| 941 But Ronge is declaring war against social injustice, inequality, oppression and privilege, no matter whether he mistakes the source from which they emanate, has struck a chord that will vibrate deeply in the conscience of humanity, and bring up the grand question of the elevation of the race-a question as much political and social as it is religious-and to which will be given that enthusiasm and impetus which comes from a deep religious sentiment, the love of God and the love of neighbor.
This subject suggests new views upon the means and measures which religious bodies, in these modern ages, are taking to spread Christianity, and the political and social results which it carries with it, and the spirit which animates Christian propagation in general.-We will reserve them for another article.
At the end of his manifesto, Ronge invites the secondary clergy, who compose the lower order of the clergy, who are poor and much oppressed, in all nations, to make common cause with him, and to aid in the pacification, and in securing the moral and material happiness of all mankind. The last article of faith, adopted by the new German Catholic Church, is thus expressed: it is remarkable.
"These articles of faith can in no manner bind the generations which are to come. The fundamental principles of your religion are, the love and the progress of humanity. Every Christian sentiment must have its source in love, personified by our Savior Jesus Christ."
This declaration of love and the progress of humanity, which will make Christianity operate directly upon the practical affairs of the world, is a step taken in advance of that Protestantism which has become petrified in theological controversies, and the discussion and propagation of mere speculative dogmas, which are separated from the divine warmth and efficiency of love. For this reason many Protestants are uniting with Ronge. We watch with great interest this new social and religious movement in Germany. A. B. C.
The foregoing shows how easily the people can be deceived without revelation, and that Babylon, when not "literally understood," means confusion.
While in the way of quoting from foreign journals, we will give the following:-
ASPECT OF PROPERTY IN ENGLAND.-In England, Romanism wears its most courtly dress, and speaks in most gentle accents. All that can ensnare a fastidious taste, or charm a generous disposition, is brought forward; tales of ancient faith and holy martyrdom are told in winning words, and every thing that is graceful in antiquity claimed as an integral element in the constitution of the Romish Church. Charity is the phrase that is ever on her lips, and she would fain persuade men that it is with a breaking heart she seeks them, that the erring children may be restored to a suffering mother; but to him who, in the first impulse of a confiding nature, has listened to her voice and believed her testimony, how sad and startling is the conviction which a closer acquaintance with the reality must ever bring? Ancient faith and holy martyrdom were in the days when Romanism was unknown; persecution and cruelty have marked her sway since she came into existence, and the martyrs who have fallen have suffered at her hands; she has been no sharer of her Lord's sorrow, but a despiser of his grief, and a smiter of his children. She has seized upon the intellectual faculties and genius of every age through which she has passed, as appliances of her regal state and the tribute to her worldly dignity: she has enriched herself with the merchandise of souls, which she has sold into darkness, that she might revel in wealth and earthly grandeur. Let any man who would put faith in her professions of charity and maternal love, cast his eye over the record of the Inquisition: let him remember the years of persecution to which she has shed: let him reckon up the anathemas of the Council of Trent: let him steadily consider every indication which the present century has afforded of the unchangeable nature of her spirit, and let him judge, how far she who speaks of charity can feel it-how far she, with the word of love in her mouth, and the blow of cruelty in her hand, can ever have humanity at heart. Men may talk as they will of schism and heresy. Where can more be found than those which Rome has harbored? Men may mourn with maudlin sentiment over the evils of the Reformation, and cast their small censures upon the mighty spirits who, under God, brought it to pass. What would Christendom have been without the Reformation, but a corrupting mass of spiritual wickedness and abomination? And it ill bocomes [becomes] those who breathe the atmosphere of Christian liberty, and intellectual freedom, to despise the men who purchased the privilege which they enjoy with their own life's blood and labor. If men will know what Romanism is, let them not learn it from the holiday phrases and scholastic sophisms of Oscott theses, or of Oxford tracts; but let them look at it in the face of Rome: let them mark it in the full exercise of its degrading influence in Belgium: let them gather it from the trash which the Jesuits sell, and the debasing doctrines which too many of the ecclesiastical
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