ROME'S INFLUENCE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 59.

ROME'S INFLUENCE.

THE following words, by Prof. Geo. H. Schodde, are well worthy of remembrance, and especially just now, when Rome's claims are so persistently and continuously set forth by its advocates as the saviour of the world and the conservator of its education and religion. He says:—

A positive and aggressive force in modern civilization at large or in special lines the Church of Rome has not been. It is a singular yet instructive fact that in none of the departments controlling modern life and thought—not in politics, not in literature, not in philosophy, not in science or learning of any kind, not in journalism, not in education—does the leadership and directing power lie in the hands of the Roman Church. She utilizes all these agencies for her own purposes, but does so not as their mistress, but as best she may, and as under compulsion and in self-defense. Although the largest by several millions among the Christian churches in America, she has not a single journal or periodical of national reputation or influence in the land, and through this, probably the strongest medium of power in modern public life, her influence, outside of her own constituency and on the thought and morality of the people in general, is virtually nil.

It is a noteworthy fact that those three countries which are, beyond any and every doubt, the leading powers on the globe, namely, England, Germany, and the United States, are distinctively Protestant in character; not, indeed, in the sense that they have no Roman Catholic subjects, but because in their development the principles of Protestantism prevail.

There is one thought in the above quotation which is worthy of special attention, and that is that Rome "utilizes all these agencies for her own purposes," and, while she has not of her own a single journal or periodical of national reputation, she is using the great daily press in a way that no other single denomination is doing or all denominations together are doing, and her influence there is most potent. She is exerting the same influence in political life, often unseen in its operations, but clearly manifest to the careful observer in its effects. The dominant religious power in political life to-day is either that of Rome, or, what is the same thing, the Roman principles for which Protestants stand sponsors. Wherever these things work for the union of Church and State, or what will inevitably end in that, they are building for Rome, and Rome will reap the benefit. Our Protestant churches as organizations are committed to these principles to-day in the matter of Sunday laws.

God designed that Protestantism should use all the wonderful blessings which have come to her to the honor and glory of Christ and his cause; but she is endeavoring to use them for her own glory, to advance the aspirations and ambitions of men, to bind the consciences of souls instead of setting them free, to replace the commandments of God by traditions of men. She will find that the crafty old mother is more than a match for her in this warfare.