 500 families had openly separated from Rome. In Switzerland ominous changes were taking place in the Roman Catholic cautions. In Ticino 5,710 returned themselves as “confessionless” in 1910 as against 583 in 1900, and the corresponding figures for Lucerne were 1,047 and 97. In Austria ever since the war with Prussia men had gradually seen that the progressive peoples were Protestant, and that the rule of the priests put an arrest on every sort of enterprise. The Los von Rom movement was largely political at first, but had become definitely evangelical. In addition to nearly 12,000 who had seceded to the Old Catholics, 38,000 Roman Catholics were registered as having become Protestants from the autumn of 1898 to the end of 1904. Nor had the movement spent itself. In 1910 in German-speaking Bohemia there was 1,502 secessions, an increase of 413 over 1909. There were at least 32 Protestants in the Austrian Parliament, nearly all converts from Rome, and it was significant that that was about three times as many as the Protestant proportion of the population would entitle them to have. In Germany, from 1890 to 1900, 46,000 Romanists were registered as having become Protestant as against 6,820 Protestants who became Roman Catholics. The losses were acknowledged by a Jesuit writer to have been at least a million during the nineteenth century, 300,000 of these having been since 1871. No attitude was less warrantable for earnest Protestants than that of the pessimist.