CATHOLICS, METHODISTS AND BAPTISTS TOGETHER.
New York papers give lengthy accounts of a peculiar blending of three creeds under the roof of the East Avenue Baptist Church of Long Island City. It appears that St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church of that city was recently destroyed by fire; whereupon the pastor and trustees of the Baptist Church tendered them the use of the Baptist Church until such times as they can rebuild or repair their edifice.
The Catholics accepted the invitation, and celebrated mass in the Baptist Church last Sunday (July 31) four times—a temporary altar, erected for the purpose, surmounted by holy candles and crucifix, being used. The altar, candles, etc., were removed in time for the service of the Baptists and Methodists, which followed the 9:30 A.M. mass.
The presence of the Methodists is explained by the fact that the Baptist and Methodist pastors had arranged that, during their vacations, their congregations would unite, and the services be held in the two churches alternately.
No wonder Infidelity laughs at Christianity, and asserts that they are either fools or knaves: fools, if they believe their unreasonable creeds; knaves, if they profess what they do not believe.
Roman Catholicism has written her view of Protestantism in characters not to be mistaken;—with sword, and fagot, and rack in the past, and with threats, curses, anathemas and declarations of eternal torment in modern times.
Baptists and Methodists both have professed to recognize Papacy as the very Man of Sin—Anti-Christ—pictured in the Scriptures; and the mass has been seen, by some at least, as the very center of error (See M. DAWN, VOL. III., pages 64, 98-104), the "abomination that maketh desolate."
Not only so, but Baptists have long claimed that in their view immersion is essential to a membership in Christ's Church, and hence that all not immersed, and not members of the saved Church, would be eternally lost.
While, therefore, many will applaud the action of the Baptists as liberality, thinking people will see in it inconsistency and a denial of all the principles involved in the names Christian and Protestant. It is significant of the coming federation foretold in the Scriptures, as one of the signs of degeneracy of faith of this harvest time of this Gospel age, and frequently pointed out in these columns.