A Few Mistakes of Rev. Dr. Newton [pp. 250-255]

A FEW MISTArES oF REv. DR. NEWTON. [May,
he calls "the floor-manager." Considering that the public ser vices in his own sect are not devoid of ceremonial, he inferen tially attacks them in assailing the ceremonies of the Mass; for
Episcopalianism, to borrow the expression of an Episcopalian, is
only "bob-tailed popery" I To use the term " floor-manager"
in caricaturing the master of ceremonies of the Mass is as much
out of taste as it would be to call Dr. Newton's church a circus
and its officiating clergyman the "ring-master." Does the doctor
forget that he has five senses and only one intellect; and that as
the senses are the channels of corruption, so they may be made the
vehicles of holy sensations and pious thoughts evoked by ceremonial and ritual? Does he forget how rich and gorgeous was
the ritual of the people of God, with their ark, tabernacle, temple, sacrifices, priests, Levites, holy water, incense, processions,
fasts, and jubilees? Was that ritual given to Moses by God, or
taken from paganism? And if Romanism be baptized paganism,
must we say that Judaism was only a circumcised paganism?
Even the doctor's classics are out of joint. There is no line
of Juvenal that can be properly rendered by "escorted by the
tonsured, surpliced train." This is a very free translation-just
as free as the doctor's logic and history. The travesty of the
Sacrament of the Eucharist, which the doctor says can be found
among the Parsees, in Mithraism, proves nothing against the
Catholic Church.* Even if the facts were as he states they
would prove as much against nearly all the Protestant sects as
against the church-for they generally admit the Lord's Supper
as a religious observance. Indeed, throughout the article the
doctor's gun is kicking hard against his own shoulder. His sect
has baptism and the Eucharist; its clergy are surpliced; the
steeples of its churches have crosses; some of its temples have
confessionals, counterfeit "Masses," incense, and holy water.
Now, if the fact of finding some of these things in paganism justifies him in asking "Is Romanism a baptized paganism?" would
it not justify us in asking the question, "Is Episcopalianism a
baptized paganism? "t Where did the doctor learn that Abb6
Huc's Travels in Thibet was "put on the Index"? This is a
small matter; but an error in such things shows the character
* Many pagan practices are travesties of Hebrew or Christian ceremonies. "Mithraism"
has stolen much from Christianity, instead of Christianity borrowing from it.
t The surest sign that Episcopalian "orthodoxy" has been reduced to a condition like that
of a shrivelled kernel in an old nut is the notorious fact that a prominent member of its clergy
can thus attack the inspiration of the Bible and the historical character of.Christianity with impunity. Dr. Newton should exchange pulpits with " Bob'I Ingersoll at once, for it would be
hard to find in what they disagree.
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