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.

No Protestant regards Luther as Catholics regard Mary, not even Patrick.
Luther has taught them too well for that. Unwittingly the Catholics
themselves have immortalized Luther by naming the Evangelical Church
after Luther. Luther declined the honor. "I beg," he said, "not to have
my name mentioned, and to call people not Lutheran, but Christian. What
is Luther? The doctrine is not mine, nor have I been crucified for any
one. . . . The papists deserve to have a party-name, for they are not
content with the doctrine and name of Christ; they want to be popish
also. Well, let them be called popish, for the Pope is their master. I
am not, and I do not want to be, anybody's master." (10, 371.)

It is likely that the frequent laudatory mention of Luther's name,
especially in connection with the present anniversary of the
Reformation, is taken as a challenge by Catholics. If it is that, it is
so by the choice of Catholics. It is impossible to speak of a great man
without referring to the conflicts that made him great. "He makes no
friend," says Tennyson, "who never made a foe." "The man who has no
enemies," says Donn Piatt, "has no following." Opposition is one of the
accepted marks of greatness. The opposition which great men aroused
during their lifetime lives after them, and crops out again on a given
occasion. This is deplorable, but it is the ordinary course. Moreover,
it is possible that in a season of great joy like that which the
Quadricentenary of the Reformation has ushered in orators and writers
may fail to put a due check on their enthusiasm and may overstate a
fact. Such things happen even among Catholics