Life — July 8, 1926 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JULY 8, 1926 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 598 Madison / Cuantes Dawa Ginsox, Pre. ‘Rrwoop, Editor , Art Editor HAT with the newspaper space re- quired to re- port the visit of the cardinals, their ir passage to Chicago and the Eucharistic meeting in that now sainted city, it has been hard for news items of even capital importance to get due attention, as that the new Ford car might have six cylinders and that the Congress of the United States was about to ad- journ. With that other Congress going so strong in Chicago the one in Wash- ington seemed rather small potatoes, but that is largely because the Eu- charistic Congress is a novelty and the other is not. It is possible that the Eucharistic Congress will be useful to religion, not only inside of the Church of Rome, but generally. The notice that has been given it and the vast and colorful _hospitalities that have been heaped upon its members are very interesting. One of the cardinals said all this could not have happened ten rs ago. May- be we are getting better-natured about religion. Perhaps we are get- ting to realize that though religion is very valuable—indispensable in- deed to either public or private wel- fare—pcople who have it and organ- izations that handle it are very liable to misapprehension as to what they have got. They are quite apt to think that religion lies in certain definite details of belief, that it is very important to get these details right, and that unless one does get them right one’s soul is in peril and Cram Maxwen, Laxcuorne Grnson, Secretary and Treasurer venue, New York ident ice-President one’s conduct cannot attain to the standard. And then, on top of that, they are liable to pick the wrong details, For example, the doctrine of the real presence in the Mass seems to be considered of vital importance in the Catholic Church, but by Prot- estants it is quite rejected and they even do not sce the point of it. For them it is a wrong detail, though happily they no longer lose any sleep because Catholics adhere to it. In Lecky’s history of the Eight- centh Century in England there is an extended and interesting account of the rise of the Methodists under John Wesley and George Whitefield. It was an amazing revival, extremely useful to England and to religion everywhere, yet it was so amply fur- nished forth with extravagances of deportment and belief, and with dis- putes and fierce doctrinal squabbles among its promoters, as to make one wonder how the movement sur- vived so many drawbacks. It also encouraged the thought that people who get religion are apt to have a very defective notion of what they have got. They attribute to this doctrine or that doctrine what does not belong to either of them but is due to some powerful elementary be- lief which has power over human nature, and on which details of doc- trine are mere philosophical freckles. Arians, Arminians, Socinians. tians, Moravians and Calvi had conflicting convictions in Wes- ley’s day about justification by faith and such things, but all could feel the power of religion and be helped by it. Perhaps the world will some day see the essentials of the Christian religion better discerned and sorted out than they are at present. The great disturbance between the Mod- ernists and the Fundamentalists js part of a movement in that direction, T is not likely that the great show at Chicago will draw to the Cath- olic Church any considerable num- ber of Americans who do not already belong to it, but by making religion a subject of public thought it may stir up all the Churches. Sometime some patient and fervent Catholic should explain why his co-religion- ists kneel to the cardinals and kiss their rings as was even done at the Fordham Commencement by Gor- ernor Smith when he met the car- dinal from Spain. What is the point of kneeling to cardinals, of kneel- ing, for that matter, to the Pope? One reads in Scripture, “As Peter was coming in Cornelius (the cen- turion) met him and fell down at his feet and worshipped him. But Peter took him up saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.” Peter is considerably respected in the Catholic Church, The keys on its flag are his. Can it be that he was a Protestant? Possibly to most Catholics kneeling to high church dignitaries is just a matter of eti- quette. It would be nice if the Eucharistic Congress would discuss whether it is profitable, and if so, why. OSCOSOO.s T° people who are worried for fear the Roman Catholic Church will now proceed to gobble up the United States, it is not unlawful nor even unkind to suggest that the United States will do more to the Catholic Church than the Catholic Church will do to the United States. We are apt to concentrate our attention on the impression that these visitors make upon us. We will do well to divert a part of it to the impression that we make on them. As for our view of them it is pretty safe to say that they seem to be more religious than was expected. Possibly they will think the same of us, and the impressions may be true in both | cases, E. S. Martin. comicbooks.com