The Bruce Herald. " Nemo me impune lacessit" TOKOMAIRIRO, APRIL 12th, 1871.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 363, 12 April 1871, Page 4

The Bruce Herald. " Nemo me impune lacessit" TOKOMAIRIRO, APRIL 12th, 1871.

It is no uncommon thing* in Ireland for Romish bishops and priests to utter political harangues from the pulpit on the Lord's dny, calculated to awaken strife, and set class against class. Otago and New Zealand generally has hitherto been altogether free from such a practice. For the most part, ecclesiastics — whether Protestant or Popish — have devoted the Christian Sabbath to higher and holier purposes, while generally they have stood aloof from the political arena, and have never sought to exercise their spiritual powers to control the political action or ordinary public duty of the members of their respective churches or congregations.- This state of things h-.is unhappily come to an end. An ecclesiastic, and one, too, who is a stranger to our history, and bu 1 ; a recent importation amongst us, iias assumed to be a disturber of the peace that has hitherto reigned within our borders, and to cast forth the firebrand of religions and ecclesiastical contention, and that, too, in a manner the most offensive. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Dunedin addressed the Romish congregation there on Sabbath, se'ennight, in language less in accordance with the pence and good will thnt should be the aim of the Christian pastor to inculcate, than in the language of the enemies of our Loi-4, when they cried " Away with him ! away with him! Crucify him! crucify him 1" and with an object very different to what should

be the purpose of a professedly Christian pastor in addressing a congregation of professing- Christians on the Lord's Day, and within the sanctuary of the Christian's God and Redeemer. This Sabbath evening sermon consisted of an attack upon the Benevolent Institution, and the district schools of ths Province, against which, he poured forth all the terms of disapprobation and opposition which the Eomish vocabulary can supply on the ground — Ist. That the holy scriptures are read within, their walls — that book which is the embodiment ol the divine will to man as to the way of salvation, and as to the mode of life by which the young, as well a 9 the old, can alone fulfil what. they owe to God and to each other;, and (2nd) that in books used in the schools of the Province, more especially in those from which the children are taught the records of past events there are notices of the doings of the Church of Rome, and opinions expressed regarding her practices in times past which modem Romanists would pre* fer to he concealed from the votaries of the Romish Church, and with which they would wish them to be unacquainted. Fot these two reasons, the Romish Bishop, in his Sunday evening sermon, demanded the withdrawal of all Roman Catholic children from them, decreed — in usual episcopal Romish fashion the withdrawal of sacraments and Christian burial from the parents and guardians of such children as may still be permitted to remain in the Benevolent. Institution, or attend the schools of the Province, and insisted that the Romish Church be furnished with funds hy the Government for the giving to her own children a Roman Catholic education, and that books of history, and books explaining the meaning of words in harmony with popish ideas be introduced into schools on which, from the lack of popish seminaries, Roman Catholic children may be dependent for education. Such the substance, we were going to say, of the sermon delivered by tlie Romish Bis-hop, but one point we have forgotten, on which he. dilated largely, and to all appearance very feelingly, and that was, that because of the things he complained of, the Roman Catholics ol this Province were cruelly and bitterly persecuted ; persecuted, that is, because the holy scriptures are read, in the schools and Benevolent Institution 5 persecuted because the facts of history are correctly 'aught, instead of being distorted to hide the delinquencies, and to conceal the fierce persecutions, the flumes and the dungeon, from which in every land, and at all times — wherever and whenever she had the power— the priests and bishops of Rome have made all who dared to differ from them, or even to think for themselves, to sunvr, nnd which they would still do if they had the power and the opportunity, as may be readily judged from the tone and tenor of the Bishop's anathemas against such of his own communion who should exercise the right to send their children to what school it may please them. For in his anathemas we have but an illustration of the arrogant claims, the persecuting spirit, and that opposition to personal Christian liberty that ha\e never ce-isrd, nnd will never ceare on the part of Romish ecclesiastics until the laity in connection with the Church of Rome assume their proper place, assert their rights as men. as citizens, and as Christians, and exercise that right of privatejudgment and independent action, uncontrolled by the dictum of any ecclesiastic, which as men responsible to God— and as Christian men responsible to no earthly priest, bnt to their God and Saviour in heaven — alone become them. We shall indeed be surprised if the arrogant intolerance displayed by the Romish Bishop be submitted to by the Roman Cafholic laity of Otago, if they do not resent the assumption of a right to interfere with their personal action in the education of their children. We trust it will be found that they will not betray that independence wiiich colonial hfe has ever been regarded as awakening and fostering, and that by word and action they shall shew the Christian courage that will tell this new-comer to mind his own business, and give himself to the duty of a Christian pastor — even preaching that gospel that publisheth " peace on earth and good will to man." Hitherto they have had no occasion to withhold their children from the schools so liberally instituted throughout the Province, and in which their children have bpen free from anything like sectarian instruction. For, as it is well known, no child is required to attend during the reading ot the sacred volume whose parents may object to their doing so, while parents may select what.b ranches of instruction their children shall receive. Better schools, or schools based on a more liberal constitution, are nowhere to be found. This the Romnn Catholic laity are well aware of, and hence they have not failed to avail themselves of the advantages they afford. Shall all this he changed on the diction of a bishop who has been little more than two or three months in the Province, who has but made a flying visit, as far as the Lakes, and who must necessarily toa large extent be ignorant of the efficiency nnd good effects that characterise our Otago schools, fitting them for every class, and for every denomination ? Will the Roman Catholic laity submit to the dictation of such a man — at that dictation throw to the winds the advantages tbey have hitheito derived, in common with their Protestant, fellow citizens, from the schools of the Province, and be a party to the breaking up of these schools, and the instituting in their place schools of a very inferior kind, as must be the case if the funds now husbanded in support ot a- school system common to all be subdivided in order to provide separate schools for each separate denomination? The Protestant laity will carefwlly watch the action of the Romish laity, to see of what stuff they are — whether they are capable of acting as independently and manly. as, did their Protestant fellow citizens it relation to another bishop of Dunedin, or. craven-like, become the slaves of

-b would-be Hildebrknd. Never could they wish for, and never could they . have a 'better opportunity to vindicate their nide'pendence, their freedom from control, from the dominance m the affairs of He ot ihe -priesthood, and to let the priesthood know 'that the intelligence and progress of the 'nineteenth century preclude the laity from beingHreated by the priesthood as they were treated in the dark days of the middle ages— treatment which ignorance, and its •offspring", superstition and cowardice, could alone have made »ww to submit to. It is such treatment that the Bishop has threatened fo our Roman. Catholic population >if they dare to differ with him m the. matter of education. Well may they ask —Is this a matter that falls within his ■commission, and is he warranted to exer•cise Lis spiritual office, as a Christian -Bishop, -so as to deny to all who may •differ from him on such a mutter as this such Christian privileges as fall to a Christian Bishop to administer ? Is coercion -in this matter the right of an ecclesiastic ? is it right that submission be rendered •under fear of spiritual deprivation ? Is Hhe withholding of spiritual or Christian "privileges, as a me-ms of ecclesiastical » coercion, hefitticg action on the part of a •Christian Bishop in such a matter ? Shall 'the Christian parentage he compelled to submit to ecclesiastical dictation as to how and when their offspring shall be taught, "and what instructions alone they shall receive ? We have more confidence in the 'intelligence and manly Christian independence of the Romish laity than to suppose 'for a moment 'that in "this matter they will 'tolerate ihe Bishop to ride rough-shod 'over them, and with the expression of this ■confidence we close our remarks on the Bishop's sermon for the present, reserving 'the consideration of his objections to the -present conduct of the anathematised institutions, and his demands in connection •with these, to a future issue.