Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 310, 28 March 1879, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD.

fE learn from the London Times that a Catholic of high position in Germany has published a pamphlet criticising the recent utterances of Count Von Arnim together with the policy pursued by the German Chancellor. According to the Times this writer says : "As to Prince Bismarck, the conflict with the Church was due to the Chancellor having mistaken the character of Ihe opposition which German Bishops made to the dogma of Infallibility before it was formally proclaimed. Tt had been taken for an opposition to the spirit of the dogma, whereas it was solely directed against its inopportuneness. This mistake had led to the assumption that the German Bishops would be ready to lend themselves to the formation of a Free Catholic Church independent of Borne in all essential respects." We ueed hardly wonder, then, since the astute Chancellor even was led away concerning this matter that it has proved a stumbling-Mock to so great a multitude of understandings of inferior, and all but infinitely inferior degrees of power. In truth, there does not ever seem to have been a question more misunderstood, ' or relating to which more frequent misrepresentations have been made. Ihere were, in fact, few men of eminence belonging to the Church of whom it was not affirmed either that they were resolved never to accept the infallibility dogma, or that, had they lived, they never would have accepted it. Of the former, a striking instance was Dr. Newman, although even a superficial acquaintanceship with his writings must have shown the most careless reader that years before ever the Council of the Vatican had been spoken of he had clearly maintained the infallibility of the Pope ; and of the latter Montalembert was an example, a shabby attempt having been- 'made by Dr. Dollinger to prove that, had he survived, he would have cast in his lot with the " old Catholics." Mrs. Olliphant, however, in her life of this great and admirable champion of; Catholicism' had been before hand vcith the unfortunate Munich Professor, and had borne testimony that in the presence of an unerring witness the following had taken place. A visitor asked Montalembcrt, already approaching the end of his last ill Dess :<" If the infallibility is proclaimed, what will 3oudo ? 'I will struggle against it as long as I can,' he said ; but when the question was repeated, the sufferer raised himself quickly m his chair, with something of his old animation, and turned to his questioner. < What should IdoV he said, 'We arc always told that the lope is a father. Eh b ten /—there arc many fathers who demand our adherence to things very far from our inclination and contrary to our ideas. In such a case the son straggles while he can —he tries hard to persuade his father— discusses and talks the matter over with him ; but when all is done, when he sees no possibility of fijpeecding, but receives a distinct refusal, he submits. ' I shall do V ■? •' ' You will submit as far as form goes/ said the visitor. ■*0u Wl u su b m it externally. But how will you reconcile that submission xnih your ideas and convictions V Still more distinctly and clearly he replied, ' I will make no attempt to reconcile them. I will simply submit my will as has to be done in respect to all the other questions of the faith. lam not a theologian : it is not my part to decide on such matters. And God does not ask me to understand. He asks me to submit my will and intelligence, and 1 will do so.' '' To-day we no longer find such false statements made respecting individuals, but what stupid and childish allusions do we not hear on every side made to the dogma itself. Every one who spouts upon the anti-Catholic stump is accountable for some laughable mistake and evidence of gross ignorance regarding it. We frequently even hear such questions asked as are as pertinent as if it should be deniamkd . The Pope hit his toe against a clod to-day in the Vatican garden ; what now becomes of your infallibility I His Holiness drank his tea this morning without detecting that the sugar had been left out ; do you still call him infallible ? Such are the sapient utterances that frequently meet our ears from the anti-Catholic platform, ami ihey affect us according to their merit.

The secular system has been causing some discussion in Prussia where in the Lower House of the Diet there have been made some revelations that have thrown an additional light upon its working. It appears that under the protecting aegis of this redoubtable system some very questionable teachers have been introduced into the schools: indeed one of them may be said to have been much more than questionable for the demoralisation that was by means of him worked amongst his pupils, more especially those who were females, was made a subject of special remonstrance by the Catholic deputies. The Protestants further found it a grievance that Darwinism had been prominently brought by certaiu teachers before their pupils, Dr. Mttller, of Lippstadt, having begun a lecture with the announcement : "In the beginning was carbon !" This statement Dr. Falk attempted to deny, but it was shown that the words complained of were actually contained in one of the scbool books, and he was obliged to admit that it was so.

A Roumanian gentleinau has wiitten to the Times contradicting the statement that the Jews are subjected to barbarous usage in Roumania. He says they have never been either tortured or plundered there, bu*, live as happily as they do in any other country, in proof of which they increase daily in numbers and wealth, and not one of them ever leaves for the purpose of settling elsewhere. Not only this but they constantly pour into Roumania from other countries, and on arriving there enjoy a better condition of life than do the Roumanians themselves. At present they possess all the capital of the country, and the toil of the natives goes to swell the wealth of the Jewish speculators. There are two classes of Jews to be found there ; the Spanish Jews, from the east, an admirable people, much esteemed by the Roumanians ; and the Polish Jews, who arc the very reverse. These have come, and still keep coming from Austria and Russia, and are the model of all that is low and contemptible. They are far the more numerous, their number amounting to 400,000, or nearly ten per cent of the population of the country. It was to them that was due the evil reputation borne by the Jews during the middle ages. These people have no political rights in Ronmania, and are not permitted to possess landed property there. From the earliest times the Jews were free in Wallachia and Moldavia ; they carried out the ordinances of their creed as they desired, and if they did not purchase land it was because they could lay out their money to better advantage ; they could in fact so invest it as to obtain eighteen and twenty per cent., whereas the purchase of land would not produce five per cent. They did not, it is true, possess political rights, but no more did the Christian population, with the exception of a few privileged members of the higher classes. About 1835, when the Jews were subjected to the conscription in Russia they emigrated largely to Moldavia, and there by means of their successful practice of usury bought up every produce. " After having drugged the Moldavian peasant with adulterated spirits, and that chiefly on credit, for which they demanded all his next year's produce, they also contrived by this means to be the creditors of the labouring population, so that the labourer was obliged to sell only to his Jewish creditor. Thus it is that the Jew in Moldavia became the only purchaser in the country and the only seller in the towns. Then only was it that the Government in Moldavia began to take certain measures against the Jews." If it appear strange that a class of men differing not so much in race or nationality as^religion, should be deprived of the lights of citizens, let it be remembered that even in England it is only in the latter half of this century that the Jews have been admitted on a footing of complete equality. What would any liberal Englishman say if the population of England were to be altered so as to contain fifteen per cent of Jews, what would he say if one-fenth of the population neither spoke English nor felt like Englishmen ; if they frequently displayed a spirit hostile to England, and if they increased annually by three or four hundred thousand, the English population remaining stationary ? " Lastly, what would he say if this alien race showed tendencies of tethering the object of invaders whenever a conflict of national character occurs, and this race were always striving to plunge his country into political and social difficulties in order to be able to take some advantage from them and call in the intervention of foreigners ; if they constantly made use of foreign protection and foreign passports to further their ends of extortion and lucre 1 I ask, what would au English statesman who loved his country say to all this ?" The iaurcase of the Jews in liouinania is clearly risible ; streets once

peopled by Roumanians now are Jewish quarters ; Jewish children insult the Christians as they pass, and on a Saturday business in a Moldavian town stands still. If such were the case in England, Englishmen would hardly be ready to confer political freedom and civil rights on the Jews. This description, however, does not apply to all the Jews, all that is meant is that it is applicable to the greatmajority from Russia and Austria. « The Jews that come from the East-namely, the Spanish Jews-are totally distinct and different from the Polish Jews established in Eoumania. Among them are to be found bankers, honourable tradespeople and merchants, clever doctors, lawyers, and professors. To such, provided, of course, they arc not foreign subjects or under foreign protection, there is not a single sensible Roumanian who would deny civil and political rights. . . . But to oblige the Roumanians to accept at once all the Jews in the country as their equals would be an injustice unparalleled in the annals of nations, and one fraught with much danger for the future of this country.' 1

We clip the following from a contemporary:,-" In a village situated in one of the Italian provinces, tbc village priest lately g^ot up a revival, probably in imitation of similar efforts on the part of 1 rotcstant clergymen. His descriptions of the place of torment were so fearfully and vividly pourtrayed, that a number of hi.s hearers including several innocent young girls, have gone mad. believing themselves possessed of devils. They are described as being under the delusion that they are wild animals, whose noises they imitate to an alarming extent aud with great success." This fa an undoubted fact ; it has been reported here by one of these " innocent young girls" who is under the delusion that she is an ass. The infection has been caught from her by several of our editors, and they arc brayino- most portentously. One of them is accountable for the paragraph wo quote : who then can question its perfect accuracy 1

We learn from a paragraph in a contemporary that an actor in the horrible mkoic of the execution at Cairo iv 1800 of Soulcyman who murdered ti encral Klcbcr has lately died at the Invalides. Visitors to the museum of the Jardin des Planks may remember to have seen there the skeleton of this poor wretch, who had been so horribly put to death. It was there exhibited, duly placarded, and, we hope," regarded by most of those who saw it as a disgrace to the great people who seemed thus callous to their shame : it might have been thought they would one and all have been anxious to erase, if possible, from the page of French history the records of so diabolical a deed, rather than to hold them up in so revolting a form to the eye of every passing stranger. AUisou thus describes fclie murder and the execution that followed it : " This fanatic was stimulated to the atrocious act by religious conviction, aud the prospect of obtaining a sum of money to liberate bis father, who was in confinement. He remained a month at Cairo watching his opportunity, aud at length concealed himself in. a cistern in the garden of the palace which the eeneral occupied, and darting out upon him as he walked with an architect, stabbed him to the heart. The assassin was brought before a military commission, and ordered to be impaled alive, a shocking punishment, disgraceful to the French generals, and in no degree justified by the atrocity of his crime, or the customs of the country where it was perpetrated. Even murder is no excuse for torture : ami il. is the duty o* civilibc.l nations to give an example of justice to barbarous, not to imitate their savage customs. The frightful punishment was endured wi h unshrinking fortitude for thico days together, the criminal evincing alike in his examinations and his last moments a mixture of fanatical spirit and filial piety, which would bs deemed incredible if it hnd not occurred in real life."' Tbe historian has omitted to add t asit the right hand of the murderer had been burned off before his impalement. The old soldier who has just died at the Invalides is said to have stood sentinel when the wretch was undergoing liis torture, and to have mercifully given bim a glass of water, on drinking which he immediately died.

A clergyman in Giabornc has tried tbc experiment of liow far he should succeed in persuading the school children of his town to become voluntary students of religion. This gentleman, whom we must accredit with zeal and energy at least, if we at the same time believe him too confident in his powers of attraction over the juvenile mind, set his church doors open five mornings in the week from eight lo nine o'clock, and stood in readiness to instruct all who should present themselves for instruction. For a time great results promised ; there was a full attendance, and the difficulties of the secular system seemed obviated. The Tnothcr parsons of this estimable man must, by-the-bye, have quaked in their shoos meantime lest his success should force them on following his example. But relief came to the parsons betimes, the novelty wore oft', and the children no longer put in an appearance ; the experiment, in a word, failed miserably. This is a very fair sample of how religion will prosper under the secular system ; it is absurd to suppose that anything can replace regular teaching of it in the schools. Children will not, tinder any i ircu instances, continue steady at voluntary learning, nor can the parents of one child out oi' every hundred be expected to cxcrcisac tbc

watchfulness and pains required to keep their families constant to extra studies. The idea is chimerical in the extreme. - Theee is a paper published in Christchurch of which we hare never hitherto taken any notice in our columns. It is tin Mm Zealand Sun, and is published in the interest of the licensed victuallers. The style of its writing seems to be a feeble attempt at imitating the smart writers of the American Presg, but, like all such failures, it is insipid and tiresome in the extreme. We have forsome time noticed that this journal coarsely and scandalously attacks those whom it identifies with the cause of religion, regardless of sect or denominatiou, and it makes it evident -that, in the opinion of its editor at least, the calling of the licensed victualler is totally opposed to the existence of any religion whatever in the country. Now, we arc under the impression that nothing more injurious to the reputation of the calling in question can be maintained. It is a reputable*! calling just in proportion as it is seen to be consistent with morality and especially with temperance. It is supposed to be placed in the hands of people for whose respectability of character the law vouches, m order that it may be prevented from becoming disreputable, which it might easily become in the hands of indifferent people. We arc aware that there arc very many people of high principle connected with it, and to them we propose the consideration of how far it may conduce to the respectability of their trade to hare it published throughout the length and breadth of the colony that they support an especial organ, one of whose chief duties, it appears to be, to denounce religion with its attendant sobriety and order.

The j\ orth American Review for last month contains an interesting and instructive article on the present slate of Russia written by a " Russian Nihilist." It runs to the following effect :— There is no doubt that Russia is at present in .a deplorable state. The exclamation of the Moscow Gazette after the war '-Russia has become an empire of tbc discontented ! " has been echoed everywhere throughout the country. The St. Pctcrtburg Xem in a recent issue says!— " The moral standard of our society seems to have sunk so low' that we have utterly lost tbe faculty of distinguishing right from wrong, honour from baseness, patriotism from egotism. In almost every representative of our official spheres we are led to suspect a rascal and a thief. We distrust each other, we believe no more in ourselves, all honest principles seem to have become an empty phrase ; and a cold scepticism in all things not pertaining directly to our personal interest seems to have taken hold of the whole nation.' 1 The Kovoije Vremja, the leading paper of St. Petersburg, says :— " What a time we are living in ! Every day brings new disclosures, on all sides we are surrounded with rascals who have long ago lost all sense of their moral debasement. In this pestiferous atmosphere honest hearts lose their energy, gradually sink lower and lower, or are crushed in fruitier attempts to shake oil the curse lying upon us." This is tbc picture drawn by the Russian Press, notwithstanding its bein-j muzzled by a stiict censorship, a d lo this picture we may add financial exhaustion and the impoverishment of the labouring classes by taxation. Thus we gain a fair idea of the crisis through which Rusbia is now pas-sing. Still we are not to suppose that tbe nation is about to bo utterly decomposed. It is the CznnJoia alo: iC which is rotting off. It has been the ca-.se of all the ills llu.^ia has suffered for centuries, and is still suffering from. With its overthrow tbc nation will be able to clevolope all its latent energies. The power of the Russian Czars has no precedent in history ; it has always exercised a fatal influence mi public life, as well as on the character of the Czars themselves-. Their slavish obedience, and belief that the personal will of one man was the guiding principle of their existence &unk the people into political aud intellectual apathy. The Government took in their imagination the form of a law of Nature. But their powers also became a curse to the Czars themselves. Ifc weighed upon them, and they sought to alleviate it by giving it a divine character. Their acts were the will of God ; themselves His instruments, andßljrflvho oppobed them insolent atheists, for whom uo punishment" waf 1 - too severe. Nicholas I. was the prototype of this •• Csesarian " mania. In order to understand the situation in Russia, we must consider the characteristics of this extraordinary man. He was an autocrat "by the grace of God."' He exercised his power as a holy duty imposed by Providence, and crushed his enemies as a work of heavenly justice. The holiness of his position as a defender of autocracy became to him a mania, for which he would have sacrificed his life, as he did those of others. He had received but a miserable education, and having been accustomed to deal only with courtiers and soldiers, he considered a soldier tbe ideal of a citizen, obedience the only civic virtue, and a barrack the model of political organization. Tbc holy power of tbe Czar reigned paramount in public matters, and criticism, discussion, and even thorough knowledge of such matters by a private citizen was considered criminal. This horrible system was carried out with a merciless logic and set purpose that only a great mind is capable of. In the public schools learning by hcait was the chief occupation, and all sciences were arranged so as uol to give occasion lur liberal theories or religious scepticism, TvT v - J

press was muzzled beyond description ; the discussion of public affairs was forbidden, and publications were frequently suppressed, not for criticising the Government, but for not praising it sufficiently. The whole life of Nicholas was devoted to training the people into a nation of crippled idiots and knaves. When the Crimean war revealed to him the abyss into which he had cast his people, it killed him. On his death-bed he confided to his son the secret of his broken life, and made him swear to adopt liberal measures, before all the liberation of the serfs. There is a striking contrast between the character of Nicholas ami that of Alexander. The former displayed the effects of absolute power on an energetic mind, the latter illustrates its effects on a weak mind. Alexander was educated better than his father had been, but his education produced in his mind the purposeless sentimentality of a certain school to which his tutor belonged. This, with the natural weakness of his intellect, exercised a pernicious influence on the development of his faculties. His character may be denned in one sentence : " He has not will enough to be good, and he has not good enough to have a will. Aware of his heavy responsibilities, he hovers between two opinions ; ponders whole yearsjover one decision, and when he carries it out it has " but the name of action." Such a character is open to all influences, mistakes obstinacy for strength of will, and is unable in governing to distinguish truth from falsehood, or good from evil. The present reign has had as many phases as the Czar has had favourites. The first five years awakened the hopes of the Russian people : the emancipation of the serfs was begun, the press was granted a measure of freedom of speech, the system of instruction was reformed, as was likewise every branch of government. A new life seemed about to spring up, and everything seemed possible and attainable. Meantime there were sceptics who could perceive little more than a childish play with liberty on the part of a society, which hardly understood what the word meant; and the event proved that the sceptics weie right. It soon became evident that a misunderstanding had prevailed. The Czar had built up the ideal of an autocratic millenium in all its slightest particulars, and it was shattered to pieces when it was discovered that the people were impudent enough to desire liberty, not paternal benevolence The effect of this was to sow in the mind of the Czar the seeds of the morbid melancholy, now his mental malady, and to increase amongst the people the revolutionary movement. Conspiracies became of daily occurrence, and at length the catastrophe was reached, on April IG, ISGG, when a fauatic who was almost a child fired at the Emperor. Then came the turning point of the Emperor's policj', and there began the career of a man justly named Russia's evil genius, Count Peter Shouvaloff, now ambassador at London. He was immediately intrusted with the extirpation of the revolutionary party as ' Chief of the Third Section of his Majesty's Private Chancery.' This is a terrible and profoundly demoralizing institution : it is the full expression of the Czar's supreme power, and instrument of his personal will, and there is scarcely any sphere of public or private life exempted from its irresponsible control. Shouvaloff, by means of it, became actual master of Russia, and understanding thoroughly the character of the Czar, kept him in a perpetual state of excitement by exaggerated reports of conspiracies, and the belief that all the country was covered by a blood thirsty revolutionary organization. Extreme repressive measures were the result, exercised against every spark of independent spirit in Russian society. Still in petty details of tact and urbanity Shouvaloff was unrivalled, and so conciliated to his policy all representatives of superficial liberalism for whom public life and liberty were a play and fashion. Tbe public mind at the same time he diverted from political interests by immoral spectacles. Debauchery was pahonued, the haunts of vice protected by the police, while every functioir of public thought and opinion was subjected to the tyrannical control of the authorities. The effects of this were terrific, a generation of knaves sprang up, invading all branches of the Government service. With hypocritical phrases these children of the '• liberal" Czardom inaugurated an epoch of corruption and demoralisation, bciug led on by the members of the imperial family. \The brothers aud relatives of" the Czar were foremost in robbing die people, and proved true to the ignorance in which they had been reared, and the vicious associates amongst whom their lives were spent. The Russian princes pass their lives in idleness, and worthless and vicious pursuits ; and it has been proved beyond all controversy that, in the late war, the Grand Duke Nicholas robbed the miserable, hungry, soldiers of seven million rubles. The investigation which led to this being proved was terminated suddenly on its discovery, and the general conducting it received a high office in reward for his silence. The diffeient departments of civil service, with the exception of the law courts, present an aspect as displeasing as that presented by the imperial family, and the abyss of corruption disclosed in the war department during the last war is notorious. Again, the younger generation of Russian aristocrats presents a pitiful sight ; they are characterised by a coldblooded materialism, are superficially educated, and look upon honour, principle, and political convictions as " humbugs '' unworthy of the nineteenth century. All moral feeling has died out amongst them, and the worst slander and the highest praise have no significance in hi leading circles of Russian society. Around this rotten, glittering

aristocracy swarm, speculators, swindlers, money-lenders, and business men of every description, who carry corruption and decay into the middle classes of society. But as for the people : " There, all around, as Nekrassoff, th c great poet of the woes and vices of modern Russia sings — there, ' in the depth of Russia, eternal stillness reigns ! ' — ' Eternal stillness ' over the fields on which, bending over his plough, tbe peasant toils from dawn to night-fall ; ' eternal stillness ' in those dark, dreary, dilapidated villages with their black, smoky huts, looking more like kennels than human abodes ; ' eternal stillness ' in the soul of that great heroic uatiou, which with its hands' unrequited toil, with its heart's blood, has made Russia what it now is, reaping for its reward but misery, ignorance, injustice of every kind ; ' eternal stillness ' in the heart of that nation which still lies prostrate before its Czars, before the real and only origin of all its misery ! "