A PROTESTANT MINISTER ON RELIGION IN EUROPE.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 607, 11 April 1876, Page 3

A PROTESTANT MINISTER ON RELIGION IN EUROPE.

Off th« occasion of hu return from a three month« Tuit to Europe, R*v I)r Furber, of the) Firat Church, Newton Centre, Hum,, on Sunday week, addressed hi* congregation on the things he mw m hii travel*. He u evidently mn obtf rrer of man, for hit sermon or address was quu« interesting. Among other things, he tpoia of the Catbolio religion, and it « ill be obt«rred in the following extract that when he oould find no fault with Catholic praotice, h« waa compelled to insinuate unohanUbly againtt Catholic motj?e :: — w We are obliged to oonfesa with*thinie tliut in the matter of eamettnest in religion, the Roman Catholic Church of Europe is far in »dvanca of the Protettant churohet. Whatever we may aaj of ita errors, and snperstions, and corruption!, it is alive and fall of sea], and it a standing rebuke to the apathy of its Protestant neighbours- I spent a Sabath in Dretdon. It is a P roteif ant city. I went in the morning to the Lutheran Churoh, and there were perhaps two or three hundred prctent. When service waa over I ttepped into the Roman Catbolio Cathedral, nnd found mor« than two thousand there, all the seats were filled, and hundreds wtrt standing. Thia ia perhaps an exceptional eate, for at the Cathedral in Dresden the greatest pains are taken to proride musio of * high order, and to have it executed in such a way that you would think you were attending a concert intend of a servioe of worship. The throng of people go, no doubt, to bear the muiic. But I remember five or nix years ago, •pending a Sabath in Worms, where Luther stood before the Diet, and though that ia a Protettant city the Roman Catholic Churoh had many more worahtppera in it than all the Protestant churchei !iad. One day as I wat walking along the street in Munich, I passed a Catholic church where a service wat going on. I stepped in, and thare were thirty or forty boys and girls of the age of ten or twelve, some of them sitting and tome kneeling with their faces towards the altar, and with httle books in their hands which they werj reading. There I saw groups of children at little intervalt around the sides of the churoh. On looking more elotely I taw that they were near tha conftaaionals. In thete confettionais priests w«re seated nearly concealed from view, and the children were standing silently around, each one waiting for hi* turn to go forward and tay what he had to sny in the ear of the priest, sad to receive in return whatever instruction the priest baJ to give. I thould think there were six or eight pneits in that one ohurch engaged in this way ; and it was on one of the secular days of the week, not on the Sabbath. And I then saw how it is that the Romish Church gets such a hold upon the people. It doet not do this without working for it. It begins with the children. It takes time on week dayt, when all Protettant churchet are cloied, to inttruct the children and attach them to the ohurch And her services. It hut an array of priest*, monks, and other taored orders to do its bidding i men who have consecrated themtalvea to self-denying service for small remuneration j to a life of celibacy perhaps, in which they huve nothing to do but to devote theu)telvet to the interests of the ohurch Ths Koimth Church is supplied with monattene* and other largo a-«d riohlv-endowed conventual Mfabishtneuta, where men or women who «re will.ngto devoto their hvet to the work of the church a>-e nupportod, and from which they are suit furth to whatever etrvice the church requiro* to he doui-. And the whole »y«tem ia ao manuged that, the work ia done in the moet tconomical wny. But Mh«re is the Protestant Church in which fix or *ight men can be found who would take an hour or two of time on a week day to ro to church and instruct children in the truths and duties of religion, and laHour to attach them in their early )«»ra to tha church and ita ordinaucea ? There i* reason to fear that there are many 1 rotetUnt parents win do not give even to their own children to muoh religiout instruction n* thoiu ot the Romish minitters do to child -en in whom they have no speoial personal interest."