ROMAN CATHOLICISM 



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whether we believe its doctrines or no — just as the word 

 Christmas brings up the memories of Bethlehem and of the 

 Christ-Mass of the Catholic Church. 



Witness her history in the great battle between things spir- 

 itual and things material. Against what church body do the 

 rulers and the nations of the whole earth, when they are an- 

 tagonistic to Christianity, first rage and seek to destroy? 

 What church has just suffered the entire loss of all its tem- 

 poral goods, as recently in France, rather than abate one jot 

 of its principles of unity and right to teach its faith unham- 

 pered? Turn where you will, whether in Europe, Asia, Af- 

 rica or America, and notice what one particular church body 

 is everywhere the universal target of objection or opposition 

 among those who minimize, deny or flout all revelation from 

 God, who advance theories subversive of moral or civil order, 

 who teach doctrines intended to extinguish the light which 

 the Christian religion has shed upon all nations, and you will 

 find by a comparison that that body alone is the Catholic 

 Church. As the Church which Jesus Christ founded could 

 not hope to escape opposition and persecution any more than 

 its Divine Founder, the testimony of past and present history 

 cannot but lead to the conclusion that the Catholic Church 

 alone bears the marks which most nearly attest her as the rep- 

 resentative Church of Christ on earth. This I know is a 

 negative view of the proposition, and I will not assume that 

 it proves anything; but it is a sufficiently striking view to 

 command the respectful consideration of thinking people to 

 the teaching, constitution and claims of the Catholic Church. 



If I were asked what attitude the 

 Catholic Church most insistently 

 assumes in the United States, and 

 what lies closest to her heart of 

 hearts, I could not find a more fit- 

 ting or a more striking answer than 

 in the accompanying chart. It is 

 taken from Bulletin No. 103 of the 

 Census, and concerns the statistics 

 of religious bodies in the United 

 States, taken in the year 1906. You 

 will notice that it deals with all the Protestant churches col- 

 lectively, grouping them under one combined heading. They 



