GROUNDLESS REJOICING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 175, 4 August 1876, Page 10

GROUNDLESS REJOICING.

There has been much jubilation lately in certain Protestant circles because Spain has been thrown open to the dissemination of their principles. Close upon seventeen millions of Catholic people hitherto protected from the assaults of proselytism have been brought within reach of its efforts, and the world that dubs itself " evangelical " rings with exultation. The Pope protested against this step, and his action has, as a matter of course, met with the warmest condemnation : narrowness, bigotry, intolerance, and every other accusation easily imaginable, or hard to invent, have been hurled at his head. Yet it might have appeared not unreasonable that the spiritual father of so many millions of souls should object to his children's being exposed to temptation, and the right might rationally have been accorded him of doing all that in him lay to prevent their faith from being tampered with.

It is not here as in a country where various sects are numerous, and where liberty of worship is plainly the legal right of all without distinction. In Spain the religion of the people is one only ; and it is quite a different thing to introduce measures to cause disturbance in this, and permit of its being interfered with, from what it would be to place it on a level with contrary opinions in a country where sects abound, and there permit it to live or die on its merits. " Experience teaches " is an old saying and one the truth of which is most frequently admitted, but to every mle there is an exception, and the persevering- attempts of some Protestants to substitute their doctrines for those of the Church amongst Catholics do not appear by indubitable failure to convince these sanguine folk of the hopelessness of their efforts. "When Garibaldi and his followers commenced their revolution in Italy, the " evangelical " sects were enraptured ; not one amongst them ever seemed to think that the veteran pirate was anything in the world other than aa ardent pioneer of the " gospel." More than one wild youth, longing for adventure, persuaded their unwilling parents to let them join the English auxiliaries of the red shirted hero on the plea that they were striking for the cause of the Bible. Italy was Looked upon as already converted from the error of her ways, and it was believed that a new realm had been subdued for the advance of the " Reformation/

But what has beea the result? It may be that many, yielding to temptation, and separated from Catholic influences, have lost their faith ; find even of these there are, everything considered, not by any means so many as it might have reasonably been feared there would have been. But where are they now to be found ? In the meeting houses of the Protestant sects? "Sitting under" the dreary instruction of the orthodox? By no means ; the stage whereon are acted indecent plays, the streets where ladies — even English and American ladies, independent and fearless as they are known to be — are subjected to insult, the haunt of the conspirator and the assassin, all these have far greater attractions for them, and Italy, though she is infinitely more wicked, is no more Protestant to-day than she was a hundred years a g°And the case of France is still more instructive ; for here, notwithstanding the equality on which the various religions have long existed, a native Protestant Church boasting many zealous ministers, some of them men of eminent talents, and an indefatigable propaganda, the number of Protestants has diminished immensely, and does not approach within some thousands of that which it was prior to the great revolution. So that, on the whole, we really are at a loss to discover on

what grounds the " evangelisation " of Spain is now hoped for. There are, in fact, none ; Protestantism — that is, Protestantism professing a belief in Christianity, has run its course and is now on the decline ; it is rapidly drifting into infidelity, and the time is near at hand when the Church will be on one side and open unbelief on the other. All true friends of religion, then, instead of rejoicing would lament, were they rightly to consider, over the introduction of an infidel element into Spain ; for here the danger lies in this new enactment. But, rather than see the Church left at peace to minister to the souls of her children, there are many who call themselves Christians, and who yet would not scruple to aid in the destruction of the Faith ; of whom F it may justly be affirmed, that they betray by their sentiments the spirit which truly actuates them, and stand convicted like the false mother of Solomon's famous judgment, who exclaimed of the living child, " Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it."