THE MELBOURNE BOUQUET NUISANCE—ABUSE OF PRIESTS AND BIBLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 217, 22 June 1877, Page 13

THE MELBOURNE BOUQUET NUISANCE— ABUSE OF PRIESTS AND BIBLE.

It surprises me that the calumniators of the " Priests " in Melbourne and Dunedin do not tire of their dirty work, more especially after the Bates case and the Bell case, in which the Argus and Star cut so disreputable a figure. The Argus again shinea in the " Bouquet nuisance " case. Again the enemies of the " priests " would he put to the blush, if they knew how to blush, for shame. Why will the.v persist in publishing these trumpery and false talea ab the prompting of evil-disposed bigots without first inquiring properly whether they be true or false ? The Argus was forced with a wry face to admit that the bigots who prompted him in the bouquet case had acted very wrongly in presenting the bouquets in the way they did. Yet he expresses no regret for publishing the calumny. The meanest kind of falsehood is that of partially stating the truth, so as to create a false impression. The Argus's clients were guilty of this, and made him a partner of their offence. He does not seem to feel his degradation The same with the Dunedin accomplices, in that case as in the Bates slander. A certain paper the other day, adopting the language of Carlyle, said that literary men were a kind of " perpetual priesthood," and far more charitable than the common clergy. I presume ho claimed a kind of "priesthood" for the Press, which he said excelled the clergy in charity too. But charity thinketh no ill, and is slow to take up an evil report. It appears that the Press, or a portion of it in Melbourne and Dunedin, are ready to think any ill of the p riests of the Holy Roman Church, and are swift to take in and publish any evil reports of them ; but slow to make proper amends. The enmity of the world to Christ is the same with the enmity of the world to the priests, since they represent Christ. The cause of the enmity is the same in both cases. The priests " follow goodness," therefore the world, as represented by the Argus, speaks ill of them, or acts as tale-bearers to those who do. The charity, self-denial, and zeal of priests are a standing rebuke to Protestant preachers, and their supports in the Press — not that all priests are equally good, or Protestant preachers equally bad.

It would be difficult to tell whether the Bible or the Press have been worse abused by some Protestants. Both have been made by them subservient to the worst of ends — to the propagation of falsehood, religious error and ill-will among men. Every fanatic, heretic, infidel, and traitor appeals to the Bible to justify himself, and uses the Press to accomplish his ends. The Bible and the Press in the hands of Protestants are like steam-engines and Armstrong guns in the hands of those who know little or nothing about the way to t manage such things, or of men who with knowledge enough want principle to retrieve them from abusing them to improper purposes. Not that Protestants always and invariably abuse the Press and the Bible, but there arc no proper means to prevent them doing so. Public opinion and the civil law are but poor restraints. The former, instead of being a restraint, is too often an incentive to the abuse both of the Bible and the Press. Conscience and the authority of the Church are the only effectual means to prevent the abuse of the Bible and the Press. But the Argus and his friends in the Protestant Press repudiate the authority of God's Church, and a conscience such as theirs is a difficult thing to define or understand. The Press was the gift of God to man, evidently intended by the Giver to uphold the interests of truth and justice, and therefore to strengthen the Church. It is a pity, therefore, when it falls into the hands of such men as the Editors of the Star and Argus, •who obviously use it to defame the ministers of God's Church by publishing false tittle-tattles to the end that they and the Church may be exposed to public ridicule and odium, and so be rejected of the people. This is to prostitute the Press. But the good priest must be consoled with the word of Him -who said, Blessed are ye when men speak evil against you falsely for My sake. Some years hence, possibly when the present generation are all dead and buried, the Argus s story of Bates and the Bouquet will be revived as if they never had been refuted or explained. The thing that surprises and shocks me is the brazen impudence with which false stories against the Church, and which have been refuted hundreds of times, are trumped up and again circulated in the Press and otherwise by Protestant clergy, and others from some of whom one might expect better things. Here is a case in point. Everybody knows the Church is accused of " suppressing" that part of the Decalogue which forbids idolatry. The subject was revived some short time ago in Auckland. I took tlie liberty of sending to one of the leading Protestants, a dignitary of the Colonial Anglican Church, Dr. Maunsel, a copy of a catechism used by the Catholic children here, or some of them, in which the whole Mosaic prohibition against idolatry is given, as in the catechism of the Church of England. I also referred him to the English version of the Douay Bible, where the prohibition stands as in the Protestant scriptures. Oh ! says he, that wont do. This is only one catechism, and one swallow does not ma-ke a summer, and, moreover, he said he never spoke of the Douay Bible. Now, there is a specimen of candour and honesty ! How this gentleman can reconcile a desire to suppress or conceal the prohibition with the fact of its appearing entire in any Catholic catechism whatever, and in the Douay English Bible, open to all, is m..re than I can understand. Yet I will be bound to say, that when next he has occasion to refer to the matter, either in tlie pulpit or press, he will roundly and boldly affirm that the Romish Church suppresses the prohibition against idolatry,— utterly and grossly incorrect though the assertion be,— and which he ought to know is untrue, but won't. It is thus the Protestant Press and Pulpit are prostituted to the base purpose of defaming the Catholic Church, and misleading the people in a matter of eternal moment. If in some Catholic catechism tlie Mosaic prohibition against the worship of " false gods " be abridged, every well instructed Catholic knows it^ is not for the purpose of suppressing anything ; since the prohibition against the worship of false gods includes a prohibition against idolatry, as every Catholic catechism I have seen fully explains, I venture to say so much, though this be hardly a subject for layhandling. . I remember some time ago a Protestant correspondent asking you if it were true that the Catholic Church had really struck out the Second Commandment. You gave him a rather curt and severe answer, as much as to say — No ; confound your ignorance and impudence for asking such a question ! But the question I doubt not was put in good faith, and with no intention to affront. A Thousands on thousands of Protestants like this correspondent are ■ honestly impressed with the same idea. It comes from the parsons, and passes from mouth to mouth without examination. I wish you had asked your correspondent, and I will now do it for you with your leave, Who told him, or where did he learn, that the Catholic Church had struck out the Second Commandment of the Decalogue? The matter does require a little public examination and explanation no doubt, for the sake of honest inquiring Protestants, of whom your correspondent might have been one. There was a little work, published by a " Convert" some years ago, on Popular Delusions respecting the Catholic religion. Would it not be well to give some passages from that occasionally, for the benefit of inquiring Protestants in this age of free enquiry, or from " The Papist Represented and Misrepresented," or from Cobbet's outspoken history of the " Reformation." Laic.