" CATHOLIC."
[To THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR."1
Sin,—In the most solemn service of our Church we are asked to pray for "the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth," and this Church is described as the universal Church. May we infer that by the word " universal" our re- formers meant to translate " Catholic" into a Latin equivalent? It is quite certain that while we adhere to the technical mean- ing of the word " Catholic" there can be no " peace, unity, and concord." But there is a growing sense that "God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." The Gospel is the charter of liberty, not, of course, freedom for each man to follow his own decrees, but a liberty which refuses to be bound by "the tradition of the elders" and acknowledges with thankfulness the enormous change wrought in our relations with the Universe by the discoveries of science. These revelations, while convincing man of his own littleness, have enlarged his view beyond anything the Psalmist could conceive of the wonders of creation. Jesus of Nazareth broke with tradition ; we who profess allegiance to Him are still enslaved by it. The courage displayed by our Lord is lost upon us. We refuse to face the fact that He, like St. Paul, after the way which the Jewish rulers and priests called heresy, worshipped the God of His fathers. The result is, of course, that in spite of the triumphs of Christianity and of its spirit in the world the kingdom of the world is not become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ., and the glorious vision of the Apocalypse seems nearly as far from fulfilment as ever. The worst symptom of the present day is the trust in mechanism and strict definition, and the attempt to quench the spirit. This is just as visible in the State as in the Church. Methods and not men are sought for, and words count for more than deeds. We have not yet expanded the words of the Psalmist, "Jehovah is King; the earth shall be glad therefore," into the wider conception to which the great prophets of Israel and our Lord bear witness, that " God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation be that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him."—I am,
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