Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/289

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1852-1856 233 abolished even the chancel arch. They introduced modern tawdry and deformed vestments, and in devotions some of the most vulgar and base of foreign forms of worship. They have sought to paganize Christian worship. Gothic architecture has not won the heart of modern Romanists. They have felt instinctively that it is the expression of the National religion ; and their religion is not national but Italian. What English people generally fail to understand is that there exists a radical distinction between Catholicity and Papalism. Catholicity consists in adherence to the Apostolic Faith as declared in the Nicene Creed, and in the worship of the Church. In these points the Holy Eastern Church is as Catholic as the Roman. Papalism consists in a form of Government. The primitive church was constitutional. In Latin Christianity the Papacy by steady encroachments has subverted the Apostolic form of government, and converted the Western Church into a spiritual monarchy. It has turned the bishops into a set of subservient lackeys. The Eastern Churches know nothing of this. Of course they do not, for they adhere to the divinely appointed organization as given to the Church by the Apostles. In what then consists the strength of the Roman Church, its attractive power, its capacity for winning and retaining the affections of its adherents ? The secret is really no secret at all—it is the fact of its possession of the Catholic faith and of Catholic worship. It holds these two treasures firmly, and they act magnetically on the soul. But with these the Papacy has only a so-to-speak accidental connexion. As for Popery ever getting hold of the English people generally, the Romanists themselves have given up all expectation of it. We can be quite certain that it will not, knowing as we do that its credentials are forged. But there are other reasons. Cardinal Manning wrote : " Why do we not draw men as Spurgeon and ' General' Booth or Hugh Price Hughes ? I am afraid there are two obvious reasons. We choose our topics unwisely, and we are not on fire with the love of God and of souls." 1 1 Pur cell: Life of Cardinal Manning, 5th ed. ii. p. 777.