Power of Reverence.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 20 February 1902, Page 1

Power of Reverence.

Many of our readers are probabley aware that the Rev. S. H. Rosecrans (afterwards first bishop of Columbus, O.) was led to the faith through witnessing, unobserved, the deep reverence and glowing devotion of his pious and gallant brother, General Rosecrans, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. The reverential attitude and devotional bearing of a Catholic congregation in New Zealand at a recent Pontifical Mass was made the subject of wafm encomium by a prominent Protestant official. A further tribute to the impressiveness and winning power of reverence comes from another high-placed Protestant —the Rev. Andrew Gray, D.D., in a recent issue of an Episcopalian newspaper, The Diocese of Springfield. ' I verily believe,' says Dr. Gray,' that the Protestant bodies around us, without intending it, are, by outward irreverence, training hundreds of their young people for the Church of Rome. Irreverence, in outward form, is one of the weak features of Protestantism ; while, on the other hand, with all her corruptions in doctrine, and her most unscriptural and modern ( polity, Rome's stronghold is her reverence in outward form, in public worship, especially so in this country. And so when young people (who all through their life have been accustomed to habits and practices which are far from being reverent) happen some day to go into the Church of Rome to a wedding or a funeral, and see the reverent habits, customs, and demeanor of the worshippers there, they are struck at once with the propriety and fitness of such outward expression of reverence in the House of God, they are often captivated, and become an easy prey to Rome." The writer had, of course, to enter his ' protest' against the ' errors of Rome,' but his testimony is, on that account, all the more valuable.