NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 149, 10 March 1876, Page 9

NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

[We take the following items from our Exchanges.] THE HOLT PATHKR, EOME AND ITALT. The Pope has lately given two brief but weighty pieces of advice to the Catholic world. " Act but not agitate," and " Fast as well as pray." Addressing the members of the Rennes pilgrimage, on December 12, he said to them : " I repeat to all Catholics scattered over the face of the earth, Repent and be converted. And I warn them that for the exercise of penitence it is necessary to reveit to the practice of holy fasting as prescribed by the Church. With still greater force would J direct my warning to those who not only omit fasting altogether, but who show a proud contempt of ecclesiastical ordinances, deriding miracles and blaspheming everything -which they do not comprehend. To such as these I say that the sword of divine vengeance hangs over them and especially over those unjust and sacrilegious usurpers who have aided in inundating so large a part of the Catholic world with false doctrines, with foul incitements to vice, with blasphemies and with all the lures which the satanic school provides. Above these the swoi*d of divine vengeance hangs all the more ready to descend as it is the more treated with ridicule and scorn." The Catholic papers have recently published an address to foreigners and especially Protestants who may be in Italy, declaring that the abominable profanations of the Sunday which take place now in Rome, are the subject of the bitterest regret to the Pope under whose regime such wicked abuse of the Lord's Day did not occur. They are the result of the demoralization introduced by the actual government, which not only encourages, but enforces labor on the public works on Sundays and holidays, and orders the discharge of any laborer who should venture, through religious scruples, to refuse working on days set apart for the worship of God. The visit of the Lord Mayor of Dublin to Rome is the subject of much talk, and his lordship is quite the lion of the season 1 On Thursday, December 30, he went to the Vatican in his robes of office and wearing the cross and ribbon of the Order of St. Gregory. The rector of the Irish college, the vice-rector of the same, and all the students, as well as members of the Irish monasteries of St. Clement, St. Maria Posterula and St. Isidoro, together with a few Irish Benedictines from St. Ambrogio, were of the company. In a word, it was a grand Irish demonstration. There was no midnight mass in any of the Roman churches this year. All the churches were closed until early morning. It seems, however, that if the churches were closed, the taverns were open and the city was filled with drunkards and noisy vagrants, much to the disgust of the people. On Christmas Day the churches were crowded, and the staircase leading to the beautiful old church of Ara Coeh was thronged with pious pilgrims hastening to visit the shrine of the Infant Saviour, which has been venerated there for many centuries. Santa Maria Maggiore was also filled with pilgrims venerating the great relic of the Nativity, the only Crib in which our Loi-d was laid. The Italian papers commeut upon the remarks addressed by King Victor Emmanuel to his army on New Year's Day. He said : " I thank the army for its good wishes. lam glad to see myself surrounded by so many brave men. I confide greatly in the army, and before long I mny have to call upon it to prove that my confidence is not ill placed. Evenls may occur sooner than we think, which may oblige my army to rehearse those glories which have been so conspicuous in the past." The papers endeavor to prove that these words were simply meant as complimentary and escaped the king almost unawares. The ' N azione ' says : " What the king has said, aloud everybody has been saying to himself, for the past six months. War is at hand and we shall be in the field before we know where we are. But against whom ? that is a question which a few more weeks will answer. Scialsia is in Egypt, gone thither on a diplomatic ioission, concerning matters which are of the utmost importance and which may naturally influence public affairs and even unsettle the peace of Europe. I The Milanese are restoring their churches. The splendid restoration, lecently made by them, of the old basilica of St. Eustorgio, is world famous. Now they are rebuilding the facade of the church of Carmine, a very grand old building, which contains many noble piclures and tombs. In the meantime the celebrated basilica of St. Ambrose, where rest the relics of that illustrious saint is still in the hands of the restorers, and it is feared that so extensive are the repairs in process that it will be some years before they will be entirely completed. It is rather singular that the Lombards should be restoring their churches, whilst the Sicilians are obliged by the Italian government to close hundreds of their most magnificent religious edifices. FRANCE. Among the clergy, i - eligioiis, and intelligent lay Catholics, there is but one feeling — that through the Most Blessed Virgin is France to be saved. Certainly, if the favor with which this good Mother has looked upon this people in years just passed, as shown in apparitions, determined by the Ecclesiastical authorities as having really happened, if these may be taken as evidence, and assuredly they may, there is every reason to hope that the faith of the French will not bo disappointed. A very deep spirit of devotion to Our Blessed Lady is manifest in all the churches, and it is enough to warm a stranger into enthusiasm to hear thousands of voices in one grand hymn exclaiming : " Save France ! Wipe away her tears." In the terrible inundations which visited Toulouse last spring, Sister Pellegrin, a noble daughter of St. Vincent, by her coolness and intrepidity, brought twelve hundred patients out of the HotelDieu hospital in that city, safely, over a shaky little bridge temporarily thrown from the door of the hospital to an old house near at hand. If that Sister has not yet been, she should be decorated ■with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The Christian Brothers, on the 30th of December past, had,

between boarders in their academies, evening schools, literary unions, or Young Men's Associations, half-boarders in day-schools, and similar establishments, a grand total of 39,760 youths under their control. In the city of Paris there are employed no less than 805 Brothers. The late selection of Senators is something which appears to cause serious apprehension to the lovers of good order and peace. Yet we must hope for the best. When men appear to be most powerful, when their machinations seem nearest success, the hand of Providence is made manifest. In Paris, Sunday differs but little from other days, so far as work is concerned. And what is more provoking is, that many of those Sunday desecrators rest on Monday ! This is a state of things which scarcely exists in any other European city, and which should assuredly be made to cease in a city where the feelings of so many thousands of good Christians are shocked by this profanation. IBELAND. The population of Ireland is still decreasing, although the rate at which the depletion was going on some years ago has not been maintained, and there is a considerable falling off in the nnmber of emigrants. The number of acres under tillage has diminished, as has also the number of inhabited bouses, showing that human creatures are yet being cleared away by process of eviction in order to make room for beasts of the field. In fact, Ireland is rapidly being converted into a huge dairy ranch for the benefit of England, and that is precisely the mission which British political economists s»y Providence intended her to fulfil. Industry in the manufacturing line exhibits little or no progress, because such is the will of the cocernment, which can always discourage any enterprise competing with British trade. It will perhaps surprise those who see " Irish poplins " advertised in the windows of almost every dry goods' store, to learn that not one hundred per ons are engaged in weaving that beautiful fabric, ana consequently, not one yard out of every thousand sold under that name, can be genuine Irish production. The lovers of the " ancient tongue" will regret to be told that those who speak it exclusively are fast dying out, so that in a comparatively short time its melodious accents will no longer be heard in the land. TBe men who talk about the wealth and prosperity of England and contrast it with the poverty and degradation of Ireland, know nothing of what they discuss, inasmuch as official statisticts, issued by government, prove, that in proportion to population, Ireland contains far less paupers than England. This may sound strange, but it is a po.«itive fact, nevertheless. Education is spreading in extent and improving in quality, particularly in the Catholic provinces, in a way which makes Irishmen hopeful of being able to boast in the lapse of some years that their country is the best instructed in the world ! Crime is steadily diminishing, and higher grades of it, such as murder and deadly assaults, are especially noticeable for constant diminution. Drunkenness, singular to observe, does not follow the same course, but ebbs and flows like a sweeping tide. One year it a'l but vanishes, and the nest it increases to a degree that alarms the Bishops and all friends of the p ople. Dublin is now adorned by staiuea of O'Connell, Grattan, Burke, and Goldsmith. The exuberant Irish vitality and religious feeling of O'Connell, the straightforward political honesty of Grattan, the eloquence and quickness of Burke, and the mellifluous smoothness and touching sensibility of Goldsmith were all racy of the soil, and Dublin honors itself by its memorials of these great Irish citizens. At a meeting o£ the clergy of Ferns, which was held to select clergymen deemed fit to fill the vacant See, the following were tha names selec'ed: — Dignus—Yery Rev. Dr. For'unp, President, All Hallows' College ; Dignior — Aery Rev. Michael Wan en, Missionary, House, Euniscorthy ; Dignissimus — Most Rev. Dr. Rickards, VicarApostolic of the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, South Africa. In a leading article upon the inauguration of the Grattan statue in Dublin, the ' Daily News' observes that one of the most honorable passages of Grattan's life was that he, a Protestant, advocated the claims of Catholics, that Mr. Foley's statue will teach a good lesson if it serves to remind the good people of Dublin that the purest and most eloquent of Irish patriots gave himself up to the cause of a people, the majority of whom knelt not before the same altar »rith him. The Eyeries correspondent of the Cork ' Examiner' says : "A new and remunerative copper ore mine was recently discovered in Allihies, It is gratifying to be able to add that Coulagh, in the immediate vicinity of Eyeries, promises to prove an excellent copper ore mine, and, if I am rightly informed, a decisive step is to be taken after the Christmas holidays. That a very rich mine lies dormant in Coulagh, nobody familiar with the place for a moment dovibts. GERMANY. Mgr. Janicszewski, auxiliary Bishop of Posen, has been arrested and condemned to six months imprisonment by order of the German government. His crime was having administered extreme unction to a dying person without waiting for government sanction. It was at first reported that Mgr. Janicszewski had effected his escape into Austria, but this is now contradicted, and it appears that he has been arrested and imprisoned. The curate of Matzenheirn has also been arrested and imprisoned for a month ; so has Canon Stamm of Paderborn and the chaplains of Bienfeldt. A Capuchin Father has been exiled, and several other religious have been fined for crimes similar to that committed by the Bishop of Paderbom. Evidently the persecution in Germany is not over yet. The German government has forwarded a circular to the director of the Gymnasium at Meppen, forbidding the recital of a prayer for the Pope after the mass at which the pupils of the Gymnasium assist, or after any other mass. The Government has evidently not studied the catechism, which teaches that " prayer is the rising of our minds to God, whereby we beg Him for gaol things and to be freed from evil." If the children do not pray aloud in good High Dutch, Bismarck appears to believe that God will not understand -what is in their hearts.