THE CANADIAN MONTHLY. N the CANADIAN MONTHLY for December there was an article which began by putting this question-" Odium theologicum or charity; which? "Bear and forbear," it proceeds, "should be the motto on both sides, nor can a national magazine like the CANADIAN MONTHLY engage in a holier work than that of using whatever influence it may possess to disseminate the spirit inculcated by that maxim, and to discountenance its opposite." Let us examine how that "holy work carried out in that article. whether such language as this is the best suited of all to carry out that "holy work." There may be added the following-“ a church" (without a capital C, immediately following Church with one) "or rather a Provincial section of a church which is but a thing of yesterday." (Christianity was once "a thing of yesterday.") 66 Is there any adequate plea to be urged in justiAgain the writer of that article asks, fication of the Methodist publisher who has is disinterred that work from the limbo of obbrought it to light in this country, where of solete rubbish where it was buried, and all places it is calculated, by inflaming the sectarian hatred which perennially smoulders among us, to do most harm?" One would hardly have expected then to find, reprinted in that article and scattered broadcast through the Dominion for general readers, no less than twenty-five (if correctly counted) of the worst specimens of the style of that book, occupying more than a whole column of the CANADIAN MONTHLY. It is for the reader of the CANADIAN MONTHLY to consider whether the writer of it has not fallen-much to their lamentation ---into the opposite extreme; whether such an article as that does not in fact turn the CANADIAN MONTHLY-not the organ of any religious body-into an arena of theological strife. It surely will not take long to deter mine whether such phrases as, "absolutely reeking with odium theologicum of the most malignant type," applied to a book-the corpus delicti in the case-written by a Methodist missionary; "that ineffable air of lofty spiritual pride which sits so easily on certain self-sufficient preachers of the gospel of humility," applied to the editor of what is called "a mushroom religious journal;" "for a journal such as this to be putting on ex cathedra infallible airs, setting itself up as an infallible judge of divine truth and an infallible interpreter of divine revelation, and dealing round cheap imitation thunder stolen from the Vatican" (is the thunder of the Vatican then cheap imitation ?) "when all the while it is merely showing its own ignorance of the commonest facts of ecclesiastical history, is a spectacle for the mirth of the gods -one to make the angels expire in peals of laughter." (We do not quite follow the association of "gods" and "angels," and do not feel altogether satisfied about angels breaking out into peals of laughter, and expiring). "It is too supremely ridiculous." "Once upon a time a frog tried to swell itself out to the size of an ox. The frog burst;" that, if little Jack Horner were permitted to It is to be feared put his thumb into the Christmas pie of this writer, he could pull out some more plums than those already tasted, by no means more deficient in flavour. them out before baking, he might have said But if he had pulled with good truth, and we would all pat him on the head, "What a good boy am I!" They could be reproduced here, but it is an example not tempting to follow. SORDELLO'S article that he holds but one It would appear from the general tenor of sole thing worthy of consideration-that is authority (a very good thing indeed if we have only not too much of it); the authority of individuals, of numbers, of duration of time, and so on. He says, thing which appeals to the imagination, "There is somesomething imposing in its grandeur, in the claim to infallibility by a Church hoar with antiquity, and hallowed by the stirring Church which, during that time, has been the memories of nearly two thousand years; a solace in this life, and the guide to that be yond the grave, to thousands of millions of human souls." Then, in contrast to this, "A church, or rather a provincial section of a church, which is but a thing of yesterday, a little over a hundred years old, itself a creation of dissent, of the right of private judgment, and which, to-day, numbers as adherents the world over, only ten to twelve millions, all told" (has SORDELLO had the curiosity to calculate that at the same rate of increase during another like period, they will amount to 121,000,000,000,000 ?) Then his pages bristle with authorities, and there are no less than twenty-eight foot-notes citing them, in support of transubstantiation. And yet, lo! after all, all this authority goes for nothing! The writer of all this declares himself a disbeliever in transubstantiation; asserts "the right of private judgment"; and says, "My belief respecting the Last Supper is, I fancy, the same as that of the editor of the Guardian. It is that of Zwingli, namely, that Christ instituted the sacrament simply as a memorial, and intended the bread and wine to be mere symbols." It is a little droll to find the authority of Zwingli adduced in support of a belief so indisputably true. Another fable here forces itself upon the memory; but, as that of the frog and the ox can scarcely be approved of in its application by SORDELLO, I will not quote it. SORDELLO is a good deal excited over the phrase, "a piece of dough." It is hard to say what else it could be called, unless indeed it is baked (as to which I am not informed), when it would become a piece of bread. Does it undergo transubstantiation? Does it become anything else but a piece of dough or bread?" The change of water into wine, in the miracle at Cana," is cited as a case in point. With submission, there is no similarity. There, the water did undergo transubstantiation; it was changed into veritable wine; it looked like veritable wine; was drank as veritable wine; tasted like veritable wine; and was remarked upon with reference to its qualities as veritable wine. Now, does any one imagine that the bread and wine, which Christ took at the table and gave to His disciples, underwent a transubstantiation into actual, veritable flesh and blood?-that the disciples did― nay, I will go farther-could have eaten and drank them if they had been, as the guests at Cana drank the wine? Here is the one question--was there at that time-at the Last Supper-a like miracle performed, or was there not? And, if not then, a fortiori not now. Nor is it a little remarkable that the words uttered by Christ, on which alone any such modern miracles could be founded, are recorded by only one of the four Evangelists. This fact does not impugn the authority of those words, but it does exhibit the degree of importance attached to them by those other three writers who were present, who were witnesses of what took place, and from whom alone we must receive our impressions of what they saw and heard. The miracle at Cana is circumstantially related, and the evidence of it is of course quite sufficient; but it is found in one of the gospels only, which shows that the other three Evangelists did not look upon it as an event of any especial significance or importance. There is no circumstantial relation of any miracle at the Last Supper. In comparison with such evidence as this, direct and indirect, positive and negative, of the very disciples of Christ, who sat at the table with Him, eat from the same dish and drank from the same cup, what is any other authority" worth ? 66 "But," says SORDELLO's imaginary Roman Catholic, "Christ says, 'except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,' and who am I that I should dare to give any other meaning to God's word than that which it naturally bears?" Now, unless I am misinformed, Roman Catholics do not take wine, bread only; how is this to be reconciled with the above? SORDELLO makes his imaginary Roman Catholic behave with a saintly moderation; I have no objection to that, except by contrast with the editor of the Guardian, who is made what has been already repeated, and is represented as speaking "with an aspect of thunder" (the cheap imitation thunder of the Vatican) "and the voice of a Boanerges." But I have not found all Roman Catholics blessed with a saintly moderation any more than all Protestants. It happened to this present writer, a short time ago, to find a Roman Catholic priest publishing the following in a newspaper (proof, with the paper itself, is at hand)" If Christ purposely used words which He foresaw would lead astray, in a matter of the last importance, the whole Christian world for fifteen hundred years, and the large majority of Christians for three hundred years more, then this conclusion, blasphemous as it is, is unavoidable: Jesus Christ was a false teacher, Christianity is a fraud, its priesthood a sham." (!!) Which is simply saying that all those who do not interpret Christ's words as this priest interprets them, including SORDELLO, according to what he has himself told us, and the present writer, are guilty of that horrible blasphemy. This is hardly saintly moderation. The present writer had the honour of accepting this audacious challenge, and of unhorsing his opponent; he never spoke again (of which fact also proof is at hand). SORDELLO says: "A question here suggests itself which, simple as it is, seems never to have occurred to Luther. If he worshipped God when present in the flesh, why not when present in the bread?" When did Luther worship God when present in the flesh? When did any body? Then why worship Him in the flesh now, when He is not in the flesh? SORDELLO tells us that Lord Cobham's belief was similar to Luther's. He expressed it thus: "I believe that in the sacrament of the altar is Christ's own body in form of bread; that it is Christ's own body and [it is] bread, the former being concealed under the latter, as the invisible Godhead was veiled under the visible Manhood." It will be perceived that since it is veritable bread to the sight, the smell, the taste, this is at least an ingenious-as it is perhaps the only way of getting out of the difficulty. One would have thought at least a pardonable one. Not so. We are further informed that, “In England, in 1417, this did not go far enough in the direction of transubstantiation, and under the statute De Hæretico Comburendo" (has the Church the honour of having originated the punishment of torture and death by fire, and that for crimes not of deed but of thought only ?) "Cobham was found guilty of heresy, and roasted alive over a slow fire-tolerably conclusive evidence as to what the doctrine of the Church of England was in those days." We should rather think so, indeed. But let us be historically correct. Let us make one small emendation, but one that, happily for England, makes a world of difference. For "of" read "in;" the Church in England. The Church of England had yet no existence, nor for another hundred years or more. If this was a slip of the pen, enough. If it was intentional, we had rather not attempt the task of dealing with it. We all know that the Church of England is not free from the infamy of the faggot and the stake; it is a matter of history with every school-boy; still, if it was my place to advocate the Church which preceded it, I think that the last subject I should allude to would be the faggot-and that a green faggot--and the stake. Then we find in the article under examination, a Mahommedan and a Unitarian (perhaps the association is not quite in the conciliatory spirit of which we hear so much) appear on the scene, and turning to him (the editor of the Guardian) say, "Your language, in calling Catholics idolaters, and worshippers of a piece of dough, besides being coarse, vulgar, and abusive [alas, for the poor Mahommedan and Unitarian!] is utterly inconsistent. By your own showing, you also must be an idolater, for you worship Christ, a man composed of flesh and blood and bones like yourself." The editor of the Guardian (with his permission) does not "worship Christ, a man composed of flesh and blood and bones," like himself. He never did. Nobody ever did. He worships Christ, when he is no longer "a man composed of flesh and blood and bones," like himself. Here would seem the astonishing inconsistency of the advocates of the dogma of Transubstantiation. Then follows an "imaginary conversation" (perhaps not very Landor-like, but that is "neither here nor there") between the editor of the Guardian and a Roman Catholic. It is well for the editor that it is imaginary, for he is sorely buffeted-by SORDELLO. Still another fable which, as it has nothing offensive in its application, may be told at length. A man pointed out to a lion a marble group of a man strangling the king of beasts. "Aye," says the lion, "but if a lion had been the sculptor- SORDELLO Speaks of the "steady increase of the numbers of Roman Catholics." No doubt of it. But is it proportionate to that of Protestants? There's the rub. We can only speak as we find. Facts are very stubborn things. In the township (a very small one) in which I live there have been built five churches, four Protestant and one Roman Catholic (a very small one). In an adjoining township there is only one Roman Catholic church that I know of (also a very small one), and there must be, by this time, at least ten or twelve Protestant Catholic." When he was mainly instrumenchurches, some of them large. tal in building a church, all the Roman Catholics who were applied to subscribed towards the cost of it, and some without being solicited. He is not an Orangeman, but he fears that the institution is necessary. When the Orangemen of his township signified to him their desire to pay him a complimentary visit on the 5th of November, he begged to be permitted to decline the honour, taking good care to write a studiously civil letter, to be read at the next lodge-meeting, and to ask the pleasure of their company at dinner --at least, the officers and non-commissioned officers of the township company of loyal volunteers, which came to almost exactly the same thing—a week or two afterwards. Some persons were of opinion that he was overly scrupulous in this matter. So much as between him and his Roman Catholic neighbours. If SORDELLO can improve upon it, he will, I am sure, from what I know of him, be most happy to take any hint. AS SORDELLO has told us what he is not and what he believes, I will do the same. I am not a member of the Methodist Church, but I rejoice that such a grand bulwark exists against the errors of Rome, and that it is making its way-the way of pure Christianity-all over the world, wherever the English language is spoken or can penetrate. I believe, with SORDELLO, if he will excuse the liberty, that "Christ instituted the sacrament simply as a memorial, and intended the bread and wine to be mere symbols." But, in my ideas of what constitutes conciliation between Protestants and Roman Catholics, I differ from him toto cœlo, I cannot do better than quote the example of an intimate friend, with whom I entirely agree. He is strongly-nay, I am afraid he is bitterlyopposed to the whole Roman Catholic system, and he always says that he uses the word " system" advisedly. But, when he was school-superintendent in former years he never permitted any sectional or denomi- When the Methodist Church was built he national favouritism. He has many Roman subscribed liberally towards it, and, by very Catholic neighbours, and he lives on per- particular request from the minister himself, fectly good terms with all of them; and he he consented to preside at a large tea meetwould be perfectly content to leave his char-ing, which was held about the time of the acter for Christian charity in their hands. When they built a church he made a donation to it, and received a letter from the priest thanking him for his "generous charity;" and he was told that the priest spoke of it "at the altar." He receives, every autumn, a visit from some ladies, who wear a conventual dress, but who are not, he believes, actually nuns-that is, they are not "cloistered nuns "-and who are on a collecting tour for Roman Catholic charities. He was told the other day by a Roman Catholic neighbour that the constant prayer of these ladies is "that he may die a good opening of the church, though feeling very uncomfortably out of his element in that position, being a shy man and a miserably bad speaker. He is on the best of terms with the Presbyterian minister. For all this I can vouch, from personal ob servation. I should be most ready and glad to hear of an equally good record of conciliatory Christian charity and forbearance from SORDELLO, and to congratulate him upon it. C. E. A REJOINDER. THE HE foregoing criticism on my article | be adopted in this country by Protestants of last month evinces so much mis- generally, towards Roman Catholics, civil apprehension of the spirit and intent of that war, with a reproduction of the horrors article as to call for some explanation from enacted in Ireland in 1798, would be a mere me, which the editor has permitted me to question of time. A slight foretaste of what make now, in order that the discussion may we might expect was given in Montreal in not be dragged over to another month. July last. Had my critic been as anxious to ascertain my meaning and purpose as he has been to find fault, he would most likely have saved himself the trouble of writing the greater portion if not the whole of his remarks. Very much of what he says is a notable example of that common logical fallacy known as the ignoratio elenchi. Few persons, I fancy, care less than I do for mere authority in matters of religious belief. On questions of doctrine, and their truth or falsity, authority is of secondary moment; on questions of fact it is all-important. The authorities referred to by me last month, were cited, not, as my critic absurdly supposes, to prove that transubstantiation is true, but to shew the wide extent and the antiquity of the belief in it. When a certain form of worship is stigmatized as "the most diabolical idolatry that ever appeared among men," and language is used which implies that every one who professes a belief of which that worship is the logical outcome, must be either a knave or a fool, it really does appear to me-my critic to the contrary, notwithstanding-to be a matter of relevance in estimating the worth of such utterances, to enquire as to the number and the intellectual and moral character of those who have held and who hold that belief, and who have practiced and who practice the worship so stigmatized. It also seems to me that, in estimating the magnitude of an offence of this kind, it is an eminently relevant consideration, whether language, such as that animadverted upon, is addressed to one man or to a million men, and those our fellow-countrymen, with whom it is of the last importance to our national well-being to live on terms of peace and good-will. I firmly believe that, if language such as that used by Gideon Ouseley in his "Old Christianity," were to But to return to my critic's misapprehensions: "The change of water into wine, in the miracle of Cana" was not "cited as a case in point" on the question of the truth or falsity of transubstantiation. It was cited simply to show, as a matter of fact, what the belief of a great Christian father-St. Cyril of Jerusalem-was on the subject in the fourth century; and the extracts from the other Christian fathers were cited for a similar purpose. As I had plainly indicated my disbelief in transubstantiation, it does argue some lack of intellectual apprehension not to have seen that I was not engaged in the suicidal, self-stultifying, and consequently idiotic task of attempting to prove a doctrine which I disbelieve in. The truth or falsity of transubstantiation was not really in question at all, for the simple reason that the Christian Guardian and myself are in agreement on that point. My contention was, not that the Roman Catholic belief is true, but that, whether true or false, no one-least of all a Christian missionary or a Christian journal-has any right to use grossly insulting language with regard to it or towards those who have held it and who hold it ; especially so, when their vast number, and the high intellectual and moral character of very many of them, are taken into account. My contention was, further, that as no man or body of men is infallible, no one-certainly not a journal which has been in existence but a few years, nor a Church (that is, a body of men) which is but a little over a hundred years old, and itself the offspring of private judgment-has any right to assume, or to use language implying, that Roman Catholics are infallibly wrong in believing transubstantiation, and he is infallibly right in disbelieving it; the logical conclusion being, that Roman Catholics have as good a right to believe in it, if it appears to them to be |