WHEN the announcement of the Columbus Sunday Convention was made, the following notice of it was given by the Catholic Columbian of that city:—
“A meeting of all denominations in Ohio is called to be held at Columbus, February 20 and 21, to consider the advisability of a thorough organization in the interest of a better observance of the Christian Sabbath.’
“We Catholics are always in favor of that day being kept sacredly and strictly, though without the gloomy countenance or the ashes of woe; yet the first thing the members of this convention ought to do would seem to us to be to show any scriptural command whatsoever to observe the ‘Christian Sabbath’
“There is authority for the change from the Sabbath to Sunday—ample authority; but it is the authority of the Catholic Church, the only one reaching back to the time of Christ. Fallible churches could make no such a change.”
That shows what there is in the indorsement of the Sunday bill by Cardinal Gibbons; it is as a tribute paid by Protestants to the authority of the Catholic Church, that Cardinal Gibbons indorsed it, as it is also of all the Catholics who do indorse it. In his letter to Dr. Crafts in which he indorsed the Blair Sunday bill, Cardinal Gibbons cited the plenary council of Baltimore as authority for keeping Sunday. The Roman Church recognizes no other authority for keeping Sunday than the authority of that church. And whenever they indorse the Protestant movement to obtain a law for the enforcement of Sunday observance, they know it is a tribute paid by Protestants to the authority of the Catholic Church. And when the Protestants get a law by the help, as they themselves say, of all the Catholics in this country, that will not be tine end of the matter; the Catholic Church will see that the Protestants pay the tribute which Catholics say is due to that church.
To those so-called Protestants who are so anxious to make religion a subject of legislation, it now appears a very pleasant thing to secure the alliance of the Papacy. But when they shall have accomplished the feat, and find themselves in the midst of a continuous whirl of political strife and contention with the Papacy, not alone for supremacy, but for existence—then they will find it not nearly so pleasant as it now appears to their vision, blinded by the lust for illegitimate power.
And when they find themselves compelled to pay more than they bargained to, they will have but themselves to blame; for when they make religion a subject of legislation, they therein confess that it is justly subject to the rule of majorities. And then, if the Romish Church secures the majority, and compels the Protestants to conform to Catholic forms and ordinances, the Protestants cannot justly complain. For our part we want no rules of majorities in religious observances, either Protestant or Catholic.
A. T. J.