wend their way to the house of God and engage in religious worship,
is a phenomenon which is worth thinking about. How does the Roman
Catholic Church do it? Somebody says she does it all by appealing to
men's fears, she scares men into penitence and devotion. Do you think
that that is a fair explanation? I do not think so. I can conceive how
she might frighten people for one generation, or for two, but I can
not conceive how she could frighten a dozen generations. One would
suppose that the spell would wear off by and by. There is a deeper
explanation than that The explanation is to be found in the spiritual
nature of man. The Roman Catholic leaders, notwithstanding their
blunders and their awful sins, have always seen that the central fact
of the Christian revelation is the death of Jesus, and around that
fact they have organized all their worship. Roman Catholics go to
mass; what is the mass? It is the celebration of the Lord's Supper.
What is the Lord's Supper? It is the ceremony that proclaims our
Lord's death until He comes. The hosts of worshipers that fill our
streets in the early Sunday morning hours are not going to church to
hear some man discuss an interesting problem, nor are they going to
listen to a few singers sing; they are going to celebrate once
more the death of the Savior of the world. In all her cathedrals
Catholicism places the stations of the cross, that they may tell to
the eye the story of the stages of His dying. On all her altars she
keeps the crucifix. Before the eyes of every faithful Catholic that
crucifix is held until his eyes close in death. A Catholic goes out of
the world thinking of Jesus crucified. So long as a Church holds on to
that great fact, she will have a grip on human minds and hearts that
can not be broken. The cross, as St. Paul said, a stumbling-block
to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believes. The Catholic Church has picked
up the fact of Jesus' death and held it aloft like a burning torch.