GOOD FRIDAY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2484, 1 April 1893, Page 3

GOOD FRIDAY.

TEMUKA. The evening of Thursday looked somewhat threatening. Heavy storm cloud* passed along the western ranges, and for a time a wet holiday was anticipated Later on, however, the sky cleared and a perfect night followed- The advent of the holiday season was marked by the increased traffic on the railway, the nortli express carrying a large number of or dinary passengers and together with 4 volunteers from Waimate and Timaru. A few people, on sport intent, disembarked at Tetnuka, and up till a late hour occasional vehicles laden with sportsmen passed through the town. The selected spots for slaughter were the Orari, Rangi f,ata and Milford Lagoons, and the pools fit Aspinali & Oo's mills. Sport was fairly good. THE CHURCHES. At St. Saviour's throughout Holj' Week special services have been held in the mornings and evenings, and on Good Friday there were services at 7.30 and 11 a.m. conducted by the Rev. W. E. Gjllam. In the afternoon a pervica, which was \yell attended, was conducted by the Rev. Mr Gillam. At the evening service, which was also well attended, the Rev. M. W. Butterfield officiated.

At St. John's, Winchester, the morning service was conducted by tho Rev M. W. Butterfield, and iu the evening the Rev. W. E. Gillara officiated. Tlie services were the special ones for the day, and tho offertories were devoted to St. phudrenls service was alao held at Winwhea Me Butterfield gave an appropriate address, The customary Good Friday morning (jnreinonial did not take place in St. jfqseph-6 Church, Terauka, owing tq the Roy. Father FauveJ baying been called away to Ohristchurch to assist at the Holy Thursday ceremonies. In the pyeniug tho devat'! o ?! °* tno tirm :! oi \\}q C rosf. was hfrid : MAOIU UAH.. At the Maori Pah a special aa*-' • • V„U ™ 'W- '■ "" '. "CO w .... - -.iiirsuay evening the service bvhig conducted by Mr J. Kalm. The ordinary congregation was augmented by

the presence of the schoolboys encamped at the pah, who attended the servioo under the charge of Mr Strack. Mr .T. A. Boulter presided at the organ and tlir> capital singing of the natives both in English and Maori was such as to cause some surprise to the visitors. the salvation army. Special services were held in connection with the above at 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Captain Jansen conducting. There was a fair attendance at each. An address appropriate to the day was given at the second service.

THE NEW ZEALAND TABLET. THE EDITOR'S REPLY. The following is the editor of the Tablut's reply : "No, of course not. We could not think of reproducing in our columns anything of that kind. ' We do not keep costermongers or graduates of Billingsgate on our staff,' says our contemporary. And why should he whon he himself can exceed their most violent sallies ? But we were prepared for this. We knew we could not touch pitch without being defiled. To touch it was an unpleasant but a necessary duty. We, however, had not seen the extract alluded to by our contemporary at the beginning of his harangue. Want of time frequently prevents our opening all our exchange.-*. The first article we saw was the article we rebuked, and we should not have seen that had not one of our readers at Temuka sent us the paper, with a pressing request that we should deal with it, and sham i the writer to the very marrow of his bones. We did our best to do so, and evidently with effect. We, nevertheless!, have no intention of examining or replyiug to the charges brought by our contemporary against the Tablet. They are merely the expression of his opinion, and may go for what they are worth. On the other side we may place opinion of value. First : Where religion is concerned, we may cite His Eminence Cardinal Moran, who, in the year of the Pope's sacerdotal jubilee, wrote from Rome to the Bishop of Duuedin a letter, published by us at the time, and in which His Eminence referred very kindly to thu Tablet. Where journalism is concerned, we may quote, for example, the testimony of the Boston Pilot and the Dublin Nation. As to patriotism, we have here at hand a letter, received by the last mail, from Sir Thomas H. Grattan Esmonde, in which he thanks us for some copies of our paper, forwarded to him, alluding wit'i approval to their articles. We could quote a good deal more to a similar effect, but that is sufficient. We do not write, as we have said, to defend ourselves from false, furious, and scandalous charges. But we have been the unwilling means of briuging insult on other people, and them we must defend. ' Apart altogether from other considerations,' says our contemporary, ' it is regrettable to see a man, claiming to be educated, so obtuse as to mistake coarseness for vigour and vulgarity for wit, as is shown in the above extracts (those from our paragraph referring to the Leader), but no doubt he (the writer in the Tablet) cannot help employing the language used in the society in -which he moves' The Italics are ours. And what is that society? Simply, f >r the last twenty years, the Catholics of the colony, with many of whom, from all parts of the country, we are frequently in communication in person or by letter. Are they, therefore, people from whose society coarseness and vulgarity are to be derived ? It seems to us that an apology is due by the Temuka Leader to his Catholic fellow-colonists. It is they, not we, whom he has insnlted. Our contemporary deals hardly more politely by Protestants. ' If one followed the example of the Tablet,' he writes, ' and tore aside the veil of editorial auonymity, it could be shown that the writer has not been educated as a Catholic, which fact, no doubt, helps to soothe the Catholic feelings when wounded by his r|auell,e)•ies. , And, in fact, the writer was not educated as a Catholic. He is a graduate of a Protestant university, and the holder of a diploma of a professional schqoi attached to that university, Is that, indeed, a sufficient reason that Catholic. 3 should expect to be wounded, as a result of his ignorance and rudeness? Are the graduates and professional men sent out by Protestant universities as a rule ignoramuses and clowns ? Protestants may condemn as degraded the man so equipped for the journey of life, and who is no longer a member of their" religious communion. It is their privilege, and we submit to their displeasure. But if such a man is found in the Catholic Church, the place of the Catholic who scorns him as such is not at the foot of the Catholic altar, but at the right hand of Chiniquy and O'Gorman on the antiCatholic platform—nay, lower, for he not only insults his Churoh and denies his faith, but spits in his own face and brands himself, no less than his fellow-Catholics, as being a source of contamination. Our contemporary certainly owe 3 an apology to the Protestant community for the slur he has cast upon them. The graduates of their universities and the members of their learned professions are not, as he suggests they are, ignoramuses and clowns. And yet again our contemporary owes an apology to a large body of journalists. ' The fact is,' he writes,' he ([the writer in the Tablet) is not a trained journalist, and this accounts for the paper being invariably a seething mass of scurrility, vulgarity, and filth.' But who are trained journalists ? Not very many whom we can mention—not, for example, the late John Boyle O'Reilly, justly reckoned the prince among American journalists ; not the late Frederick Lucas, the ablest Catholic editor of his day—educated, moreover, as a Protestant; not the late Rev. Mr Halpin, for many years editor of the Difblin Evening Mail; not Dr Mausell, a medical doctor of some standing in his profession, who succeeded the late Mr Thomas Sheehan as viroprietor and editor of that paper j nof the late Rev. Mark Pprrin, a rector under the Establishment, and a dignitary of the Anglican Churoh in Ireland, who was a brilliant journalist for some sixty years, who, under the Lord-Lieu tenancy of Lord Normanby, and, in close association with Lord Morpeth and Captain Thomas Drummoud, (supported the policy of Dublin Castle—to which he was at the time attached as chaplain—in the columns "f the London Morning Chronicle, on whose death the Dublin Evening Mail, to which ho had fo.vuop.rly- contributed, testified that lie had written on many subjects in a manner that would have established several high literary reputations, had the medium of publication not been the ephemeral pagos of newsprvpqr a,nd periodical Press ;, not the late Cctlonel J£nox, who established the Irish Times; not Mr Labauchcre, who. now edits Truth; not the Rev, of lately omiuonqe a,s i\ journal to W offteAustafe edi*>- ..j ouitor Ot itdvia- ...m of the .Review ..»s; not Mr G. M. Reid, whoso reputation as a clever journalist is, at least, intercolonial; not Mr George Bell, the editor of the most successful, most ably written, and best couducted daily in

Duuedin whom, indeed, we have religiously, now and then, to castigate, but never with respect to journalistic capacity ; not a host of others who also have largely helped to raise the standard of the Press, or who maintain it at a high level. But what is a trained journalist, ? The man, for example, who in his earlier years has done some petty reporting on an obscure sheet published somewhere at the back of God-speed? According to M. Blowitz, of the London Times, the trained journalist has not yet appeared. Meantime, the mau who approaches nearest to him is the mau of the higher education, who has had an opportunity of seeing the world in more than one nation, and of personally forming judgments concerning different ranks of society from the highest to the lowest. In conclusion, our contemporary certainly owes an apology to the untrained journalists as well as to his Catholic fell iw-colonists and Protestants in general. So much we have written not in our own defence —which we did not consider necessary —but in defence of certain respectable classes of people whom we had accidentally exposed to the reckless tongue of the scold.

OHIUSTOHURCH CORRESPONDENT'S reply;. THE TEMUKA DITCH AGAIN. TO THE EDITOIt N.Z. TAIiLET. " A frog that dwelt in a ditch spat at a worm that bore a lamp. " Why do you do that ? " said the glowworm. " Why do you shine ? " said the frog. Sut, —Five years or so ago I quoted th» above charmiug little legend for the benefit of a certain vain-glorious and very ill-natured frog that then dwelt in a ditch in a well-known South Canterbury district. The quotation had, at that time, so good an effect in causing silence in the ditch and better behaviour on the part of the frog that I feel that, under present circumstances, I cannot do better than re-quote it, in the hope that like results will follow. Indeed, so littles have I heard of the inhabitant of the ditch since that time that I concluded that, swelled out with its own vanity, it had burst its skin and had long ago joined the majority in the shadowland of frogs. It seems, however, that I was wrong. Apparently a vain and vicious little frog has no sense of the fitness of things. It has not sufficient gumption to quietly glide out of existence or, at least, into becoming obscurity, when every sensible frog within earshot has grown sick to death of its strut and its swaggering croak. My old friend, the Temuka specimen, I find, still lives in its ditch, and is again renewing its envious and unmannerly conduct. Poor disappointed, ambitious, would-be-great little froggy .' ! ! Though it is so rude one cannot help feeling sorry for it. From " information received," I learn that it has been filling up the interregnum between the time when I was obliged to castigate it before and the present hour, by making desperate efforts to climb the slippery heights of fame—in other words, the greasy pole of politics. With thumb in arm holes and chest inflated, the dweller in the ditch sought to coax the electors in adjacent regions to enable him to append sundry cabalistic letters to his name. But, though he turned his coat in and out until hia own tailor could not have told which was the right side and which the wrong side of the garment, it was no go. The Temuka birds were too old to be caught with chaff. Froggy only slipped deeper into the ditch again, whence he spits with eyen more than his old spleen at the self same lights which so irritated him of yore. The late correspondent of the Tablet, whose name is so unwarrantably dragged into the " leading '!" columns of the Temuka Leader of a x-ecent date, had completely forgotten the existence of the bumptious, self - conceited, great little High-mightiness of the -outh Canterbury ilk, until a marked copy of the flbf-\ brilliantly conducted, jqipiliii • ° hand the QtbW day. Li -"; . oaine \° the New *■ \ , "J™Tt tirade the policy of the Tablet is uo . as reversible as the Temuka magnate's coat, it is stated that the letters of the late correspondent " reeked with vile Vituperation," etc. The late correspondent's letters never '• reeled" with anything of the kind. They certainly did " reek" with at least one wellmerited, and, apparently, only two wellremembered birching of a certain vulgar little person whose bad taste and rudeness were notorious. "I his statement is untrue, and there I leave it. And, now, good-bye, little denizen of the ditch, for live years more. Iu taking my farewell of you I will again tender a little fresh advice, which, if followed, will keep you on the straight track for another twentieth part of a century. First then —never lose your temper, it is bad for the liver. Besides, undignified, selfimportant little persons when they become furious, become irresistibly funny, and only make of themselves laughing stocks to all beholders. Always laudably endeavor to assist the designs of nature. This you will best do by remaining quietly in your little ditch and by there banishing from your mind all visions of unattainable greatness. Nature never meant little froggies to be great; so meekly bow to the inevitable. Physically and mentally (especially mentally) you were created small, and it is waste of time to seek to reverse an immutable decree. In conclusion, have only one right side to your coat, and keep that steadily outward. Study assiduously the rules of polite sosiety and of composition, and in time you may become, not a gentleman, because that is impossible, since Species are unchangeable, but a little less insufferably vulgar and illiterate than at present, and a little less an object of contempt to both Protestants and Catholics.—l am, sir, yours, etc.,

The late Corresi'ondent of the Tablet.

TEMUKA MAN'S REPLY. THE TEMUKA. LEADER AND THE NEW ZEALAND TABLET. TO THE EDITOII N.Z. TABLET. Silt,— I supp jse before now you have read the famous article in oi'.r local contemporary, tho Tumuka Lkaimcr, of Maroh the 2i>rd, vilifying in the most scurrilous minima'not alone your valuable paper but evory one right and left connected with it. I have never read a more scandalous article. Why, a rabid Orangeman wouldn't have written in such a maimer. Where were the Catholics of Now Zealand before the institution of tho Tablet'' Nowhere. They were only dir+ ' eyes of tho colonists ; ]»**-" 111 the and laughed at *•• uued, ridiculed, tho ••'./ every organ in ■»■" .y. There w.-is no one found to „<vKe up their c-iuse till Bishop Moran did so by establishing tho Tablet. " In view of this," the writer asks, " is it to be wondeied at if intelligent Catholics regard the Tablet as a blighting, blasting, withering curse, which is calculated to sap the morals and religion of their children."

[ He also says many of tho most in- | telligent Catholics have long ago turned tho Tablet out <>f their homes as a f.>ul thing. Now I know tho Teinuka and Geraldine districts as will as he. Let him quote mo one instance of such; I defy him to quote one. i think my father paid as much for my education as his father did for his. But I must have been rather thick iu the cranium, whilst he was a luminous star. Anyhow I claim to have as much intelligence, or a little more, than he, and 1 haven't banished tho Tablet yet from my home, nor have 1 the least intention ; neither do I know one in the Temuka or Geraldine districts who know howto read and can afford to take the Tablet but does so—except some miserable creature who is too miserable to pay for it. I know several poor people who come to me and borrow it to read, and that constantly. The writer winds up his peroration by saying the editor of the Tablet is not a trained journalist, and this accounts for the paper being a seething mass of scurrility, vulgarity, and filth. This is the language of that famous trained journalist, the publisher and editor of the famous papers Temuka Leader and Geraldine GuardrAN—better known as the " Temuka Kag."

What is all this row about between this journalist and the Tablet '! Some people may not know. He published two leadingarticles lately criticising Bishop Mcran and his tactics regarding the education question. The Tablet replied with a subleader, giving him a bit of his mind. He was quite right, and every right-thinking man will say so. If the editor did not like Bishop Moran's ideas regarding the education question why did he not let him alone ? But no, he had something else in view. The general election is drawing nigh, and I understand he is to support a candidate for the Temuka district. I know he will do anything, and sacrifice any principle to put his man in Parliament. He has already striven a couple of times, but failed.—l am, etc., An Irishman. Teinuka, 25th March, 1892.