DR. MAUNSELL'S ORANGE LECTURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6053, 12 April 1881, Page 6

DR. MAUNSELL'S ORANGE LECTURE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—Dr. Maunsell in his Orange Lodce lecture introduced my name without any very urgent necessity for doing so. It was no great offence, however. I think it richt to say that I did send Dr. Maunsell a copy of a Catholic catechism in the hope "that it might convince him how unjust he was to Roman Catholics when he represented their religion as teaching them to pay Divine honour either to the Virgin Mary or to any other creature of God. The fact is, the Roman Cathohe rebgion teaches the very contrary of what Dr. Maunsell asserts it does. It teaches that Divine honour must be paid to God alone and that to pay it to any creature of God* in Heaven above or in Earth beneath, is un'- !™ u 'i and constitutes the dreadful crime of idolatry. It is quite true that Roman Catholics honour the Blessed Virgin Mary With a very high honour, such as they pay to no other creature of God, because God himself honoured her above all the daughters of Eve. She is an intercessor for us in the same sense as we are intercessors for one another. Her prayers, we believe, are powerful, because the prayers of the just have great power with God, through Christ I should not have ventured on such remarks had I not been so pointedly attacked by Dr. Maunsell, as the professor and defender of an idolatrous system of religion. To enter on the other parts of Dr. Maunsell's lecture attacking the Roman Catholic Church," as reported in your paper, would be to engage in a profitless religious controversy or altercation. I may, however, tell Dr. Maimsell that I am a Roman Catholic from conviction, and not because I was born within the palo of the Catholic Church. lam quite familiar, as every moderately well instructed Roman Catholic is, with the objections urged by Dr. Maunsell against the Roman Catholic Church, as well as with the answers made to them. One part of his lecture pained me much. He represents our Blessed Saviour as addressing His Virgin Mother in such disrespectful language as no dutiful and affectionate son among the children of men would ever think of using towards their mother.—l am, &c., Johx Wood.