ROMAN CATHOLICISM 



An Address Delivered Before the Mount Morris Baptist 



Church Forum 



IT is with much diffidence that I follow the gentlemen who 

 have spoken upon the various Sundays before me. My 

 talk is the harder when I undertake to condense into the 

 space of three-quarters of an hour the history and development 

 of the Catholic Church for nineteen centuries. It is really an 

 impossible task ; and if aught in my remarks appears as an 

 omission or curtailment, it is because I can give but an out- 

 line of my subject — simply touch upon the great peaks of in- 

 terest which dominate the doctrines and conception of Catholi- 

 cism. 



I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your kind invita- 

 tion to address you, and the generous welcome which your offi- 

 cers have extended to me. If, therefore, I may be so fortu- 

 nate and sufficiently clear as to give you some idea of the sali- 

 ent points of the doctrines of the Catholic Church — for I can- 

 not hope to make more than an outline sketch — I shall be very 

 glad indeed. I know you take the deepest interest in the out- 

 look of your fellow-men towards God, and above all in that 

 of your fellow American citizens. 



We are Catholics and have no objection to being called 

 Roman Catholics, unless it be invidiously applied, or used in 

 the sense in which the branch theorists of Anglicanism use it. 

 But we do resent the names sometimes used, such as Papist, 

 Romanist and Romish, for the very simple reason that they 

 are expressions of contempt and are intended to wound. Their 

 use is getting rarer and rarer, and all generous-minded Ameri- 

 cans are too noble to fight their battles with adjectives where 

 facts and arguments are needed instead. We are Catholics 

 because we are of the one, great universal church of Jesus 

 Christ, spread throughout all the ages since His death on Cal- 



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