THE OBSERVER CARTOON.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 86, 6 May 1882, Page 121

THE OBSERVER CARTOON.

No. 17. — The Very Eet. De. Fjbancis Eed■wood.

The Catholic "Bishop of Wellington is deservedly a favourite with all classes of the community* He magnifies his office, and in so doing, finds that by it he is magnified. The ancients said, "It is not to be considered among the actors who is prince, or who is beggar, but who acts prince or beggar best." So in like manner, Francis Bedwood, "by the Gi-race of G-od," a Bishop of the Catholic Church, is well spoken of by his brethren, and known by the poor and the sick. He plays his part well, and other players say so. Men do not obtain distinction from the circumstances of their lives alone, but mainly from their behaviour lending grace to their environments. The first of New Zealand trained bishops, he will possess a distinction others cannot attain; the child of a pioneer family, he has become an episcopal pioneer, although forming a link in an endless chain. Born and reared on the other side of Cook's Straits, he had the good fortune to be taught and trained by Father (3-arin, one of the French priests who came long since to New Zealand — a band whose memoirs, have not yet been written, but whose memories are still fragrant in the Maori recollection. He became a priest — then a bishop — but still a priest. There are fewevents in a priest's life save the performance of duty, but, then, most things are comprised in the duty of a priest. Caste, colour, creed, mould not the priest's duty ; sin, sorrow, want — these things shape his conduct. Of Yorkshire extraction the bishop attends an antipodean meeting of the Irish Land League, believing, as a prince of his church, wrote, " That G-od made the solid land for something else than to pay rent, and that the tenant vrlio improves fclie soil, not the landlord, lias a, right to every tittle of the increased value." H. carefully fosters religious education from the belief that by its operation society can only coheres " One in whom persuasion and belief has ripened into faith, and faith become a passionate intuition." Our cartoon is from a photograph by Messrs Clarke Bros., of Queen-street.