THE SOLDIERY OF THE CROSS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 128, 15 October 1875, Page 15

THE SOLDIERY OF THE CROSS.

A Gebman journal has recently given in round numbers the statistics of the monks and nuns scattered in the Catholic convents over the globe. To some of our pious sectaries they will be astounding. They will cry aloud with a wail like the widows of Asher, how many idle mouths devour the produce of the hard-working children of toil. Monks and nuns are all " lazy," all " unproductive" in their e^es. The assertion formed one of Victor Emmanuel's reasons for despoiling the convents of Italy but the other day, and Protestant zealots of Europe shouted out, " served them right," when they were turned out on the streets of Borne and Palermo and Milan, without bread or roof to shelter them. Now here are the figures in a rough sketch made by the journal, to whicn we refer : There are 310,000 religious in. all, of whom 120,000 are monks and 190,000 are nuns. — [Numbers of the several orders given.] — It is a very common thing amongst the foes of our faith to tell us that thes« are " drones," " useless mouths feeding on the industry of society." British Ministers of State made use of such an argument to justify the invasion of the Pope's territories. " The crowd of monastics injured the progress of the people." Continental infidels repeated the cry. Over the world the sectary and scorner mise it with equal fervor. Of course, they forget or ignore the works that are done by the religious in the Catholic Church. They forget the hospitals they tend, the schools where they teach, the poor whom they support by their charity, charities of their own giving, or of their begging from others. They assail them, still; and will assail them as always as " lazy monks," " idle nuns," and they say that these 310,000 useless mouths prey upon the community. An eloquent priest of the Society of Jesus, in France, lately answered that. " Yes," he said, " these useless mouths open every instant to pray, or to preach, to teach, to console the poor, the sick, and the unfortunate, to bless the sinner who repents, and to open Heaven to the dying. These are 310,000 mouths which never open to return to the world the impieties and the columns of scandals with which the pages of the press are so richly furnished. These are 310,000 mouths which open, not in the saloon, in the tavern, nor at the corner of the street. What useless mouths for the newspaper or the ' Police Gazette ?" There is a good deal worth memory in this lesson, and in this contemplation of the ranks of the Soldiery of the Cross.