EDWARD MCGLYNN, D. D., THE UN

FROCKED AND WHAT?

"Ye must be born again." John 3:7.

In speaking of Edward McGlynn, the unfrocked priest and excommunicated Roman Catholic, a fraternal regard and Christian love find a place in honest speech. It is not a time for trifling, nor for empty, meaningless platitudes. The undying interests of an immortal soul, perhaps of the souls of millions who will follow this man for good or ill, are at stake.

When, on a late Sabbath eve, a little girl presented a flower piece bearing the words, "Purity of intention is the life of an action," Dr. McGlynn, replying, said: "Could it have been whispered or thought of in my dreams, when prostrate before a Christian altar to be consecrated to the priesthood, that I could be here tonight preaching in a theatre, it would have seemed like a horrid nightmare. To be torn from the altar, unseated from the tribune of the church and forbidden to teach the Christ I love, would have seemed worse than a horrid nightmare. But now, shocking and painful as the experience has been, I can say here, I believe it to be all for the best."

These are sad words. They were spoken by one of America's remarkable men. It is because he is a manly man, that he is in trouble in a church and with a church that finds no place in its system for manhood, for free, broad, noble and true development, for courage of expression and for a conviction born of God; that may come in contact with the narrowness, the bigotry, the persecuting hate of a so-called church.

In the olden time a man was in trouble. Fetters bound him to an establishment whose life was extinct and whose mission was ended. The world was being peopled with new life. A new kingdom was being established. Its free spirit was singing its new song and was filling the air with the notes of enlivening hope. ter spirit of the hour was near. Christ was in the world. Bless

The mas

God for Christ. There has been one leader among men who never trifled with their immortal interests. To him Nicodemus, a ruler of men, goes by night to see the mighty power and hear his words. Behold him in his presence. He speaks: "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do the miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Well spoken, Nicodemus. Happy art thou, happy were we all when we came to Christ that we were not deceived nor misled.

Verily, ye must be
Here is where

Jesus said: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Edward McGlynn is there. He has a love for Christ's character and an admiration for Christ's life; but he has been unfortunate in his teacher, and so have millions more. They do not know their blindness, nor how sight is to come. It is to come by birth, and not by education nor by sacrament. born again. Before it comes nothing can be done. the unfrocked McGlynn is making a mistake. He has been assured that he was of immense importance, as he is; that he is worth more as a Roman Catholic, among Roman Catholics, than he would be if separated from his old surroundings and brought into fellowship with new men and with new movements. The trouble is, he mixes. things. McGlynn's eyes are not opened. He is in his heart dealing with the church of Rome, and talks of science and of scientists who have been persecuted, as if, somehow, their experiences paralleled his. They do not. He is dealing with a church that he saw was rotten, wrong, from top to bottom, or from bottom to top. He has no business to have any more to do with the church of Rome than had Paul with the Jewish church. It is his business to preach Christ to friend and foe, to open his heart and let Christ in, that he may have power to become a son of God, because of what God can do for him. Paul was wrong, and he said so. McGlynn has been wrong all his life. He has been a sinner unredeemed. He now needs thus to declare. This comes from believing on His name, and he "is born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

I. As a Roman Catholic, Edward McGlynn has finished his work.

Have you ever thought how poor is a Roman Catholic? Born in superstition; taught to kiss the image of the Virgin lying on a mother's breast before he drinks the milk that nourishes him; reared

without a Bible, without a Christ, except it be a painted imagewithout the Christ that loved little children and laid his hands in blessing on them; through falsehood and misconception made to believe that the dead Mary has something to do with an introduction to the live, the compassionate and the helpful Christ-the one and only mediator between God and man; then educated to rest faith in a church that is only good where it cannot be seen or known, and in a priesthood unconverted, unredeemed, and, as a rule, impure and as companions or associates undesirable: a Roman Catholic starts wrong, goes wrong, keeps wrong, dies deceived and goes down to pitiless wrath, without God and without hope. To encourage a man, thus reared and thus conditioned, to keep saying "I am a Roman Catholic and shall so continue," is to shut him out of hope, banish him from improving society and compel him to walk in the night, even while the light of day is within his reach.

Reasons were manifest to him that caused him to contend that if he remained a Roman Catholic he could help his friends in this way. They believed he could head a company of the disaffected who are still in faith and in form Roman Catholics. He could become a leader of influence with the disaffected among people who would not think of breaking out from the Roman Catholic church. How foolish the position. Policy is never so good a guide as principle.

If Edward McGlynn is a Roman Catholic in faith and conviction, then he is an outcast. His mother and his kindred cannot safely break bread with him.

"Hear the church" is the voice most strongly emphasized with a Catholic. The church speaks with authority through the pope. If Edward McGlynn is a Roman Catholic, then, by his own confession, he is utterly undone. If he is not, he is deceived. He is seeking

to help men who, like himself, need help.

Born in New York in 1837, receiving his education in our public schools, graduating with honor at the Propaganda in Rome, appointed chaplain of the military hospital in Central Park, New York, by President Lincoln, and for many years the popular platform speaker and favorite orator, as well as pastor of St. Stephen's church, he ought to know better than to occupy this equivocal position. He cannot be in and out of the Roman Catholic church at the same time. He is not in. He is out. If he gets in, it must be by confession, and penance deep and long. It must be by denying manhood the

right to free thought and to honest expression. What will he do? He must do something. He must move on.

2.

Edward Mc Glynn is not what he thinks he is.

He claims that he is a Roman Catholic, though excommunicated and cast out. He gives up St. Stephen's, but does not renounce Romanism. The fact is, when the manhood of Edward McGlynn rose up against the outrageous assumptions of the church, when he said, "I deny the right of bishop, Propaganda or pope to order me to Rome," he broke out and ceased to be a Roman Catholic. The vow and oath of a priest make him the slave of the pope in matters secular as well as religious. When he was told to build a parochial school he was under obligations to do so or leave the church.

Rome condemns what she chooses and applauds what she chooses. She is a law to herself. Reason does not restrain her. McGlynn may admonish the Romish authorities of the folly and the shame of condemning scientific truth or religious heresy-a shame and a folly of which their predecessors had been guilty in the condemnation of Galileo and Copernicus-but it will do no good. It is because Romanism is the incarnation of error-inhabited and ruled by the prince of the power of the air, run by the devil, whose end is an eternal hell, a man being substituted in the place of God, a dead woman in the place of Jesus Christ, and sacraments, man-made and devil-invented, with sinful indulgence for their aim, to take the place of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the power of God among menthat it is indifferent to public opinion. When McGlynn outgrew this; when he could turn and say of the church, "She seems fated to add another to the many reasons that have made men look upon ecclesiastical authority as one of the greatest foes of scientific progress, of national development and of rational liberty, and in large part a hindrance rather than a help, in the way of bringing the whole world to the light, the purity and the comfort that comes from the teachings and ministrations of Christ,"-then he could say that Romanism was dead in him and he was ready for something else. Why did he not come out into the light? Largely because the people encouraged him to think he could go back to St. Stephen's, and many of the priests stood with him. It was a wild time, and has been a hard fight.

His position on the public school question offended the dignitaries of the church, and gave him place and power with the people.

They saw that he championed their interests; that he believed in the Irish or Roman Catholic boy being educated in the palatial public school and not banished to the basement of a church, permitted to come in contact with the free thought of the hour and not remanded to the dead past to be fed on catechisms and the relics of superstition. He opposed the legislature appropriating money for sectarian purposes, and he was opposed to giving the children of our penal institutions over to the teachings of a Romish priest.

Besides he is an Irishman. In 1882, when misfortune dogged the Irish cause at every step, Edward McGlynn lifted up his voice for the starving people of the west of Ireland. Then it was that Cardinal Simeoni struck him. The battle went on, through suspension and proscription, until January 16, 1887, when the cablegram came ordering him to Rome. Then St. Stephen's took a hand, and believed that, in this free America, they who built the church could control it. Any other church could control its property; Roman Catholics cannot do it.

Two hundred and fifty millions are in the hands of the bishops. They can remove priests, banish them, and lock churches, hospitals and burying grounds against their people.

It was a sad sight in St. Stephen's, when, on January 17, 1887, the low basement of the church was packed with a solid mass of men and women, standing either on the floor or on the benches. From seven to eight thousand people gathered to protest against the removal of Father McGlynn. Father Donnelly appeared in the passage way, saying, "I am pastor of St. Stephen's now, and I forbid it."

Over him went the people, shouting, "We own the church, and we have a perfect right here and shall hold a meeting here." The priest was shoved to the sidewalk. Angry, he sent for the police. Irish though they were, they would not strike their people.

A free church in a free state ought to be McGlynn's battle cry. The people worshipping in St. Stephen's should call a meeting of contributors, elect their board of trustees and put McGlynn back. That would bring the issue before the people in New York, as it was done by the St. Louis church in Buffalo. That being done, then let McGlynn drive home the wedge, which Paul drove in Jerusalem, when to the Jews he proclaimed the crucified Christ whom they