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WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING?

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, April 28, 1885

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 62, No. 17

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WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING?

By E. Van Deusen

BY E. VAN DEUSEN.
AFTER reading the interesting chapter on the “Aims of the Papacy,” in Vol. IV. of “Great Controversy,” my mind turned to an extract which I had copied from “Dowling’s History of Romanism,” pages 890, 891, on the aspirations and designs of the Roman Catholic church in this country, containing a conversation between a Protestant clergyman and a Catholic priest, as reported in the New York Observer:—
“ ‘Do you think,’ said I [clergyman], ‘that yours will ever be the established religion of this country?’
“ ‘Certainly I do. It must be so.’
“ ‘Never,’ said I.
“ ‘Never!’ he repeated.
“ ‘No, never,’ said I, with vehemence.
“ ‘Now, now,’ said he playfully, ‘not so fast. Don’t be so positive. Why do you think ours may not one day be the established religion?’
“ ‘Because our Constitution and our laws are against it.’
“ ‘But we will change your Constitution and your laws.’
“ ‘Change them?’
“ ‘Yes; change them—amend them.’
“ ‘But the people will see that you shall not do that.’
“ ‘We will change the people too.’
“ ‘Not in your day or mine,’ said I resolutely.’
“ ‘Perhaps not,’ he answered very coldly; ‘perhaps not. But we have purposed it, and it shall be done—if not in your day or mine, then in the days of those who shall come after us.’
“ ‘I looked at his face with astonishment, as if I could not believe my own senses. He saw, and added quickly:—
“ ‘Oh! do not be alarmed. It will be done very quietly. It may be a long time coming, but it will come, when the Catholics will rule the nation, and the Catholic religion will be the ruling faith of the country.’
“ ‘Oh! you cannot believe it.’
“ ‘Yes, I do believe it. We are at it now. And you know what we Catholics are. When we take hold, we hold on, and never let go. . . . We will, upset your institutions and establish our own.’”
Says the author of the volume quoted: “Father Hecker, in a recent lecture in the city of New York, said, ‘The Catholic church numbers one-third of the American population; and if its membership shall increase for the next thirty years as it has for the thirty years past, in 1900 Rome will have a majority, and be bound to take this country and keep it.’”