MEETING OF ORANGEMEN AT CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11724, 5 August 1901, Page 6

MEETING OF ORANGEMEN AT CHRISTCHURCH.

At the meeting of Orangemen at Christchurch on July 30, Mr. H. J. Ranger, Grand Master of the Order in the South Island, presided. Mr. G. Manifold, in the course of his speech, said : "Let them look at the difference between the High Church and Rome. It existed in name only. Their sympathies were almost identical. The danger that might arise from the accession of a Roman Catholic King would not be lessened by the accession of one belonging to the extreme section of the High Church. The value of the Coronation Oath, in its present form, was the, fact that it barred both. It did so because the doctrine of transubstantiation,;. which the" oath repudiated, ; was common alike to High Churchmen and Roman Catholics." The Rev. C. E. Ward said that when the Roman Catholics removed from their canons and counsels the oaths and curses which they vented on Protestants, the latter would be more inclined to listen to the proposal for the removal of certain words from the Coronation Oath and Declaration. Protestants should regard the question as a political one, and as an attempt made on the British Crown. by a foreign political enemy, whom history had proved to be implacable, malignant, and unscrupulous, and who, in the unswerving pursuit of its schemes against the freedom of mankind, was astute and dishonest enough to invoke the aid of the principles of liberty and charity, which were utterly alien to its character.' The action ot Kome showed that she was always calling out for tolerance, but never gave any The placing of a Roman Catholic on the British throne was at present not within the range of practical politics, but who knew the day it the oath and the declaration were done away with, some statesman would not bend, as Mr Gladstone had done in regard to Home Rule? °