THE INVISIBLE WORLD AND THE 'OTAGO DAILY TIMES.'-MODERN PILGRIMAGES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 37, 10 January 1874, Page 9

THE INVISIBLE WORLD AND THE 'OTAGO DAILY TIMES.'-MODERN PILGRIMAGES.

'n xi ■ t r , - Auckland. To me the revival of the practice of religious pilgrimages seems to indicate a very healthy and hopeful state of religious sentiment throughout Christendom. These pilgrimages are a sort of public and omohirio protest against the prevalent rationalism of the period The vci-v circumstance of their being treated so often with rude and flinnant levity by an- i-Catholic writers, such as some of those who contribute to the pages of the < Otago ])aily Times,' shews that they must be strongly influencing in some way the public mind in favour of Catholic principles. Do these comic writers really believe ia an "rnvHbl* world?" If they do, and if they be possessed of common sense and politenesa (not to speak uf Christian faith), they would regard aru treat the subject of Christian pilgrimages rather as affording matter of curious and sober investigation than of profane and senseless merriment. Dr. Joseph Hall, who was Protestant Bishop of Exeter in 1641, and who was as much opposed to the Catholic religion and if* practices as any writer in the ' Otago Times' can be, relates in hi, work on "The Invisible World," the following fact, which occurre to a pilgrim who had visited the shrine of St. Madem in Cornwall v\ the hopes of being cured of an infirmity in his limbs, under which ho had laboured ior years, and which, to all appearance, seemed irre mediable by any human means whatever. Bishop Hull assures hi« readers that he had made personally a strict judicial enquiry into th» circumstances of tins case, aud he was well assured of their truth A man named John Trelittle, who for sixteen years wae forced to walk an his hands by reason of the dose contraction of the sinews of his in*, was, on visiting St. Madern's well and bathing in its waters, and as^ pilgrim, suddenly restored to the perfect use of his limbs, "so that " sajs Bishop Hall , "I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance. I found there was neither art nor cohesion The thin«» clone ; the author invisible." In reference to this case the *oo 1 *»,„"

(eftant Bishop makes the following reflection :— » The commerce we hare with good spirits is not now discerned by the eve ; but is like themselves, epiritual." Were John Trelittle and B^hop Hull now alive, nnd to appear in the editorial sanctum of the ' Otago Times ' and tell their story about this case as it has been recorded, they would doubtless be treated by the " enlightened " and comic writers who resort there as a set of lunatics, or deluded fanaiica at the very least • for Bishop Hall, bigot Protestant though he was, does not hesitate to say that he regarded the cure as " miraculous. Is the arm of the Almighty shortened, or his inclination to listen to the prayers of the Saints above diminished, that he cannot or will not now do 'for others and by similar means, what he did for John Trelittle at the well of St' Madern, in Cornwall, as Bishop Hall tells ? If He deigned in that way to remove bodily infirmities such as John Trelittle's, where all human aid was obviously hopeless, is it too much for Catholics piously to believe that he will in our day grant the prayers of pilgrims at other sJuines who come to ask Him in this way for spiritual favors, in behalf of themeelves, their friends, and their country. Let the comic writers in the ' Otago Times ' and others sneer at these pilgrimages as they please ; there can be no doubt that they are doing muchr to revive and quicken Christian faith iv many quarters where it had become cold uud languid. With the revival of Christian faith will come an improvement of morals. One thing i 3i 3 certain, these pilgi inures an creating an interest in the present and future position of the°Pop< Buch as has not been felt till now in modern times.

CORRESPONDENT.