| 940 but alas! were they prophets and apostles?-They lacked the all important "thus saith the Lord."
To bring this matter right before the people, let us quote the following from a foreign journal.
THE NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY.
A new religious movement has started in Germany, which, taken in consideration with the philosophical and philanthropic movements of the age, and arising in the midst of these movements, may lead to important results.
Last August in the cathedral of Treves, the tunic of Christ was shown, and its sight and touch, it was declared, would heal the sick and perform various miracles. Tens of thousands flocked to see, and once more in the middle of the nineteenth century, amidst populations enlightened by the positive sciences, a childish scene of the middle ages was enacted over again, but enacted unfortunately not by children, but by beings full of the perversity of perverted, fanatical and superstitious manhood. This scene excited the indignation of many honest and devoted hearts, and at length a Catholic priest by the name of Ronge protested openly and powerfully against this act of the Church of Rome, and called upon his countrymen, who rejected these acts and scenes of a by-gone age, to unite with him in the condemnation, and to form a German Catholic Church. This proposition met a deep and wide response, and this movement, undertaken by an obscure individual in the Catholic hierarchy, has in a few months awakened among the Germans a new series of religious discussions, and a new spirit. Political questions have been put aside by the press, and the most important political events give way to the interest excited by this new religious movement.
A strange fact is to be remarked in this new movement. While the enlightened Catholics of Germany sustain and encourage this religious reform, it is attacked with violence by the Pietists, who are the strictly orthodox Protestants, and who correspond to the Presbyterians and Methodists, &c. of this country. The reason of this is that while Ronge has protested against what he conceived abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, he has also protested against the whole policy of these religionists, who would make of religion a means of government, of personal interest, of the maintenance of what now exists, with all that is false and anti-christian in it, for the benefit of those who are now in place and power. Protestantism is far more closely connected with government in Germany than in this country, and hence the selfishly conservative spirit reigns in it as it does in its opponent, the Church of Rome.
The truth is, that the new religious movement of Ronge is political and social in its nature, as well as religious, borrowing a part of its ideas from Fourier and Owen. The idea of a better practical state of things on this earth, to be produced by Christian charity and philanthropy, by those grand doctrines of fraternity, justice, equality, and brotherhood, given to the world by Christ, could not have failed to enter into a movement of this kind, because that idea is now living every where in society, and has obtained a positive existence in the world. Ronge, with his idea of a Universal Church, which shall unite all classes of society, connecting the rich and the poor in the name of Christian charity, and establishing a brotherhood in the place of the war of castes and clans, of the privileged and the oppressed, is a political and social, as well as a religious reformer; and this has aroused against him those who would maintain privilege, usurpation and injustice in the world, whether Protestant or Catholic.
In his last manifesto, addressed to the secondary clergy, Ronge says:-
"The mission of the Universal Catholic Church was to realize the brotherhood of the whole human race, to harmonize the most heterogeneous elements, to fill up and bridge over all glaring social inequalities. She has failed in this sublime object, by her hypocrisy, her Jesuitism, and her selfishness. She has even corrupted the divine source from which she emanated. She it is who has caused the civil wars of the past and present times; and in testimony, look at the present state of Switzerland. She it is who disunites society, and divides it into classes, of the rich and poor, the wise and ignorant, the privileged and the subjugated. Her hour has come. It is time to enter into the divine domain of light, of truth, of love, which is the only and true 'kingdom of Christ.'"
This view of Ronge, attributing to Catholicism, the disunion of society and an up-building of privilege, is one-sided, and to a considerable extent erroneous; like other elements of the social compact-the political, &c-it has done its part in establishing, in past ages of anarchy, ignorance and brutality, a false and oppressive order-perhaps the only one possible, but its error is still to uphold this order, in ages when humanity, by its progressive development, refinement and intelligence, is capable of something better.
(page 940) |
