"CATHOLICUS" AND "PROTESTANT."

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2947, 26 July 1878, Page 2

"CATHOLICUS" AND "PROTESTANT."

(To the Editor of the Evening Stab.)

" Sib,—rl see in your contemporary, the Advertiser, that " Catholicus " and the "Protestant" are having a stand-up fight about their faith. I think they are managing it better than religious disputes tiled to be managed. In the old times they used to burn one another if they did hot believe, as ihey believed, but lately they only resort to low abusive language, saying things for the sole purpose to vex. Those two appear to do it better. The "Protestant" strikes home, and strikes hard. His main text is, that the Catholic Church has changed, it being a truth beyond denial that a creed of divine origin must cease to be divine when altered. The " Protestant "brings history to prove that the Catholics have changed. Now we are. waiting to see if "Catholicus" can come again ; if he does^iot, we shall conclude it is because he cannot. I was asking a Catholic what proof or evidence they Could give us that the' 4 bread and wine received at sacrament was, by con-secr-tion, made into the real body and blood of Christ. He said that it was something that required divine faith, not proof; that anyone could believe in common things, and there was'no virtue in that, but this was something uncommon, and required mighty faith. I asked him if he did not see that this placed ! 'them in a strange dilemma, for j every false religion in the world could be established on the same | footing, if evidence and proof was not required, only mighty faith. The Catholics often boast of their apostolic succession : here again we ask for proof. The successors of the apostles had to have the power to work miracles to heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind', make the dumb to speak, and raise.the dead. If they will give us this proof they will then get a mighty host to join them. The Catholics depend too much upon their old age, that they have been of such long standing. But if this was anything to rely npon, then the Jews are older than they, and the Pagans older still. An old falsehood sometimes lives on for thousands of years, and then it has to die—such as the earth being stationary; but truth comes up a mighty giant, and slays it with one blow : truth is immortal as God himself. Truth as on a diamond rock Erects her throne in beauty vernal; . Unmoved "by the tremendous shock, . And steadfast as the king eternal. „ I am, &c, J. HOBN. July 26th, 78,