is practically at an end, has expressed to some of the highest dignitaries of the Catholic Church at Rome the desire to round out his career by this last great act.”  The Western Watchman of July 3d in that year had in its inimitable style referred to the coming dogma, thus:  “What Catholic in the world to-day would say that the immaculately conceived body of the Blessed Virgin was allowed to rot in the grave?  The Catholic mind would rebel against the thought; and death would be preferred to the blasphemous outrage.”  The grounds for wanting the “assumption” of Mary fixed in a dogma were these:  “Catholics believe in the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin, because their faith instinctively teaches them that such a thing is possible and proper, and that settles it in favor of the belief.  The body of our Lord should not taste corruption, neither should the body that gave Him His body.  The flesh that was bruised for our sins was the flesh of Mary.  The blood that was shed for our salvation was drawn from Mary’s veins.  It would be improper that the Virgin Mother should be allowed to see corruption if her Son was exempted from the indignity.”  If any should be so rash as to question the propriety of the new dogma, the writer held out this pleasant prospect to them:  “Dogmas are stones at the heads of heretics. . . .  The eyes of all Catholics see aright; if they are afflicted with strabismus, the Church resorts to an operation.  All Catholics hear aright; if they do not, the Church applies a remedy to their organ of hearing.  These surgical operations go under the name of dogmas.”  The world remembers with what success an operation of this kind was performed on a number of Roman prelates, who questioned the infallibility of the Pope.  The dogma was simply declared in 1870, and that put a quietus to all Catholic scruples.  Some day the “assumption” of Mary will be proclaimed as a Catholic dogma.  We should not feel surprised if ultimately a dogma were published to the effect that the Holy Trinity is a Holy Quartet, with Mary as the fourth person of the Godhead.

The Roman Church is accustomed to speak of her Supreme Pontiff, the Holy Father, the Vicegerent of Christ, His Infallible Holiness, in terms that lift a human being to heights of adoration unknown among Protestants.  For centuries the tendency in the Roman Church to make of the Pope “a god on earth” has been felt and expressed in Christendom.

This Church wants to preach to Protestants about the sin of man-worship!  Verily, here we have the parable of the mote and the beam in a twentieth century edition.  Catholic teachers would be the last ones, we imagine, whom scrupulous Christians would choose for instructing them regarding the sin of idolatry and the means to avoid it.