A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10860, 2 January 1907, Page 6 (Supplement)

A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

FATHER VAUGHAN'S DENUNCIATIONS OF MODERN SINS AND FOLLIES.

_"To you, my brothers and sisters, who, righteous like the Pharisee, riotous like the prodigal, covetous like Dives, voluptuous like the Tetrarch, frivolous like Salome, sensuous like the Magdalene, or vicious like Herodias, are wearying yourselves in the ways of iniquity,* seeking for peace where no peace is to be found, and for rest where there is no rest, these words are spoken." With these words Father Vaughan begins the volume in which he has collected his famous Farm-street sermons on the sins and follies of the "Smart Set."

"I am," says the Jesuit preacher, "a Christian fellow-Englishman," and highsouled patriotism breathes through these pages. Reflection has not caused any weakening of conviction.

"It is my deliberate belief, and I am fully persuaded, that my sermons understate what is going on to-day among some members not only of the upper classes, but in the middle class, and among working people also." Father Vaughan defends "sensational preaching" in a manner that would entirely commend itself to General Booth.

"Are not most men drawn away from 'GodV byj'th'e s ' senses ? If this is so, why ani I not to try to bring them back again through the senses? Is the devil to have it all his own way? Not a bit of it." The preacher is no sour hater of joy. "I do not think," he says, "England owns a son who believes more in the healthy influence of a cheery, hright, and merry social life than I do." Father Vaughan is indeed all for, "merrie England ' as well as fpr clean England; pure England. Christian England.\ SMART WOMEN/

For' the idle, sriiarfc woman he has lashes of scorpions. "A foolish man will think aloud, but a silly woman feels aloud.

"The conversations that are carried on between the sexes and among women with each other are nothing less than shocking. It all goes to prove that in reading, as in everything else, these perr sons exercise no restraint whatsoever.

"It might be a blessing if sonie of these gambling harpies could be given what are called "Woman's Rights," for under these conditions, I presume, they would drop woman's privileges, and then man might have a chance of seeing that "they played the game."

"It is not what women put on, but what they take off, that matters. There are not a few houses from which some society ladies are permanently excluded because of their want of decent clothing. Did wi. know less of the motives for these outrageous breaches of decorum we might charitably suppose these unwomenly women were recent importations from the Fiji Islands."

The description of how young girls are lured on to play bridge, and sell their souls to pay their debts, is repeated, and in an appendix Father Vaughan declares he has received letters from young ladies assuring him that he has understated "the hideous state of things."

CHILDLESS MARRIAGES. The loveless, childless marriage is sap ping the nation. ""

"Is it not appalling to think that the very last thing for newly-married people to want is mutual love ?. Nay, they ridicule belief in any such old-world relic It is "bad form,' and that is the end of it.

"I am proud to think that,- if my father was one of twenty children, 1 myself am one of fourteen. My experience .goes to show that the larger the family the healthier . and merrier ■ the children. Present up-to-date parents ridicule the notion of having big families ; so that instead of being proud, society is becoming ashamed of owing to a nursery full of children.

"Most of the present day evils far and away come from unhappy marriages, and unhappy marriages coine from want of mutual reverence and love."

And to prove his indictment that what President Roosevelt calls deliberate race suicide is mqse prevalent among the bet-ter-to-do, Father Vaughan quotes Mr Sidney Webb, who wrote in the: Times :

"The decline in the birth-rate is exceptionally marked where the inconvenience of having children is specially felt." It is noteworthy that.Father. Vaughan!s denunciations are interspersed with com-mon-sense restraint. "I advocate elegance in dress," he writes, "but not extravagance." In another place, writing on gambling, he admits : ' 'It is not the playing for money that is essentially wrong." But "the. evil of gamhling . ... is to be found in the liability to abuse." Therefore the best way "to deal with the gambling instinct is to leave it severely alone."

MONEY WORSHIP. The horror of the "Smart Set" is that, while love no longer conquers all, money excuses all.

"Truth to tell, women with their dainty feet firmly set upon a rung high up the social ladder are easily condoned these deadly deeds for which their sisters lower down • would be' sure to be severely condemned. Accordingly,' Herodias, with a past, would stand out prominently as a really Smart Woman of the Smart Set. Provided she and Herod gave good dinners and rare entertainments, there would be no difficulty in finding excuses for their actual life. '"Old English traditions, with rare exceptions, are being swept away by the incoming tide of millionaire wealth, so that, nowadays, it matters little what you are, but much, nay, everything, what you have. If you command money, you, command the world. If you have none, you are nobody though you be a prince. "If Dives, who was burned in hell, were to revisit this earth, he would have the entree* to London's Smartest Set today. He would be . . . literally pelted with invitations."

The worship of money, and the coming of the millionaire have made society vicious and vulgar. "Formerly we used to hire chairs for our guests; now we hire guests, for our chairs."

Even the good signs of the times have evil explanations. We- drink less than our forefathers, but —

"The other day I heard a. great general remark that one of the explanations of the sobriety of the present dav; youth Was that fact that he had not tne head to stand what his fellow in a past generation could have tossed off without a thought. Our rising generation lack:, stamina and grit. "We assemble nowadays in our tens of thousands to hang about football ground or a cricket field, smoking injurious cigarettes, while we follow with interest not how the game is being played by rival teams, but how our stakes are swaying to and fro in the balance of. averages. '

Father Vaughan is a bold man, in a sense a modern Savonarola. He speaks primarily as an Englishman when in matters of conduct he repeats the words of the Prince of Wales : "Wake up, England, wake up !"