FATHER VAUGHAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14359, 31 October 1908, Page 4

FATHER VAUGHAN.

A MAN WHO IS LOVED AND HATED.

Father Bernard Vaughan. of the Society of Jesus, is very much loved and very much hated by Ihe women of England. He is the only Catholic priest who is "popular," in the, notorious seme of the word,.outside his own Church. Women of all religions—and especially women of no religion—have been extraordinarily interested in a man who has dared to say things about modern womanhood and modern society which have never been saiui by men who, as husbands and fathers, have as much knowledge but less courage.

This celibate priest has astonished them, not only by his profound knowledge of tlio innermost secrets of a woman's heart and life, but by his supreme audacity. Standing in the pulpit before a crowded congregation of men and fashionable women, he has lashed them with bitter irony, he lias stripped them of all the nrjilicial coverings of social conventions, and revealed their souls in a glaring light, so that- they have blushed und'?r the powder on their cheeks, and sat shivering in their costly furs. Ho has denounced all the follies, vanities, deceits, cruelties, and immoralities of women in modern society with such tremendous eloquence, with such flashing and biting irony, that one mightwonder why some noble vixen has notstabbed him to the heart with a hatpin.

Fortunately, there is no danger of that. It- is a curious thing that the women who lead the life denounced by Bernard Vaughan have the. greatest- admiration for him. It is these very women whom he frightens to death when they hear Wim. in church who call him a "(fear thing" over their tea tables, and long for the next Sunday, when he will again 'give fliem delight fully terrible thrills. They have his photograph on their dressing-tabki;. they read the bound volumes of his " Sins of Society " in bed, they send picture postcards of him to their friends from Biarritz Or MoiUo Carlo and other haunts of brilliant iniquity: and if they were asked to vote for their greatest living hero, Father Bernard Vnuglian would take an easy first, wit'h Seymour Hicks and Lewis Waller as second and third. In all classes of society the great preacher has an extraordinary popularity. His photograph may he found in every stationer's shop at reaside resorts, as well as in London,'put in the windows between Gaiety. young ladies in tights and the latest-portrait of Maud Allan.

Xet lie i'b also very much disliked, and by some women detested.. Many Catholic Indies look unutterable things :«fc the mention of his name; they accuse him of being theatrical. They are shocked at the tilings he says in tJic pulpit; they do not at all approve of the.publicity given to his wortis. Jt seems to these good ladies that it degradation for a Catholic priest to allow his photographs to appeal' in such mixed, company. They think it is lacking in the dignity and reserve of the' Catholic faith to turn a church into a rendezvous of fashionable women who come for new emotions. Hut the women who detest, him most, are those who have been found outill petty sins. The- ''out-and-outers" think him a real "good sort." They like plain speaking, and he probably dees them £ome good ; at least, they admit the truth much of it. Yet, if we may get to the lavished their love oil lap-dogs; ladiies who find their complexions expensive, and refuse to be reminded of their birthdays; ladies who nag their husbands and bully their sorvantti and neglect their children, and lead highly respectable lives full of little meannesses and little sine—these are the women who feel very bitter against Father Bernard Vaughan. He has found them out, and they are very angry with him. The female Pharisees of modern society have not a good word for him.

Meanwhile, the man himself goes 011 his way entirely indifferent to public opinion, except- that he is quite pleased to be notorious. The more notoriety lie gets the better he likes it. He cannot have too much of it. Yet, if we may get to the heart of the man, it is not bccansc he is egotistical, or because he- loves notoriety for its own sake. It is because he has a mission to fulfil, aneli the farther his words carry the more bitterness l and anger be creatcs, the more likelihood there is of his words reaching hearts which have teen hardened and corrupted by the world. He is not willing to preach all his lifo to the converted. He wants to carry tho truth of his faith, in which he has the mcst absolute trust, beyond the boundaries of the churchcr> where good Catholics go to pray. That is the apologia- p/o vita sua, his justification and defence.

A man who leads as well as preaches flic simple life, allowing himself no luxury, lie -has been most scathing in his denunciation of the vices and vanities which are bred in idleness and -wealth. And if lie is a familiar'figure in, the WestEnd, lie is still more familiar to the East, when, in his cassock and biretta, antli ringing a little bell as ho walks, he goes into the alleys and courts o! tho worstslums in London, holding a crucifix before the eyes of the. factory bands and half-

stnrvedi men and women, to whom lie preaches with as much fervour as in the church at Farm street. This is the bestside of the man. There is no bitterness in his month when he speaks to those who

are not- tempted by luxury, no scathing irony on his tongue when he takes a ragged, dirty child in his arms and speaks to t'li? mothers, around him, In his private, life there are few men with more natural humour. Once, at dinner, Father Yaughan offered a cigar to a Nonconformist- minister, who pursed up bis lips, and put- on a superior -expression. "Thank ymi very much," ho said, "but I was not- sent into the world to smoke." "Quite so," said Father Vanglmn, "but as I belong to an old-fashioned Church, which prefers to get- ils smoking done in this world, you will excuse me if I light up." Father Ilernnrdi \nughan is one of the

few Human Catholic prints who have ever preached before King Edward. It was atCannes, and afUenvards he was a?! .-.1 by his friends if be bad felt at all 1 vmis, "No," lie said, with simple dignity. "I am accustomed to preach before the liing of kings."