“The Papal Church, founded, to a large extent, on superstition and ignorance, has ever been afraid of knowledge, of study, and education; hence she only consulted her own life’s interests when, in the Middle Ages, she decreed knowledge to be identical with heresy, and heresy to be punishable by death.” These words are quoted from The Roman Catholic Church in Italy, by the Rev. Alexander Robertson, D.D., a book accorded a flattering reception by the King of Italy in 1903. Again, Lord Macaulay, speaking of the Roman Catholic Church in the first chapter of his History of England, says that, “during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been made in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor.”
P. [38], line 7.—Gifts for the needy.
The exhortation to “give to the poor” is a precept of all the great religions. Indiscriminate giving was inculcated by the disciples of Christ, who were the poor, and Asiatic poor at that. The pity of it is that often more harm than good is done because the “Divine” command does not specify the deserving poor. Hence that wholesale pauperisation of which the evil effects are especially apparent among the Jews and in Oriental countries.
Chapter II.
P. [44], lines 22–3.—Mansel, Mozley, Farrar, Westcott, on Miracles.
Dean Mansel said: “If there be one fact recorded in Scripture which is entitled, in the fullest sense of the word, to the name of a miracle, the Resurrection of Christ is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in which the entire Christian faith must stand or fall with our belief in the supernatural.... A superhuman authority needs to be substantiated by superhuman evidence, and what is superhuman is miraculous” (pp. 3 and 35 of Aids to Faith, 4th ed.).
Canon Mozley said: “Miracles and the supernatural contents of Christianity must stand or fall together” (Bampton Lectures, 1865).
Dean Farrar said: “However skilfully the modern ingenuity of semi-belief may have tampered with supernatural interpositions, it is clear to every honest and unsophisticated mind that, if miracles be incredible, Christianity is false” (The Witness of History to Christ, Hulsean Lectures for 1870, 2nd ed., p. 25).
Bishop Westcott said: “The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle, and, if it can be shown that a miracle is either impossible or incredible, all further inquiry into the details of its history is superfluous from a religious point of view” (The Gospel of the Resurrection, 3rd ed., 1874, p. 34). See also Archbishop Trench’s Notes on Miracles.