PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2561, 15 April 1903, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

Ail things considered— its Scottish, origin, in particular — Dunedin observes Good Friday with a reasonable observance. If some of the churches are shut, some are open ; if part of the community makes merry and goes to the theatre, another part fasts on hot-cross buns and attends the Three Hours. Christchurch, which, as its name suggests, is a churchy place with a churchy origin, has in this matter of Good-Friday-keejping no pre-eminence over us. At least I infer, as much from the fact that meetings have been held in Christchurch to protest against Good Friday " desecration." Now here, though we do " desecrate" to a certain extent, we desecrate with discretion, observing the fitness of things. Dolores sings at His Majesty's, but, barring encores, sings only such songs as are " sacred," more or less ; and a profane item, the Valkyrie Ride from Wagner's opera, is restricted to the pianist, who doesn't count. Fuller's Myriorama, " Glasgow and Doon the Wa.tter," is in full tilt at the Alhambra, but is qualified by " Oi-a pro nobis" (Miss Dolly or ifiss Amy) and the " Lost chord" in the cornet. Also the Otago Lawn Tennis Tournament begins, not on Good Friday, 10th April, but on "Friday, 10th April," at 9 a.m. sharp — and the convenances, otherwise the proprieties, are observed. Take us all in all, we are not such a bad lot ; at anyrate are no worse than the parishioners of John of the Golden Mouth, Constantinople, a.d. 400, or thereabouts, which John, as I was reading the other day, wanted to know what was the good of their attending his Lenten lectures, if, lecture over, they rushed >ff, all of them, to " that vain show of Satan, the horserace." I admit that in reverence the Dunedin people, like the Germans in Greek, are " sadly to seek," especially their ministers of religion. Thursday's Daily Times reports that at a church social the previous evening " a well-known city clergyman" worked with much acceptance a joke on certain solemn words from the Gospels, giving them a ludicrous application that brought down the house. These being our examples, little wonder that we make light of Good Friday, spite of sentiment. I wouldn't say that the man who goes a junketing on Good Friday is heartless, One who would peep and botanise Upon his mother's grave — I wouldn't say that ; noi that he is necessarilj irreligious. It may be that he is not more irreligious than other people, but that he lias loss imagination.

The King — whom God preserve ! — is still on his travels amongst the heathen, — .should presently be arriving in Rome Pious wishes will attend him, and also, let us hope, a sufficiency of police in plain clothes. Portugal was all very well, though there is no reason why a Portuguese might not be also an Anarchist; — but Italy? That is a much more serious risk. Not so long apo an Italian Anarchist shot to death King Humbert, and it is hardly to be supposed that the Italian people,, however much they love v«, will or can take more care of our King than they took of thenown. We are trusting mainly, I imagine, to BiitiMi luck, alias Providence; but the venture is undeniably hazardous Good Protestants -Mould suffei less anxiety if they could be a&sured that there will be no

calling on the Pope. There would be no harm in calling on the Pope if the Pope would return the call ; but there's the rub. His Holiness, choosing to consider himself under duress, is unable to leave the Vatican, though it were for so inyocent a purpose as visiting a friend. It is true that he is a very old man, and that courtesy might be stretched in his favour ; but there is more involved than questions of courtesy. We can't have our King compromising the nation's dignity and his own by calling at the Vatican to be offered a chair and p. benediction by his Holiness the Pope. I am Protestant enough to feel that this

would never do. Nevertheless, remembering how neatly our tactful Sovereign avoided a scandal in the matter, of the Lisbon bullfight — how that the bull, in. deference to British sentiment and the Nonconformist conscience, was fitted with' knobs on Bis horns, so that nobody could hurt but himself — remembering this -thoughtfulness I have confidence that such c6urtesie"s : as-may be exchanged with' the Vatican will bs of a kind not likely to wound us in any tender part.

In this royal tour there is, of course, a good deal more , than 'is meant to meet the eye. Nobody has mentioned Delagoa Bay, or Portuguese East- Afric^-r^oti dea* no! — that would have been a deplorable mistake. It is not €o be said that the King went to Lisbon to negotiate a cession or a swap ; — look through -the.^cables ; the subject is conspicuous by its absence f you will not find the most distant allusion to it. In the Portuguese part of King Edward's itinerary " Delagoa Bay" is, in short, the missing word. ' And" it is the destiny of the missing word to be supplied later. By-and-bye we may learn that arrangements for the transfer of Delagoa Bay — not in fee, but on lease, a long lease, probably with right of purchase — were greatly facilitated by the honour paid to Portugal in the visit of the Kfng-Em-peror. That is how these things are managed amongst people who have any regard for the finer feelings. We have nothing that I know of to ask from Italy, except goodwill ; nor from France anything that we are likely to ge*. All the same, the King, provided only he wins safe home again, will have done well for us all by looking in at Rome and Paris. Of intimacy with Germany, confabulations domestic and private between the uncle and the nephew, there has been of late a little too much. This visit to the Latin races was morally due and overdue, a visit that had to be made. 'Twere well were it well ended.

In The Times, February 21, may t>e read the Emperor William's pronouncement on orthodoxy and Bible criticism— a papal allocution wherein and whereby German critics of the advanced school, »nd in par : ticular certain university big-wigs at Berlin, are to consider themselves snubbed. , To the best of my judgment they deserve it. There being no Pope in Germany, or none competent in this behoof, the Emperor is supplying what may be called a felt want, and ie no doubt quite aware of the fact. Not for the first time is the. House of Hohenzollern assuming functions quasi-papal. A hundred years ago, or thereabouts — in 1794, to bi exact — the King of Prussia Frederick William n took it upon himself to snub for bad doctrine Iminanuel Kant — whom he didn't in the least understand — and snubbed him so effectually that, in reply, Kant promised " to do even more than was demanded of him, and abstain in future from all public lectures concerning religion, natural or revealed." Nowadays a similar success is hardly to be looked foi. Professors Delitzsch and Harnack whilst admitting that it is difficult to argue with the "master of thirty legions," have intimated their conviction that "on these delicate and sacred subjects no word of command can be uttered." Snub for snub! Is not this going a long way towards snubbing the Emperor?

Tn his complaint that the teachings of Delitzsch and company are very " upsetting" the Emperor will get general sympathy. Unfortunately he is moved not only to find the critics wrong but to show bow they may be put right ; and then it 's the Emperor that becomes upsetting. He lays it down' that revelation has been embodied in great men.

Hammurabi [whoever he may have been] was one of these, and so was Moses, Abraham, Homer, Charlemagne, Luther. Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, the Emperor William the Great. How many a time did my grandfather expressly and emphatically maintain that he was >flly an instrum.»nt in the hand of the Lord! It is a queer list of divine oracles that begins with Hammurabi and Moses to end with "my grandfather." Emperor William the Great. To bring it up to date there should undoubtedly be added the grandson. Moreover, place should be found for a bigger man "than either — if it is to i question of Hohenzollerns — namely, Frederick the Great. What kind of divine revelation Frederick was may easily be _bown— e.g., from Carlyle.

Inspecting his finance affairs and questioning the parties interested, Frederick notices a certain convent in Cleve, which appears to have, payable from the forest-dues, considerable revenues bequeathed by the old Dukes '• fov masses to be said on their behalf." He goes to look at the place; o.uestions the monks on this point, who are all drawn-out in two rows, aiul have broken into Te Deunv at sight of him : " Husht ! You still say those masses, then?" "Certainly, youi Majesty !"—" And what good does anybody get of them?" " Your Majesty, those old Sovereigns are tc obtain heavenly mercy by them, to be delivered out of Purgatory by them." — " Purgatory? It is a sore thing for the forests, all this while! And they are not yet iut, those poor souls, aftei so many years of praying? Monks have a fatal apprehension, No." ll V r hen will they be out, and the thing complete?" Monks cannot say. " Send me a courier whenever it is complete " ! sneers the King, and leaves them to then To Dcuni. If William — Bismarck's William— is to go in, I really do not see on what principle Frederick jhould be kept out..

Members of the Dunedin _' DrainagS Board, if they were the Seven Sages of Greece, which they are very far from being, might justly sit confounded at the pass to which they have broucht theii* affairs — theirs, and also ours, sad to say. In selecting Rogers to report upon Anderson tne Board, as it then was, may have been inspired by a sentiment of poetic justice, inasmuch as Anderson had already reported upon Rogers. In fact, Anderson, not to put too fine a point upon it, might b3 said to have jumped upon Rogers. Eminently desirable therefore was it, in the interest of abstract equity, that Rogers should nave an opportunity of jumping upon" Anderson. 'But it wasn't at aft desirable in the interest of Drainage Board business. Yet the seyen Solons who constituted the boards if seven their number was, failed to see that 7. Hence it comes about that tliey or their successors must daze their^poor wits in tt,e. reconciling of three engineering reports, , absolutely irreconcilable, and each more convincing than the other. You read. Anderson's original scheme, and :t: t seems "good, You read the adverse report . upon • Anderson's scheme ; that also seems good.* You read Anderson's to this adverse -report, an<?,by all, that is comical, that seems good, tool. 'Then.^ where are you?— or, rather, where would. ~ymf be ~if "you were _tKe Board? -Very much a£ sea, I fancy. And' that is "precisely w&ere>tl\e -Board now-finds itself. Aa for tHe engineers involved in this imbroglio — four oKthem now— there is one point, just one, that, spite af themselves, they have "served to clear up. I had supposed that engineering was an exact science. I no longer suppose anything of the kind." Engineering is an exact science in the same degree -as theology, metaphysics, colonial politics, and Moly* neux dredging. Crvrs.

A full military funeral was od the 7tU accorded the late Private Frank George Allen, R.M.L.1., of H.M.S. Wallaroo. The body of the deceased was placed on a gun, carriage, covered with the Union Jack, and drawn by relays of seamen from the morgue to the oemetery. The funeral -procession, was headed by a party of Royal Marines, with reversed arm*, followed by the Port Chalmers Band (under Conductor. Sfchnack) playing funeral marches; next came th& ship's company of the Wallaroo, followed by all the commissioned officers and Captain Noel. On arrival at the grave the funeral service of the Church of England was impressively rendered by, the Rev. Mr Hampton,' and it Its "" conclusion the customary three volleys were fired. The funeral party, headed by the hand, were marched back to King Edward square, where Captain Noel, R.N., thanked thaband, through Mr Schnack, for ite attendance, f and the bluejackets returned to their ship. Amongst others who attended to pay theic respects were his Worship the Mayor (Mr J. Thomson), Mr A. Falconer (teamen's missionary), and others.

In last week's iraue we published a Wellington telegram -.tating tha> thf llaries of the principal veterinary surgeons in Uie employ of the Government were to be raised to £300 per annum, and that as a, consequence of this Mr Wilkie (of Dunedin) and Mr Young (of Palmerston North) had decided to remain in the service. Mr Wilkie requests us to say that this i- not correct so far as he is concerned — that he has no intention of. doing so at the salary named.

A meeting of the committee of tho Dunedin Competitions Society, held on tho 7th in the society's office, was attended by the Mayor, .'Mr J. A. Park (president), and Messrs W. Whitson, G. C. Israel, J. W. Smith, M. Cohen, J. Jeffery, and E. D. Grace. A large amount of detail work was gone through, particularly with regard to tho programme for the ensuing year. The subcommittees which wero appointed to go into the musical and elocutionary portion of the programme reported to the meeting and submitted the items chosen. The full programme will be complete in a very short tim* now, and the committee at this early stage is confident that from the cla93 of pieces chosen ' for all sections the' competi* tions will be even more successful than thos« of last year. Several now sections for com 1 petition have been added to the programme, which will this year be in every way specially attractive.

The London Express reports that between 20,000 and 30,000 people attended the wedding breakfast of a newly-married couple at 96 Essex road, Islington, the other morning — though not as guests. The cause for the crowd was the fact that a. young couple who were married at Christ Church, Hoxton, an hour or twi previously, had accepted the offer of an up-to-date furnishing firm of a bedstead and bedding if they would eat their wedding breakfast in the shop window. The bride, Mis 3 Adelaide Carr, was quit© self-possessed, but the bridegroom, Mr George Keen, a jacktar of the Royal Navj, showed some nervousness, and is said to have exclaimed as he and his bride drove up to the shop, "Well, I'm dono! I wish I was at sea."

A weil-known city clergyman mentioned at a hurcb social od Wednesday Uiat the other day he married an elderly bridegroom of 86' to his fourth wife.' The .same :entieman also related anecdote of a clergyman who received an appointment s chaplain o a- gaol. The cleric thus honoured with a Government appointment' choso as tho subject of his farewell sermon to a tearful congregation the well-known Scripturall passage: "I go to prepare a place foe you, that where I am there yo may be also."-