THE PROGRESS OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION IN SCOTLAND, SCOTCH INTOLERANCE, A NEW ZEALAND POOR LAW, $c, $c.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 244, 4 January 1878, Page 7

THE PROGRESS OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION IN SCOTLAND, SCOTCH INTOLERANCE, A NEW ZEALAND POOR LAW, $c, $c.

(Concluded.) Thebe is one remark of the Herald in reference to Father Gordon which I think might be well worth the consideration of the readers of the Tablet of all creeds. After adverting to the rev. gentleman's " anxiety " to keep the indigent members of his own flock from becoming a burden on the public, he (-ays, were all the clergy, Catholic and Protestant, to act as Father Gordon acted in that respect, the necessity for charitable institutions of a public kind, and therefore for poor laws would cease to exist. We in this colony will most assuredly be afflicted ere long with a special compulsory assessment for the support of the destitute ; with an English '' poor law" in short and all its abuses and horrors. We have such a law here in embryo already. A " sum voted by Parliament and expended by paid officers of Government for the support of the destitute. That to all intents and purposes is an English poor law — so far. If Father Gordon could keep the destitute members of his congregation in Aberdeen from being a burden on the general public, why cannot the Catholic clergy here — why cannot the Protestant clergy here—do the same thing with the poor of their congregations ? The question is easier asked than answered. I should answer it in this way. The thing cannot be done. In a Protestant country a compulsory, assessment for the poor is a necessity ; though it be a means of opposing, insulting, and degrading, or demoralising, the destitute, and cunningly robbing the people generally. You must either have a compulsory or Government provision for the destitute here, or many of them must die of starvation. Even with such a compulsory provision some of the poor do starve in England, and in the richest part of England — London. For this calamity Englishmen are indebted to the thing called the Reformation — that killed private or voluntary charity, or it did next thing to it. We must needs therefore have Parliamentary or compulsory charity in its room. That is the plain English of the matter. The idea of Protestant clergymen becoming •• the fathers of the poor " of their congregations in the same way as Catholic priests are — or ovgM to be — is preposterous. The parsons, and kirk ministers, poor feliows, have their own wives and bairns to look after, and a hard job it must be to provide for them all, though many of them are kind, good, and charitable souls too. and would gladly drop a bawbee or two into the " aumus dish "' or poor box when they can spare the money. Let Parliament and the police see to the poor of their flocks. Practically that is their system, generally aided by benevolent societies. It would indeed be unjust to the Protestant clergy, and especially the clergy of the Church of England, to say that they are entirely indifferent to the necessities or hardships of the poor. But I for all that the English clergy have robbed the poor, and that most shamefully. The ample revenues of the Church of England belong of right to the poor. If they had their rights there would be no neeesbity for any poor rate or education tax either. What was given to the Church was given to the poor, for whom the clergy are the natural trustees. To use Church revenues otherwise is to abuse them. After the clergy are provided with the necessities or conveniences of life befitting their station, all their income should go to provide for the corporal or spiritual wants of the poor. It never was intended by those who originally endowed the Church in England with its present large revenues, that they should be spent as they are now being spent, or squandered rather, to support numerous families in luxury and splendour, while poverty and ignorance pervade the land or are only removed, or partially removed, by \mjust exactions on the people in the form of education and poor rates. The Anglican clergy in'this colony have not the wealth which their brethren of the English establishment at home possess. But if they had as much or far more is it likely that they would employ it otherwise than is done by those in England ? Would they devote any material portion of it as Catholic bishops, Avhen they lave large, revenues, are wont to do — to the building- of Churches, to the establishment of schools, colleges, orphanages, reformatories, or other institutions destined to promote religion, education, and charity ? Xo, if the Anglican clergy in this colony had the wealth of Croesus or Kothchild at their disposal, very little of it would go in that direction. It would be used generally as the Anglican clergy at home use their income— to maintain themselves, their wives, and families, in comfort and at times in luxury and splendour, or hoarded up for heirs, leaving the destitute or unfortunate to shift for themselves, or to be provided for by poor law guardians or private benevolence. Ido not say that Catholic ecclesitics never betray their trust and misuse those funds which the bounty of the pious rich has placed at their disposal. But they have not done this so shamefully, so systematically, and for so many successive generations, as tlie modern Anglican bishops and clergy have done. J hey have lobbed the English poor of their patrimony. But bad as this kind of robbery was, there was some little compensation for it, seeing that when the wealth of the Catholic Church was violently wrested from the hand of its lawful owners at home it was transferred to the hands of political bishops and parsons (or great part of it was so) who did some sort of clerical duty, such as*it was. But in Scotland the case was infinitely worse. There the entire Church funds were clutched by the godly lay "reformers," with the exception of a small dribble left for the " sustentation " of the worthy kirk ministers, and lean "dominies," or parish schoolmasters. When John Knox " asked for more "' on their behalf the greedy reforming Cormorants virtually " put their thumb to their nose and spread their fingers out," and so things yet remain. The strange thing is that the people, the poor — the parties who suffered most by such sacrilegious robberies — fawned upou the sacrilegious robbers and almost idolised them through fear or some other motive. They even defend the rascals to this day, or palliate their villany at least. The man who will insult and rob the Catholic Church will ever gain the applause of the tyrannical and wicked portion of mankind. I often recall to memory those " nuns grey " of the old churches or rather abbeys in Scotland on which I have so often looked in my youthful years. They are now, alas ! scenes, as Sir "Walter Scott calls them, both "sad

and fair "to behold. Who can look on such ruins • now without execrating the memory of that bigot and barbarian, Knox, and the sanguinary crew of traitors, rebels, and robbers, whom he led ? The .General Assembly of the kirk have told us in the passage I quoted at the commencement of this paper, that " splendid Catholic temples" are now being raised in every large town in Scotland. But they are pot so splendid as those which the piety, liberality, and taste of our jScotch Catholic ancestors caused to be raised in many a lovely or "sequestered spot throughout the land in days of yore, and which Kuox pith his bands of impious, fanatic ruffians burnt to the ground, or laid in ruins. Fain, probably, would some of the present Kirk ministers, and their deluded fanatical disciples, serve the modern "splendid temples" of Catholics as Knox served the old ones. But times are changed. They dare not try it, however inclined that way. The assembled divines and laymen of the kirk had, we see, the assurance, in their ignorance and blind fanaticism, to tell the world that the splendid Catholic temples now "raising their forms in every large town" throughout Scotland are intended for an idolatrous worship — 4 for idolatrous ceremonies." They are intended, let me remind those gentlemen^for the worship of the only living and true God— not by "idolatrous ceremonies," but by the offering of that " sacrifice and pure oblation " which the prophetic eye of Malachy saw was to be offered everywhere among the gentiles, from the rising to the setting-of-the-sun. Ido not mean to enter on controversial theology — but I would ask Protestants where, except in the Catholic Church, does the world see that altar and that pure oblation, and sacrifice which the prophet of the Lord thus speaks of ? Certainly not in the Scotch kirk at all events. A sacrifice and oblation imply an altar, not in figure but in reality. Since the change of religion in Scotland, that country has of course advanced greatly in letters, material prosperity, and refinement of manners. But there is much reason to believe that in the virtues of genuine piety, honesty, temperance, and chastity, as well as manly independence, and disinterested patriotism, our rude Catholic ancestors in •' wild and stern Calendonia " were superior to their more refined and lettered Presbyterian descendants of the present age. In the small but picturesque Abbey town in Scotland, where I was born and spent my boyish days, I have seen innocent amusements and kindly acts done to the poor at Christmas tide which were obviously remnants of Catholic usages- Even these have I presume now passed away. The money and food then given to the aged poor, not always entirely " destitute," were given voluntarily and in such a way as not to wound their feelings. The cold and often repulsive charity of a modern Government " ahnshouse " is but a sorry substitute for the voluntary warm charity of Catholic times. We know that some at least of the honest poor in England would rather starve than submit to apply for relief to the Government " guardians " so called of the poor, and some of them have actually starved to escape the insolence of poor law officials. Every now and then when the veil which usually shrouds the management of the English poor houses is unexpectedly lifted, scenes are disclosed to the public which are not at all creditable to English humanity. We shall soon see the like here, I fear. The English press now complain that gentlemen of * position and means will not act as " guardians "to the poor. They^leave that to scheming tradesmen who too often make a profit out of their guardianship. When the love of Christ grows cold in any country then is the time for the hypocritical and designing demagogue like Knox to come forward and. form a party to assail and plunder the Church. That cunning fox threw the glamour over the Scottish populace, and made the ignoble rabble play into the hands of the greedy unprincipled nobles. Happily not a few members of these very noble Scotch families are now returning to the Church, and -will no doubt by themselves and their posterity make amends to the utmost of their power for the crimes of their " forbears " against their Holy Mother. LAIC.