Chapter IV. Christ Guarded Against Mariolatry.

THE ESCAPED NUN

Edith O’Gorman Auffray wrote to the Bishop of Chichester as follows:

London, Sept. 14th, 1889.
To Right Rev. Dr. Durnford, Bishop of Chichester.
Right Rev. Sir,—

Having read in this week’s issue of the English Churchman your letter of unmerited censure to the Rev. J.G. Gregory, incumbent of Emmanuel Church, containing your false and unfounded assertions against my old and highly esteemed friend, Rev. J.D. Fulton, D.D., I desire to express my indignant protest against the injustice of your unwarrantable charges against one of the most distinguished and eminent divines and theologians, whose orthodoxy is as unquestionable as your own. The Rev. Dr. Fulton as a Christian minister is utterly incapable of making use of a ‘profane utterance,’ or ‘revolting statements,’ or of ‘vilifying the Virgin Mary.’ It would be an impossibility for him to ‘speak in terms which contradict the very letter of Scripture, or either infer, or directly impugn the vital doctrines of the Incarnation,’ as you so falsely affirm, without any other ground for your uncharitable assertions than a press report, or some such secondhand and unreliable information.

As the Rev. Dr. Fulton was my honored guest during the two or three weeks of his last stay in London, and as he returned direct to my house from his visit to Brighton, I am in a position to know the whole truth of the matter. In pointing out to me the reports and letters in the Brighton paper, he said, ‘How they do misrepresent and misreport me,’ and then with the sublime charity which is characteristic of him, he said, ‘But perhaps they do not mean to misrepresent me.’ All who know Dr. Fulton will bear testimony to the fact that he never utters an unkind or uncharitable remark against anyone, even his most bitter enemies, whom he loves and for whom he prays, because his great heart overflows with the divine love of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, with whom he daily walks and holds sweet communion every hour of his life. He told me how, in his lecture at the Dome, he opposed the Romish doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, whom Rome styles ‘Ever Virgin.’ He said that the Irish girl well said in accordance with the plain teaching of the Gospel, Mary could not have been much of an ‘Ever Virgin,’ for she had six or seven children after she had brought forth her first-born Son, our Lord.—(Matt. 13:55.)

He particularly emphasized the words ‘Ever Virgin.’ Dr. Fulton knew well that he was addressing an intelligent, Bible-reading, Protestant, Christian audience in the Dome at Brighton, who were able to grasp the meaning of his pithy and terse sentence: ‘Mary could not have been much of a virgin,’ for she had six or seven other children, etc. And that they did understand his true meaning was proved by their expression of applause, which was not at all an ‘amazing thing to do.’ The only amazing thing about it is that you should go so far as to publicly insult the orthodoxy and the intelligence of the Rev. J.G. Gregory and the large and professing Christian audience there assembled, who were as zealous in defence of the ‘fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion,’ and as capable of repudiating any revolting statements giving offence to pious believers, as you could have been, were there the slightest occasion to do so.

Dr. Fulton needs no apology or defence from me, nor from anyone, because the example of his own noble, self-denying Christian life is as a tower of strength in its own defence, immovable, and strong to resist the poisoned arrow of calumny hurled against him by his defamers.

When about twenty years ago I first had the privilege of making the acquaintance of Dr. Fulton, he was then the popular pastor of the Union Temple Baptist Church in Boston, Massachusetts, with a membership of over a thousand influential Christian people of that most cultured city, deservedly called ‘the American Athens.’ About 16 years ago he accepted an oft-repeated call to a large congregation in Brooklyn, N.Y.

All his life he has been deeply interested in the subject of Romanism, and has been greatly concerned about the salvation of the souls of those children of error. He has thoroughly studied the question, and has many valuable books, exposing its soul-destroying dogmas, which have fallen like thunderbolts through the sky of popery, scattering the clouds of idolatry by the light of truth. He has heard the voice of his Lord calling him to rise and save His people from among the thousands of Romanists who are perishing, because ministers of Christ lack the moral courage to sound the tocsin of warning, and cry to them, as with a voice from Heaven, ‘Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.’ Therefore, in obedience to his Master’s will, he made the greatest sacrifice of the age, and gave up his church and his influential high position in order that he might give his whole time to this most important and unpopular work which he has undertaken for the pure love of Jesus, and the thousands of hungering, perishing souls waiting to be fed with the true Bread of Life.

My Lord Bishop, were I to judge you from the spirit of your letter, I would be inclined to say that you are not capable of comprehending the magnitude of the heavenly charity which fills and actuates the generous heart of Dr. Fulton, enabling him to make such a generous sacrifice, thereby incurring the most bitter opposition and unmerited persecution for Christ’s sake.

I was born and brought up in the Romish Church, of which I was a fervent member until I reached my 26th year. As I spent six years of my life in a convent prison, I have had some bitter experiences of the misery of conventual life, from which I escaped in 1868. For the past twenty years I have devoted my life to the exposure of Popish errors through my lectures and books. It is now eight years since I began to lecture in England, and during that time I have witnessed with great regret the growth of Ritualism in the Protestant Church of England. I have also reason to know that the majority of churches in your diocese are in the charge of those spurious nondescripts who call themselves ‘Ritualistic Priests,’ a most appropriate name, for surely they are not worthy to be called the faithful ministers of the gospel of Christ, but rather the self-styled ‘priests’ of a pagan and Popish ritual, who are worse than the priests of Baal, inasmuch as they are daily violators of their ordination vows by introducing into the reformed Church of England the ‘erroneous doctrines’ and the ‘damnable heresies’ which they swore to drive away.

But instead of publicly censuring these unfaithful heresiarchs, you have chosen to rebuke the most faithful ministers left in your diocese. Were you as zealous for the cause of true Protestantism as a bishop of the Reformed Church ought to be, you would delight in honoring such true men as the Rev. J.G. Gregory and the Rev. Wm. T. McCormick for the brave stand they took in defence of the Church of Christ. If you were as forward in upholding the truth as you are in censuring the innocent, you would have done yourself the honor of taking the chair at Dr. Fulton’s lecture, where you would have heard everything to edify and instruct you, but nothing to shock or revolt you.

Trusting that as a Christian gentleman you will make the only reparation in your power for the great wrong you have done the noble Christian hero, Dr. Fulton, by publicly retracting your unfounded charges against him,

I remain, most respectfully,
Edith O’Gorman Auffray.

(To be continued.)