Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 272, 19 July 1878, Page 1

Current Topics.

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tE are happy, and, more than happy, thankful, to learn that an evil which threatened has been averted. Father Curci has retracted all that was published by him contrary to the teaching or protests of the Pope. It was not that we feared for the Church ; this never enters into the mind of any Catholic, let what will happen, but we feared that another name had been added to that sad list which contains those of Loyson, Lamennais, and of others who rebelled against authority, and in their obstinacy were lost. For, if a man's own soul be more precious to him than all the world beside, surely charity demands it of him that he should at all* times hear with deep concern that the souls of others are in danger, and rejoice to learn that the danger has been overcome. We had no fear, indeed, for anything that might happen to the Church ; even apart from the sure promises of God, it is evident that the errors of her unfortunate sons who resist her are impotent to work her the slightest ill. "We have before our eyes in saying so the example of Dbllinger, and of the pitiful Loyson ; and amongst the memories of others we have that of Lamennais. What fruits of his teaching now remain to justify Beranger's verses addressed to him 1 Paul, oft vas-tu ?— Je vais prtaher aiix homines Taix, justice et fratcmite. If there be, indeed, any fruits of his teaching, they must bo sought amongst the mass of evils that have been engendered by the doctrines and deeds of all the enemies of Christianity, that cannot injure the Church, but destroy the hopes and happiness of thousands for time and eternity. These are the peace, justice, and brotherly-love engrafted by the preaching of such " Pauls " as this ; — miserable " Pauls " who, instead of flinging off the viper that has seized hold of them, cherish it, and allow its virus to poison their hearts, and make them such as to infect all that come into contact with them. We sincerely rejoice that Father Curci has not refused to hear the voice of religion and wisdom, but that he has had the manliness to acknowledge his fault in the face of Europe. It is easy to understand how a man, even a man holding the Faith in all sincerity, may be led away into such an error as that committed by this ecclesiastic to whom we refer. A man of intellect becomes very much attached to the plans and theories invented by him ; the greater his mental powers the easier it is to him to smooth for himself all difficulties that lie in the way of that which he has devised, and the more plausibly he is able to state the matter to himself. His work gains upon him as it grows, and becomes like a part of himself, — a point which we remember to have seen well brought out by the late Anglican Bishop of Ossory, Dr. O'Biien, in a charge delivered by him to his clergy at the the publications of Dr. Colenso, respecting the Pentateuch, were •jreating such an excitement. Knowing, besides all this, the weakness of human nature, we can understand the error of Father Curci, and make due allowance for it, and we feel that we should not be acting quite fairly if we were'not also to acknowledge the worth of the effort made by him in confessing his fault, and the mistaken tenets of his work. It is not an easy thing for a man to bring himself to this : the victory of duty in such a case is signal ; the acknowledgment to be made is not that an error has been committed through thoughtlessness or any kind of neglect. It is that judgment has been at fault during a lengthened period, that study has failed to clear up doubtful points, that facts and doctrines have been misunderstood and perverted ; it is, in short, to confess that the mental powers have been put to their proof and found wanting. To confess all this publicly is not an easy task to any one ; it is a particularly difficult task to be performed by a man who has attained to anything like a high reputation for intellect and literary ability ; and it is no ordinary humility, and no half -repentance that could lead to such an acknowledgment at any time. But the merit of the act is much enhanced when we consider that in the world of intellect there were numbers of spectators watching with breathless interest the turn that matters

would take, applauding loudly that which had already been done by Father Curci, and. ready to hail as an act of heroism and consummate virtue and wisdom his final determination to resist the Pope. For the moment he seemed the brightest star in the anti-Papal firmament. It depended on himself to have remained fixed there, a guide to the enemies of religion, and with full homage paid him by them, but, fortunately, he has chosen the evanescent career of a meteor, and has settled swiftly down into the obscurity that awaits him in obedience and fidelity to the chair of Peter. It is fitting that a tribute of admiration should be paid to the humility and strength of the man who had the moral courage to choose so difficult a path : but, at the same time, we cannot doubt that he has chosen well, not only for his eternal welfare, but also for his temporal happiness and peacs of mind.

The time is apparently drawing near when that which Robespierre said of God will be repeated of the Catholic Church, and men will acknowledge that if such an institution had not existed it would have been found necessary to invent it. Everywhere the fact is becoming evident that the safety of society is bound up with the obedience rendered to the Church's teaching and that the reverence due to this cannot be interfered with without entailing the utmost mischief to the well-being of the community. Had the condemnations so frequently passed by our late beloved Holy Father on secret societiea and especially on the parent of them all, that Masonic body, where so many respectable Englishmen are proud of allowing themselves to appear conspicuously, and to form, as it were, the ornamentation by which the whole is made to have a decent appearance in the sight of reputable men ; had these condemnations been attended to, we say, the world would not now be on the verge of convulsions whose end it is impossible to foretell, but of which it may be safely predicted that they will cause dire distress and innumerable misfortunes. We need not speak of German Socialism which to-day, it is true, openly pursues its aim, but which has been hatched and fostered, and advanced to its present standing by means of such societies as we refer to ; it is more to the point for us to turn to America, where the state of things is acknowledged to be so threatening and where secret societies abound. America seems to be on the verge of revolution, and if a revolution, in fact, take place there it will bo intense and desperate, with a concentration on every horror of those energies that are now divided by so many objects. The Catholic Church is, however, in America, as elsewhere, the one power that even as it is, may to a certain extent modify the evil ; it would, were it in the ascendant, altogether avail to overcome it, but, unfortunately, that is not the case. There, also, it has been resisted, its lawful office of teaching obstructed, and its rights and privileges in eveiy conceivable way interfered with and molested ; for there also, it has borne the brunt of opposition and prejudice. But now there is a consideration which strikes us with regard to this attempted repression of the Catholic Church which is so general, and which we know to be so wicked. It is that its folly should be clear to every one who will use his perception and reasoning powers, at least in countries where the Irish Catholic element obtains to any extent, There can be no doubt whatever that in all such countries there will be found Irishmen or men of Irish parentage who, owing to some cause or other — it may be to the " subtle spell of .the Irish mind," of which we have heard tell, — perhaps without any apparent merit or particular talent, will attain to a leading position, and be found to influence large bodies of their fellow-countrymen or others. Here in New Zealand, for example we have an instance of this, acting beneficially, in the person of Mr. Sheehan who, like music, — that of the tomtom we suppose,

" hath a charm to soothe the savage breast." But, what is more to the purpose, we understand that one Denis Kearney, a man of Irish birth, an ignorant, unkempt lump of a fellow, with nothing on earth to recommend him to the fancy of the public, unless it be that same "subtle spell" we spoke of, has attained to the leadership of the dangerous classes in San Francisco. Now, no influence whatever can reach these men, except that of the Catholic Church ; if it cannot soften them it can at least thwart them, — we do not, of course, allude to Mr. Sheehan, for we don't suppose anyone connected with the Church could for an instant think of thwarting him, and as to softening him, we imagine he is soft enough. There is indeed one point on which lie appears mighty hard, but we don't

believe he cares one bit more about it than he understands in the matter, and that h very little. He just finds it convenient to act as he does to please the majority, and be on a par with the rest of the extraordinary sort of an olla we have for a Ministry. It, however, was very necessary for the safety of San Francisco that Mr. Kearney .should bo thwarted, "rind thwarted he was in the only possible way. The power of the Church opposed him. The Archbishop issued a pastoral denouncing such meetings as those held by him, and the attendance, which had been largely swelled by Catholic labourers immediately fell off ; and the threatened outbreak was averted. This is a very suggestive incident, and one on which comment is unnecessary. We recommend it to those gentlemen, who, in pursuance of their own shallow one-sided theories, are doing their utmost to demoralise the Eoman Catholics of New Zealand, and we again assure them that they arc playing a part alike base and foolish, even for themselves.

With regard to the Orange celebratiocs common to this season, wo do not think that there is need for us to dilate at any great length. Something, however, wo desire to say : so long as Protestant human nature hugs malevolence and can cheat itself with the belief that haticd of the neighbour is patriotic ardour and religious earnestness so long, we presume, will such celebrations be made. Meantime we do not sec that there is much need for Catholics to trouUe themselves on the matter. That a lot of men, excusable if ignorant inexcusable if not so, should don scarfs and ribbons of a certain colour — in itself not. by the way, at all an ugly colour though rather gaudy, and walk in procession in honour of a memory by no means honourable need affect us but voiy little. That they should insult the Majesty of Heaven by offering divine worship while under the influence of malevolence, may affect us more, for charity demands it of us to hoW such iniquity in horror ; and further we must find it grievous that their miserable commemoration is so frequently the cause of bloodshed. But for any offence to us by this commemoration otherwise we are, even by the act itself, sufficiently avenged, for whom is it these men honour ? They, indeed, debase themselves to the worship of a most despicable idol. In the page of history there is no more contemptible character wiitten than that of William of Orange ; the murdu-cv of tho dc Witts ; the midnight assassin of Glencoc ; the Daricn betrayer ; the traitor of Limerick ; a man wholly given up to selfish ambition, without fear of God or regard for man. Could we vw\h for a more finished vengeance than to sec the men who hate us and our holy religion bowing down before such a memory as this .' It is, indeed, a most -Hl ting expression for the animosity they clieiUi, and which alone animates them, for, as to King William, ninc-tentho of the Orangemen have no knowledge whatever of him. He is .simply the incarnation o£ their hostility to the Catholic Church, and most worthily is it incarnate. But in this present year particularly we liavo seen a worship like that to which we allude more widely paid than usual. We ha^e teen the anti-Catholic sentiment as represented by one man olhciwisc most fitly honoured, and our fejlinirs on the matter have been exactly what we have now stated them to be re-pceting the celebrations of the Orange anniversary. The woild of atheism lias this year celebrated its anniversary and honoured its principles incarnate in. Voltaire. And Voltaire we find r.s just a repiesentative of atheism as was King William 111. of Protestantism. There never lived a meaner man. There was nothing too base for him to stoop to. He was the sycophant of Madame de Pompadour, and the would be lick-spittle of the vile Louis XV.; ho whim pei ed because his greatest works had not attracted the attention of the king :—: — '• iron Henri Qnatrc et ma Zaire, Et mo'i Ani'Jricain Alzire, 3N T c iii'ont j.iimiis vulu un scul regard ilu roi." In business matters he was a cheat, and when detected he did not scruple to defend himself by a lie. — Carlylc makes this plaiu in that passage of his " Frederick II.," which relates to the transactions with IKi'sch. The patriot Berangcr disliked him for his unjust preference for foreigners, and almoot hated him for his outrage on Jeanne d' Arc ; rind, finally, Victor Hugo calls him the ape of genius, and says he was sent by the devil on a mission to mankind — "Voltaire nlors rcgnnit, cc singe tie crenie C'lic/ l'Uuinmc en mission par lc tlipble envoyo." These two, then, King William 111. and Voltaire, are the representative men of anti-Catholic principles,— the one of Protestantism, the other of atheism. What greater praise of the Catholic Church can be made cvHcnt ?

The Boston Secondary Schools avc tlic schools that our sapient Attorney- General takes for his model in plauning a system of education for New Zealand. He seems to consider them the very perfection of schools, and, as a natural consequence, looks upon their pupils as the very perfection of scholars People in Boston itself, however, appear to he of quite a contrary opinion ; iheie they evidently contidcv that Ihcbc bcLulaib aic capable vi' va^t improvement : and, i'roin

certain paragraphs which we have lately perused, it strikes us that more objectionable scholars it would be hard to find in the whole wide world. The Boston Herald, which is a newspaper of high reputation in the States, gives us a most deplorable picture of the boys of its city — we may for the time omit to mention the " soiled doves" of Professor Agassiz, but we will bear them in mind, and we hope our readers will do so likewise. The boys are our theme at present, and. a most unpleasant one we find them. There is a superstition prevalent in some parts of Ireland, which holds that children are occasionally taken away by the fairies ; the child is taken, and some wizened old creature is left in its place. This appears to us to fairly illustrate that which has happened in Boston, the pure, fresh minds of the boys have been taken away from them, and their places has been supplied by minds vitiated by the knowledge of all that it is unfit for them to know, and by a precocious sharpness, and tastes for dangerous and degrading excitements. Twenty or thirty years ago the Herald says matters were different ; the boys were then boys, the malevolent fairy had not as yet laid hold of them. They were taught obedience to their parents, and went to church on Sunday to listen to " earnest moral doctrines, enforced by all the majesty and solemnity of a tangible theology." But now all things are changed ; the boy proper has disappeared, and in his place has appeared a " man-boy." The malevolent fairy has done his work, the comely infant is gone, and in its place is found a spiteful gaffer, wrapped in swaddling clothes. But what has played the part of this malevolent fairy ; what is it that has corrupted the minds of the boys, imposing upon their weakness desires, and tastes, that must of necessity vitiate still more ? It can only be a false system of education, and this the Herald recognises, though it does not point directly, a* it might, to the secular system as the true source of all the evil. It says :—"ln: — "In the first place, our nation has advanced in that line of mutation which we call civilization. We have become, in a sense, refined. Our tastes have been developed. Our capacity for mental enjoyment has undoubtedly increased, and this, of course, includes a taste for the production of the fine arts, of literature, and of romance. In the next place, our facilities for gratifying our tastes have, if anything, surpassed our wants. The printing press, that strikes down abuses with the hammer of a Thor ; that changes dynasties, and that can spread a gospel of peace to the world, can also undermine morality, and sap the very foundations of society. It is, perhaps, the most powerful instrument for evil or for good that is in the hands of man. Th is press, which is omnivorous, serves up daily such a variety of mental food for the people of the age that it would seem as if they could not spare the time from learning a ittle of everything to become pre f >uud in any one thing. Hence, with all our civilization, the tendency seems to be towards superficiality in those growing up, and precocity in our youth." The " boyman," however, wretched a being as he is, for everything abnormal must be wretched, is not yet fully developed ; all his unnatural growth has not as yet been arrived at. But matters are progressing rapidly ; he, with his depraved appetites, must have highly-spiced and unwholesome food, food, nevertheless, capable of conducing to the peculiar growth in which he is destined to progress. And he seeks and finds it in the abundance of vicious literature provided for him by unscrupulous writers and publishers. "It is bad enough, in our estimation," says the Herald, "to have the boy-boy of our youth changed into the man-boy of to-day ; but, when the precocious manboy takes on the morbid passions and propensities of the vicious and the outcast of society, it is high time to institute an inquiry into the cause. The case of Jesse Pomeroy was only an exaggerated one of the many thousands that are occurring from day to day. He, no doubt, inherited a vicious nature, the tendencies of which were never counteracted by a good moral training ; but he would hardly ever have developed its thorough devilishness had he not clothed his propensities in the garb of romance and fancied himself a sort of hero. * In slashing and torturing his victims, he was some ludian chief who had captured an enemy in battle, and was wreaking vengeance upon him in his savage fashion, and, in killing, he was but adding a natural climax, taught him in the pernicious tales of frontier life, written by men who were never at the frontier, and who served up such literary hash for precisely the same reason that the ' dime novel ' publisher issued it, viz. : for money." But how is the evil to be amended 1 They have their boys as they have made them, no longer frank, healthy school-boys ; but an unwholesome tribe, the prey of all sorts of feverish and unnatural wants. The case seems a hopeless one, it is vain to talk of keeping dangerous literature from such boys as these ; hey will have it, or they will supply its place with something as deleterious ; health cannot be restored to the depraved appetite by merely cutting off the supply of unwholesome food. The " man-boys" are an iinnatural growth, and they cannot and will not exist in a healthy atmosphere. This is what secularism has done for Boston, but, nevertheless, the school system of Boston is that which is considered most desirable for New Zealand.

It is evident that a system like Socialism, which has arisen in

the first instance from the theories of clever men, must have a good man}' plausible reasons to advance in its favour. The co-operative system, which is supposed to form its basis, and which we have no doubl. does in fact form its basis and recommendation to many of the more respectable advocates of the cause, seems in itself far from irrational. If all were agreed on giving it a trial, and it |were capable of being carried out, it would seem that society, though it's form would be revolutionised, might still have nothing to fear from the matter. But the shape which the question takes in the minds of educated and moderate men has very little to say to the true state of the affair. In the eyes of the proletarians generally it means neither more nor less than the destruction of the wealthy classes and the distribution of their property amongst themselves, and, if the cause is to triumph, it's triumph rests with the poletarians. They will be the victorious army who gain the day, and, in the hour of their victory, Aye imagine, there will be but little question amongst them of obedience to moderate counsels, or the inauguration of such steps as might lead to the foundation of the predicted Utopia. But, even were the co-operative societies formed, what hope could there be of their continuing to work any time satisfactorily 1 Are not greed and ambition powerful motives with mankind sufficient to overturn the most promising prospects of humanity ? Would there not be weaknesses and vices, of which cunning and cupidity would take advantage, so that in a short time all the fair arrangement would be disturbed, and society openly at war with itself and completely disorganised 1 If the experiment could possibly be tried, the latter state of the world would undoubtedly be worse than the former, before many years had passed away. Theories are one thing, practice is another, and it often happens that those folk who are most enthusiastic in upholding the one are the slowest in giving an example of the other. We see this every day, and although as yet we have had no experience of a fair trial of Socialism, we have seen its kindred principle, its creed we may say, sufficiently acted upon to enable us to judge by analogy how it would turn out on trial. We have had ample opportunity of judging of the consistency of those men who profess as their religion the Socialistic cant of the " Brotherhood of Man ; '' but who invariably seem themselves most anxious to occupy the position of eldest brother and "boss around" in authority over all the rest, and, in their secular character as members of a society framed on Socialistic principles, we have no doubt in the world they would prove equally ambitious. It is wonderful how now-a-days extremes go hand in hand ; we see it in religion, and we see it in politics. Pantheism, which professes to differ most widely from idolatry, is identical with fcticism, and democracy and tyranny are not to be disguished from each other. Socialism then, which professes to be the panacea for all the ills of society, is not isolated in being the very opposite of that which it pretends to bs.

A>'D so Ministers of the Crown are but ordinary men after all. This is as astonishing and unexpected a fact to us as it was to Dick Whittington, in his early youth, to find the streets of London not paved with gold. There are things, however, to understand which "it requires," as Hannibal Chollop says, " An elevation and A preparation of tLe intellect ; " and we confess that this is one of them. Some one or another, Lacordaire indeed if we recollect aright, has defined genius to be a power of taking a clear view of ideas, and conveying it accurately to the minds of others. It is fortunate for us that we find such a quality possessed even by one individual in the community and still more fortunate is it for us that it is employed most gener. ously for the benefit of all. Thus then it happens that we have attained to a clear idea of a Ministry, and we find it just like any ordinary association of men, able to agree as to broad principles, but prepared to squabble and tussle in private with one another on all sorts of details. We can fancy, for example, that our present Cabinet has many a secret struggle. In short, already, while, in our ignorance and before our intellect had been prepared and elevated by learning the truth, we had been under the impression that Cabinets were, so to speak, composed of a series of mental Siamese twins, all closely locked together, and capable only of simultaneous movements, we found it difficult not to imagine that there must be some little differences of opinion amongst men of such different principles and ex. periences ; and now it is a relief to us to find that we may indulge such a belief without any qualms of conscience. Oh dear, no ! it would of course be quite unreasonable to expect them to be unanimous on all points. There is, for instance, that question of the ladies voting. This we should say ought to occasion quite a contention, for surely there jifmust be some members of the Cabinet sufficiently chivalrous to object to the consideration shown exclusively to the heiress class ; besides, it is quite Hibernian and that must be an additional reason against it. It's a blind regard for property as preferred to womanly charms aud qualities that has not been evinced since the days of Miss Kilmansegge, and then it was only excused on the plea that the animal evincing it was Irish

" a hunter from Erin's turf and gorse, A regular thoroughbred Irish horseWhy I he ran away, as a matter of course, With a girl worth her weight in guineas." Surely it must have been Mr. Shcehan, mindful of his descent, who proposed this invidious restriction. But, on the other hand, it would be quite unlike the canny and accommodating nature of Mr. Macandrew, not to propose an amendment on it. He, we should expect, tried hard to have the franchise extended at least to those tocherless members of the fair sex whom no one could truthfully address with the line,

" Where are you going, my pretty maid ? " For we are told that such there are, though we don't say we have ever met with any of them. It would be quite in Mr. Macandrew's line to try and make it up to them by granting them the franchise ; he has such a genial nature, and it was so nice of him to propose that that proselytism of Catholic children should be essayed by means of the Douay Bible, that we look to him for all that is thoughtful and kind. However, members of the Ministry don't spontaneously and instantaneously become like-minded ; they retain to some extent their self-opinionativeness, and, in fact, as we are told by one of themselves, " Our opinions in a great deal depend on our past reading, our education, bringing up, and associations." There is then only one thing remaining that we want to know. It is what may be the Ministerial opinions prepared by a career that has passed, by what certainly seems an easy transition, from the company of those " qnos JDens odit " to the membership of the " devil's own."

We don't know whether we are standing on our head or our heels. All our ideas have, in short, been jostled together, and in consequence extreme confusion has been produced in our mind. We were always under the impression that America was the freest of all imaginable countries ; we have been informed that her educational system was the glory of the country ; and, as to her laws, they were understood to be perfection ; but now, in a moment, the persuasions and information of years have been robbed from us. The Americans must labour under a delusion ; they are not free. Our Secularists have made a mistake in taking their educational system as a model ; it is a failure. And Congress has been bungling all the time ; it's laws are not good. We must come to this conclusion because the Hon. Eobert Stout informs us that " freedorc, equality of laws, and education" are the antidote to Socialism ; and Socialism is spreading rapidly through the States. As to the churches and the army which go hand in hand, they, of course, are utterly contemptible ; they have never done anything worth mentioning. The Church does not educate ; she only anathematises. This is the lesson that history teaches. Curses saved the civilized world, subdued the northern barbarians, cleared the forests, banished the wild beasts, f ounded cities and universities, and, in a word, performed everything that foolish people might suppose capable of performance only by wisdom, enlightened labour, Christian education, and the blessing of God. This is the novel doctrine which subverts all our ideas, but which we must necessarily receive without question, since it comes to us on so high an authority. But how shall we account for America, where, undoubtedly, it has been asserted that there have been for many years " freedom, equality of laws and education," but where, nevertheless, Socialism is spreading ? In our own stupid way, we account for it on the supposition that freedom and equality of laws admitted of selfish and avaricious men quite legally attaining to positions in which it was possible for them to oppress the working classes, without interfering with their freedom ; and that, not having been educated by the Church, they were not withheld by any scruples from making the worst uses of the means placed in their power. That the working-classes, moreover, not being under the influence of Christianity either, think only of obtaining redress by violence, and are not content even to obtain bare redress, but desire to see themselves placed in the position now occupied by their oppressors. For this, we have no doubt, is the true spirit of Socialism. It's theories may be contained in the scientific writings of Lassalle ; it's practice is betrayed in the dastardly deeds of the would-be assassins of the Emperor William.

Theee is a gentleman down south who wants to fight five men. He has challenged them through the newspaper of his locality, and seems to be a most high spirited person. We, however, refrain from naming him or his town. We shudder at the bare idea of treading on his corns.

At a dinner given in the North Island the following toast was proposed — " The Ladies — the only true aristocracy in the world, who rule without laws, decide without appeal, judge without jury, and are never in the wrong." These are the beings that must be backed up by property before they are fit to vote for a bit of a member of Parliament ! Our Ministers ought to feel heartily ashamed of themselves, that'a all.