On pages 133-134, we are told substantially that for the first three or four centuries after Christ, God governed the Christian world directly! Then, for a time, through the priests alone! Afterward, for several centuries, through kings alone! Now the whole Christian world is ruled solely by "the open Bible!" This is a good example of how most non-Catholic writers, when speaking of religion, are always ready to sacrifice historical truth for the sake of a generalization or a rhetorical flourish.
"Its primitive organization (that is, of the church) was purely democratic. It recognized the right of the governed to choose their governor." (P. 201.) We never knew before that the people of Ephesus elected Timothy to be their ruler, or the people of Crete, Titus. We thought St. Paul appointed both of them, and that he told Timothy, "The things which thou hast heard from me before many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others also," (Epis. to Timothy ii. 2;) and that he wrote to Titus, "... ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee." (Epis. to Titus i. 5.)
"When Hildebrand gathered up the reins of government in his powerful hand to transmit them to his successors, the ecclesiastical elective primacy became an absolute supremacy." (P. 201.)
In the Arabian Nights, if any difficulty occurs to interfere with the plot of a story, genii or fairies are straightway introduced, perform very coolly some astounding act, and presto! all goes smoothly again. So, when Protestant authors, in writing history, come across any fact that stands in the way of their preconceived anti-Catholic theories, and logic cannot remove it, they introduce "priestcraft," "Hildebrand," "the cunning Jesuits," etc.; these prodigies shoulder the difficulty, walk off with it, and then "it is all perfectly clear." "Priestcraft," for instance, invented the whole sacramental system and foisted it on the church, no one knows when, where, or how. "Hildebrand" created the papal power. It did not exist before his time. "The cunning Jesuits"—ah! it would require more than a Thousand and One Arabian Nights to recount all the wondrous achievements of these mythological characters. Their latest act has been the convocation of the present œcumenical council, which they rule with an iron hand. In fact, the editor of this magazine, who is a member of the council, has written to us privately that now their power and tyranny have become so great that when the council is in full session you have to ask a special permission of "the cunning Jesuits" if you desire to sneeze or even wink! (Isn't it awful, reader? But this, you know, is strictly entre nous. You mustn't mention it to any body on any consideration, unless, of course—as is not at all impossible—you should hereafter learn the same thing from the Atlantic Cable!)
The saints of the Catholic Church in modern times, we read, (p. 362,) "are ecstatics, crazy nuns, and sentimental boys." Such, therefore, were Sts. Alphonsus Liguori, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Vincent de Paul, Charles Borromeo, Francis of Sales, Theresa, Jane de Chantal, and the two Catherines! Well, we live to learn!
Mr. Gould, in order, it would appear, to give an air of originality—or, more correctly, aboriginality—to his book, chooses to employ the term idol as signifying any representation of the Deity, (whether it receive divine worship or not,) even the intellectual conception or purely philosophic idea! "Idolatry, then, is the outward expression of the belief in a personal God." (P. 176.) According to this new nomenclature, we must style all Christians idolaters!
"A fetish is a concentration of spirit or deity upon one point." (P. 177.) So with sticks, stones, and snakes, he ranks the Sacred Host—the Catholic fetish!
"The attribution to the Deity of wisdom and goodness is every whit as much anthropomorphosis as the attribution of limbs and passions." (P. 175.) So all worshippers of the Deity (for the impersonal "God" of pantheism is simply no God at all) are anthropomorphists as well as "idolaters"!
The last remark we have quoted from the author is not true. The soul alone is not the man; neither is the body alone; but soul and body together. Whoever, therefore, attributes to God only the spiritual attributes of man, cannot be properly termed an anthropomorphist. In any case, however, we most decidedly object to any one's applying to sacred things terms rendered opprobrious by long and correct usage. The effect of such an act is to confuse the reader, and its tendency is to bring what is holy into contempt. Perhaps this was the author's intention.
As might easily be supposed from the foregoing examples, the writer of this book is one of the nineteenth century illuminati, and in favor of "unrestrained freedom of thought," etc., (the chief enemies of which are historical facts, sound logic, and common-sense.) We will now listen for a moment while, in good orthodox Protestant fashion, he is "shouting the battle-cry of freedom."