Jesus Christ, the expression of the Father's will, for whom all things were made, and by whom.

We have in common the third person of the holy trinity, the Holy Spirit. Let us trust him and serve him and rest upon his office work; let us reject baptismal regeneration and the value of sacraments, and believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

We have the holy Bible, the word of God. Let us lift it to its rightful place, in the home, in the sanctuary, in the school house. Make it our unfurled banner; let it be to us what the pillar of cloud and fire was to ancient Israel. Follow its lead, obey its commands,

and we shall reach Canaan together.

Imperilled Romanists, are they worth saving? is my theme. Is it Romanists or Christians who are imperilled? Romanists, I answer. Doubtless very many would say Romanists need have no fear. In New York they have got the earth; they hold all the offices, dictate the policy of political parties, make the pulpit dumb, fetter the press and ride the nation as a nightmare. This is only the beginning, and is the result of cowardice and not of necessity. Rome is a dominant power in politics, as in religion. Thousands, aye, even millions, are glad to serve Rome. The man who has a yard of green ribbon to sell or a day's labor to hire, in the house, the shop, or the field, seems to be afraid of saying anything or doing anything that shall not serve the "Lady of the Tiber." The prince of the power of the air, of whom Romanism is the incarnation, is a fact, which fills so many with apprehension whenever it is proposed to tell the truth about Romanism to Romanists. Let us thank God for the quickening pulse of liberty. Think of the brave words spoken in pulpits concerning Romanism. God stands with those who stand with him. Germany's sun is coming out of the cloud because her emperor stood side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the king of Italy; who, despite the mists of superstition, has climbed to the broad plateau seen by Mazzini and contended for by Cavour, and walks in the brightness of advanced progress. In America the cry is for a man who can take up the work of Abraham Lincoln, and go where he did not dare go, and say about Romanism what he did not think it wise to say, until the grave of Romanism shall be dug and a path to liberty be opened to the millions coming out of bondage. The wealth hanging on dead

images of the Virgin Mary in the churches of Spain would pay the national debt, and distributed among the people would give comfort and abundance to thousands where now is squalor and want. It is much the same in New York. It is enough to break one's heart to hear the story of the poor Romanist-wife in want, children without bread, the priest deaf to all appeal. No wonder those men are loved who, at the altars of Rome, illustrate the teachings of the gospel.

Carry this truth into the poorest tenement districts of New York. Let Christ be formed in men the hope of glory; rum shops would be converted into groceries or bakeries, and squalid tenements into comfortable homes. Ring out the truth as never before. Christ died to save, to save from poverty to thrift, from a life which degrades and destroys to a life that ennobles and blesses.

It is in order to say that Romanists are imperilled in New York as they are not in Italy or in Mexico. To either country it is fashionable to send preachers, as if Romanists needed the gospel. New York could even tolerate Wm. C. Van Meter, so long as he worked for Italy. Men of wealth give thousands of dollars to send the gospel to foreign parts, whose doors are closed to those who propose to make an aggressive march in the city where Romanism has more brains in its service, more wealth at its disposal and more power under its control than anywhere else in the world. Let it be so no longer. Let us bless God for men who are feeling that the time has come to take hold of this question, and who are ready to be counted in as supporters of the work of preaching the gospel to New York's imperilled Romanists, to whom the word is seldom proclaimed, and perhaps, up to now, has never been made known. Is it not true, in the United States, that Romanists going to the judgment bar of God can say "No man cares for my soul"? Who preaches to them? They dare not enter our churches. They will not suffer Christian ministers to enter their places of assembling. There is no opportunity to say to them, “Come, let us reason together." Why should Archbishop Corrigan be unwilling to come by my side on this platform and speak to this people? Why should he not be ready to permit a minister in good standing to stand in his pulpit and proclaim the truth to the men and women that throng the cathedral and gaze upon the dumb show of the mass? It is pitiable that even in this world, as it shall be in the next, a great

gulf divides true Christians from bigoted Romanists. Fenelon, in the days of Louis XIV, was not more persecuted as a Romanist, than will be Father Malone, Brooklyn's favorite priest, unless he surrenders his manhood and gives up his love for McGlynn at the dictation of an archbishop who is ruling the Roman Catholics of New York with a merciless despotism that would not be tolerated in Rome.

I. Romanists are imperilled because the gospel of Jesus Christ is withheld from them. They do not have it in their churches. They dare not enter ours. The Evangelical Alliance of Rochester, N. Y., and perhaps of other cities-owing to the influence of Bishop McQuade, the open foe of our public school system-orders that when Christian tract distributers find a Roman Catholic home, they pass it by. Imagine our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ saying to the apostles: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel; but when you come to the house of a Jew or of a pagan, pass them; they will not relish nor welcome your message." No one preaches to Romanists. Pulpits are barred against this message, because Roman Catholic churches are in close proximity, and the city Tract society forbids the prosecution of this work in one of the churches under its control, lest Romanists be disturbed, and orders its workers to give a wide berth to one called of God to proclaim the truth to those "that are in Rome also." Unless this sentiment can be eradicated from the heart, nothing will be done for Romanists. A superintendent of a Sabbath school in New York city said that if this work for Romanists is to be prosecuted, a new feeling of love must be born in the hearts of the workers. Now they not only do not seek to get Roman Catholic children into the school, but they would not welcome them to their classes. Church after church refuses to engage in the work for Romanists, and Reformed Catholics, so-called, are treated as though the charge of Dean Swift was true, that only the weeds come out from Rome. People on every hand are looking to the children of the light for truth, and yet they withhold it, and so imperil Romanists.

Romanists are without peace in Rome. A girl was dying. No neighbor called on her who dared speak of Christ. At length a converted Romanist came. The fear of purgatorial fire had tormented her. The friend had been delivered by the truth. She

Who

tried to tell the truth to the sick girl. She was afraid to hear it, and cried to Mary and to St. Benedict. At length she told her of the joy she had found when she had taken the word, believed it and rested on it. At last the poor Romanist consented to receive the Bible, hid it beneath her pillow and read it as she could. The word saved her. She saw that Jesus Christ saves, and that when he said "It is finished," it satisfied God and made him the ransom of the soul. That brought peace. Such souls are all about us. goes to them? To this work priests and people are alike opposed. No one knows to what persecutions and neglects the child of God is subjected. Think of a brother uninvited to attend his brother's funeral, as was the case of a man in Brooklyn, when his brother died in Boston. Think of another brother driving a brother from the embrace of a mother whom he visited in Ireland, because of the bigotry of Romanists.

"Come, let us reason together." There is a more excellent way. Such fear as this keeps millions still. We were in Marshalltown, Iowa. A fine-looking man listened to the sermon telling of the needs of a Romanist. At the close of the sermon, that merchant came up and said: "I think you Christians in this town are very cowardly. I have walked with you, invited you into my office and into my home, and not one of you has ever spoken about my soul." Rome is well served by Christians who hide their light under a bushel and refuse to open the way to Christ. In the introduction to "Rome in America," the question is argued, "Can we hope for the conversion of Romanists ?" That paper was read to twentyfour evangelical ministers, only two of whom had ever made the attempt to win a Romanist to Christ; and yet whoever seeks their conversion finds them accessible.

This brings us again to the question, "Are Romanists worth saving?" If actions speak louder than words, what say you, Christian? Have you ever acted as if they were lost unless the gospel be proclaimed to them?

2.

Romanists are imperilled because of the widely prevailing impression that Romanism is better than no religion, and that in the church of Rome some of the noblest, purest and most saintly characters have lived and died. Was not Madame Guyon a Christian? ask very many. She was, and was persecuted by Romanists from the day of her conversion until her death.

Rome had no welcome or love for Madame Guyon. She was excluded from towns, robbed of her estates and immured in prisons because she loved and confessed Christ. Salvation, as taught by the word of God, is the beginning. In Rome, it is the end. Love is the fountain of the Christian's life; fear rules the Romanist, and yet some say Romanism is good enough for the poor of Europe and the poor of America. If good enough for the poor, it is good enough for anybody. I stand here to declare that Christ died for the poorest as well as for the richest, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ opens the way from the hovel of the humblest to the highest place. It takes the flute player in the streets of Eisleben, brings him into the fellowship of Christ and makes Hans Luther's son the pioneer of a reformation that changed the face of Europe. It makes John Bunyan, the tinker, the teacher of the world, because he recounts the glory of a Pilgrim's Progress.

3. Romanists are imperilled by Romanism, which is the taproot of despotism. Think of nuns shut up in hopeless captivity in New York. Think of priests sent to monasteries and compelled to live on bread and water, for manifesting sympathy for a friend and brother who has been for more than a score of years the heart and soul of great philanthropic movements. Roman Catholics are wearing fetters, which ought to be broken and which must be galling. Let the sceptre of an archbishop be cast into the sea, and let Romanists in New York become free. They are ruled by a pope they never saw or chose. This is not American or right. Truly has it been said: "If God intended that the pope should do all the thinking of the world, he would have given him more brains. If God intended that the pope should do all the seeing of the world, he would have given him other than human eyes." We accord to Roman Catholics the same privileges we enjoy, and insist that they shall be content with these or emigrate. It is because Romanists fight freedom of speech, of the press and of worship that we call a halt. Rome, in a bull of 1370, repeated in 1430 and reaffirmed in 1566,1627 and 1869, excommunicates all classes outside of the Romish church, known as heretic, and forbids freedom of action on the part of individuals, except insomuch as the church permits through its direct authority. This brings the Roman Catholic church into direct antagonism, not only to free thought, but to brotherhood, to neighborly kindness and to the rights and