PARALLEL CASES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 153, 7 April 1876, Page 11

PARALLEL CASES.

In the early days of Christianity, while the professors of the new creed were everywhere being put to the test by blood and fire, it did not require much to save the life of one who was about to suffer martyrdom ; all that was demanded from him was, that he should burn a little incense in honor of an idol. The performance of this trifling action alone was needful to deliver him from a terrible death, and to restore him to prosperity and honor ; and we can well understand that his refusal to perform it was looked upon with bewilderment by the Roman magistrates, who could in no wise comprehend what might be these absurd scruples— as they considered them — which engendered this marvellous obstinacy, and led to such grievous consequences. Tet for fifteen hundred years the voice of the civilised world has loudly applauded the staunch Christian, who refused to compromise his principles, and who, rather than betray them, suffered death — whatever fierce and horrible form it should assume ; — and there has been handed down to undying infamy the memory of those officers of justice, falsely so called, whose determination it was to overcome scruples they neither understood nor sympathised with. But, nevertheless, it is evident that the spirit, by which these latter were actuated, is still in being, and still contrives to make itself felt — the same in kind, if different in degree. It would, perhaps, be difficult to persuade certain of our modern — aad even colonial — legislators, that, when a Christian martyr was about to suffer, and all Rome had gathered to the spectacle, the spirit of the Caesar, who sat to view the dreadful show, bore kindred to that by which they are actuated in supporting some of the ordinances enacted by them. There is, no doubt, much modification : the world is vastly changed since Diocletian's reign ; and where death, with every circumstance of horror accompanying, would then have been inflicted, inconvenience, pecuniary loss, social disqualification, and such matters may now only be looked for ; but the motive which prompts the infliction of these is akin to that which led the Roman to the spectators' benches, and brought the Christian face to face with the wild beasts, the fire, the boiling oil, and all the terrible implements of the arena. Let our modern legislators read ecclesiastical history, and find if it is not so. Who were the men who thus encountered death ? They were Catholics, and they were so treated, because they firmly refused to do that which they believed to be a flagrant breach of the law of God, and because C/esab was determined that they, should observe practices which he approved of, rather than those enjoined upon them by the Faith. And, mutatis mutandis, so it is now. The Catholic must suffer privation and loss, because his religion forbids him to follow the course chosen for him by various of our law-makers. Take, for example, secular education. The Secularist says, We consider this system better than that which you desire. Tour scruples are absurd ; we do not understand them. We do not ask much of you, and we are determined to use every means in our power to make you yield. So C&sab said in ancient times, when the Christian Church was young ; he only asked those of the ]?aith, who were arraigned before his tribunals, to offer a little incense to a false god — surely, in itself, it was not much, — and he was determined to employ every means to enforce the accomplishment of his will ; those means were unlimited, and he was relentless and cruel as a tiger, but he failed — the Church was constant, and; suffered, and overcame. It seems a little thing to' Secularists, that they should demand that Catholic children be sent to their schools ; the scruples of Catholic parentsi are nothing to them ; they do not sympathise with, nor| understand them, and they vigorously make use of every means they possess to overcome them ; but these petty tyrants must be taught, that if, in this, their spirit be that of C^esab, the Catholic is actuated by the same motives, that induced the Christian martyrs to stand firm under the utmost tortures that unimagined cruelty could devise. Por he, likewise, is called upon to offer a sacrifice to demons, in giving over, as much as in him lies, the souls ol b children to the enemy of God and man ; therefore he ib required to resist to the uttermost, and as energetically,

as if, having lived in the early centuries, it had been demanded of him, that lie should partake in the adoration paid to the gods of imperial Rome.