Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 322, 20 June 1879, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD

T is believed that the visit of the Empress of Austria to j Ireland will give a fresh impetus to the life of the hunting-field in the country 3n question. Already, indeed, the sport to -which we allude hate many votaries there, : it may be said that the whole nation is more or less devoted to it, for in every county where it is maintained i*; is highly popular, and all, according to their means, take part in it, whether as spectators on foot or in vehicles, or on horseback following the hounds. A bold rider is always a local celebrity, and the fame of bis prowess goes far to cover many of his faults, if he have such. The day on which the hounds meet in any particular neignbourhood is a gala day there ; and the sight of the red coata and cry of the dogs serve to enliven the district, and to leave there cheery memories that rouse people from the dumps which in lonely country places are a danger that continually threatens. It is good for every man to b% brightened up now and then, and if hearty laughter form a most healthy bodily exercise and mental relief, the atmosphere •'that savours of ifc tends also to health and soundness of mind. There are, however, other aspects as well from which it is desirable that the expectations now raised by the example get by the Empress may be realised. That Ireland shall be visited by wealthy and influential people from other countries, especially from England, so that the true disposition of her inhabitants may become known by personal observation, and not by interested or prejudiced report, is most desirable. Most desirable is it also that she should be made attractive to the classes whose habits of absenteeism have so largely contributed to harm her, and that they should be prevailed upon to spend there the time they now devote to residence elsewhere, and thus come to identify their affections and interests with the country in which their estates are situated ; a desideratum that might be inclined towards its accomplishment were the aristocratic ban removed. But there is still a wider sense iv which it is hoped that the example of the Empress of Austria will become useful; it is hoped that it may avail to cause wholesome exercises to be sought after by the ladies of the beau monde. That it may introduce amongst them a love [oi the fresh air of heaven, and a desire of moving about beneath its open breath that will be found irreconcilable with late hours and artificial enjoyments ; such would indeed be a result much to be rejoiced in, more especially at the present day when .high life so tends to vice, and all that is natural and healthy bids fair to be shut out of its haunts. It was a happy thought that introduced into New Zealand the hunt ; true it is in a somewhat weakened shape, there is not the heartiness about it that is to be marked by the Bide of a fox-covert, but it is all that could be hoped for under the circumstances in which our colonists find themselves. Stag-hunting we have no doubt there will be by-and-bye ; the preferable chase of the fox will probably never be seen hexe, for, even were the excellent vermin introduced, he would find for scores of years to come covert which he could never be induced to break. Meautirae there is a healthy spirit-stirring sport provided, a good school of daring and manliness, and which may promote the frankness and good-fellowship for whioh from time immemorial the genuine sportsman has been distinguished. We hope to see it grow and flourish generally throughout the colony.

If a correspondent of tbe Daily Timct who telegraphed from Wellington on Saturday last spoke tbe truth, tbe Wellington and West Coast newspapers have been acting most reprebensibly. He accuses them of tending to force on war in tbe Taranaki district, and a heavier accusation under present, circumstances it would bo difficult t» advance. When we think of all that is involved in a .v* witb tbe natives ; their certain destruction ; grievous loss of life and property amongot the settlers, and a serious check to tbe general advancement of the colony, we could almost find it in our heart to anathematize the p«a that should write a stroke with such foul intent.

If the newspapers can do anything to insure the continuance of peace, to allay agitation amongst the natives, and to strengthen the hands of Sir George Grey, the only man in the country capable of dealing with this matter, let them speak ; , if not. let them keep silence. It derolres upon these writers, we do not say as gentlemen and Christians, but even as ordinary white men to do bo. A contempobaey declares in a heading that the invasion of Servian territory by Albanians and' the consequent loss of 900. meb, 700 Servians, and 200 Albanians, was M a Jbnny JittUjwar." Still we conclude the nine hundred were quite, as complexly- Hlh*i, and suffered as hard pains of death~as If ~they had fallen in the. greatest battle in the world. We fail' ip see where the fun lies, but 'on this account we all the more recognise tie ."jolly disposition" of our contemporary. He out-does Mark " Taple'y himself, at least where wretches far-off are concerned.

A Londok newspaper of a recent date contains a sketch of the kind of parson its editor thinks desirable for the present needs of the Anglican community. — The national priest who is to offer sacrifice to every large-minded man's prejudices so effectually as to bind tba •whole English world of confused and varying opinions together in the bonds of » national church. He is not to be a Ritualist, of which cleric our contemporary gives a somewhat ludicrous picture, representing him as flattered when the Irish crossing-sweepers of the Metropolis, deceived by hia Boman collar, take him for a Catholic priest, and delighted to robe himself in gorgeous vestments and thus go through the ceremonies connected with a " burlesque of the English Communion Service," — undoubtedly a double carisatarc, if the " spoiled Mass" itself be travestied. Nor must he be an. " Evangelical," who is painted in. still more absurd colours,, and drawn, as a compound of corporal unpleasantness, ' byp'ocrisy, small talk; '.and a devotion to " refreshments." What he must be it is rather difficult to understand clearly. A kind of broken-in fast man appears to us to be the thing required ; an ex-scamp, in short, with a good deal of benevolent and utilitarian tastes, and religious opinions mixed to perfection. " Very often in hia youth he has sown some wild oats, and if he has bitterly repented it he is none the worse fitted to deal with men and women as they are. He looks after his schools, and takes perhaps more pride in them than in anything his parish owes to him, and it owes him much as a rule — sanitary reforms, cottage hospitals, provident societies, working-men's clubs, and coffee palaces. He knows what is right, and he does it fearlessly. He is to be found more often in large towns than in easy-going country parishes, and is especially fond of a living of about £150 a year in the East End of London. His theological convictions are settled, and ate the result of mature deliberation. Sometimes beginning as a Low Churchman, he takes all that is good from the High Churchman, in other cases, beginning as a High Churchman, he borrows from his Low Church brother. But in all cases he is a loyal son of the Church of England, and w« are glad to know that she has many such." Such, then is the desirable national priest : one who has acquired — — " strange expsiiences Unmeet for ladies, — " Who shall be able, as others already have been, to boast, repentantly of course, concerning what his habits were before he was " converted *, * so as to show be is to be taken for no mere milk-sop. Meantime, it must be consoling for the readers of the Week, who have wild sons to learn that their young hopefuls are qualifying themselves for the national priest aood. It must be edifying to the members of the Anglican community to hear that many of their parsons have in fact so qualified themselves.

The WltiteJiall Review has been of late rather roughly handled by several of its London contemporaries, in return for its pretension* to the special ear of the fashionable world. Tbcy hare shown up its proprietor in connection with tbe metropolitan egg-trade ; they have dubbed it the Winteti'ash Review, and declared that its editor frequents the door of the servants' hall, where the news of the regions above is communicated to him. It was thia journal that a little time ago gave a list of what it termed " Home's recruits," bat so given on the whole as to imply that a cause which was patronized by 19 wsasj

refined and high-bred people might after all be worthy of some consideration. We confess we look only with contempt on a journal that is inclined to patronize the creed approved of the wearers of elegant apparel, but which shudders at the thought of uncleanliness and tatters approaching the altar to find there some comfort in their misery. We were inclined to find this cream of the cream of newspapers somewhat silly, and we think we have not be*n disappointed. An anecdote has just been published by it thab seems to establish its claim to some such reputation. It is related that her. Majesty'tho' Queen being fatigued by nervate journey ip Paris was near falling to the grbund on stepping out of her carriage at the door of the British embassy, and but for the timely assistance of John Brown would have, done so, dragging Lord Lyons down with her. The Review goes on : " Suppose John Brown had not been by just at that moment, and that the Queen and Lord Lyons had really fallen, what do you suppose would have been the result of such a contretemps 1 The Queen is notoriously a most dignified woman ; her pride as a sovereign and lady would have sustained a severe shock, and although she could not, of course, have blamed Lord Lyons for not having been able to support her, yet I should have been greatly surprised had not the charming diplomatist sunk greatly in the favour of Her Majesty. Who can tell whether, perhaps, John Brown on this occasion has not altered the entire foreign policy of our country ?" This is the kind of idiocy our ultra-fashionable sheet considers it edifying to provide for the upper ten thousand in England.

The Times has given up the Pope in great disgust. This is all the more sad since it was this journal that was the first to sound abroad the praises of Cardinal Pecci, and to proclaim that with his election to the pontificate had begun a new era for the Catholic ChurSh — one in which that great institution was about to take the col»ur of the nineteenth century, and, abandoning all her traditions, and the office conferred upon her by God, to become an accomplice in the humours of the world, and the companion of its freaks and follies. The Times, however, soon began to perceive that he had been misled by Gallenga, at the time in question, his worthy correspondent in Rome and to criticise unfavourably the utterances of the Holy Father, and he now bursts out into open hostility, coupling the names of Pius IX. and Leo XIII. and denouncing them as follows : " Pius IX. might at one time have been regarded almost as a Pope of the Revolution. Yet he lived to promulgate the Syllabus and to proclaim the dogma of infallibility. Leo XIII. was expected to discard the evil influences which made the last years of Pius IX. a burden to all but one school of Catholics ; yet before he has reigned a year he is found regretting the loss of the temporal power which enabled his predecessors to keep Protestantism out of Rome," The reason for the anger of our great contemporary is the protest lately issued by the Holy Father against the vile propaganda that foreign money is now supporting in Rome, and the measures that be directs to be taken in order to counteract it ; while at the same time he deplores that the usurpation of his temporal power prevents him from protecting his people against the attacks thus made upon their faith, and morals. The Times finds in this protest a cauae that makes him regret the granting of Catholic emancipation by the English Government ; as if there were any parallelism whatever between the setting free from slavery of a people whose right it was to be free, and the admitting men to corrupt and bribe, and purchase with money the souls of those who are so ground down by poverty as to seem to offer a prey to the apostles of hypocrisy and self-glorification. " For fifty years,', says the Times, <; the Catholic faith has enjoyed absolute toleration in this country, with no insignificant results. It would not be unreasonable if we were to look for a little reciprocity from Rome." But during those fifty years Catholics have nowhere endeavoured to trade in the souls of their Protestant neighbours ; to make them miserable sycophants, and as paltry mercenaries as the man who has been handed down to the everlasting contempt of the world for having sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage. This it is that the Protestant propaganda does wherever it believes that an opening offers for its wretched endeavours. Does the Times think that reciprocity under such circumstances conld be honestly granted, or would honourable non- Catholics accept it on such terms 1 The unification of Italy has exposed the Italians to the temptations of which we speak, in the same manner that the Irish Famine exposed the Irish people to them. A grinding poverty prevails throughout the peninsula, and the harpies of cant have flocked in there, hoping to profit by the people's hunger, and each, man to purchase consciences sufficient to gain him a lasting name amongst the mawkish circles in his native land from whence he set out. The Times, indeed, draws our attention to the kindred attempts made in Ireland ; it points to, and grossly exaggerates, the attack lately made by the provoked populace of Connemaraupon the tempters who for a quarter of a century have been making a traffic, or endeavouring to do so, for their success has been wonderfully slight, of their friends and neighbours. " What the Pope would put down with the strong arm if lie could," he says, " the Catholic rabble of Connemara eeems to be trying to put down by the like means and with the like

object. It has organized, we are told, a regular crusade^accom" parted by -violent assaults on. unoffending Protestants, by wrecking and burningjof buildings, and by the establishment of a rfeign o£ terror and of mob-law .throughout the district. This, then,, is the result of fifty years of Catholic emancipation." It is rather the result of twenty-five years of the Protestant propaganda, of corruption and bribery, of dishonesty and lying. Are a wild, uncultured, hotblooded people so much to blame even if, when excited by §ome unusual demonstration on the part of 1 tneif^perseeutors, they«l>ie«k out into the indignation fheyv [have . long repressed ? TH^ doing so is, indeed, a proof of the futility of the temptations held out before them, and gives the lie direct to that assertion;we so often hear from the "Evangelical" platform ©f the desire of Catholics- to hear the " truth," and their fierce longing for the Bible. . Twenty-five years oS labour, backed up with unlimited fundß, and yet the Irish Church., Missions have failed to secure the, ear of the neighbourhood. This is a pregnant commentary upon their load boasting. But ' ifc i 8 from non- Catholics themselves we learn principally the nature of the men whose attempts at corruption the Times is so angry in supporting, The principal English Protestant writers are the men who the most inform us of the nature of these workers, and the results of their work. Dickens gives us the "Shepherd" and Mr. Chadband ; Trollope paints for us Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope ; George Eliot scoffs at the notion of an " Evangelical " preacher being sent to labour amongst the masses ; Tennyson shows us the .results of such labours in his " Northern Farmer," and tells us of the — — " heated pulpiteer, Not preaching simple Christ to simple men." . Even in this present issue of our journal we give an extract from an English Church newspaper ridiculing the effects of the open Bible, and "evangelical" teaching amongst the people; and we here again insert an account of the horror emanating from them of which we last week reported, as illustrative of our subject, and because it expresses a precisely similar view of the matter with that advanced by us. We take it from the San Francisco correspondence of our contemporary the Otago Daily Times :— " Two extraordinary crimes have been committed, which I cannot to specify, Qnewas the sacrifice of a little girl of five years, by her father, at Pocassett, Massachusetts, on May-day. The father, Charles F. Freeman, was in the employ of the Federal Government, and is a Second Adventist, which communion is very strong there, Indeed the New England States appear to be the breeding-ground of every kind of social and | religious extravagance and enormity. He had been attending revival meetings, which these fanatics have been holding all over the country, in anticipation of the universal burst-up in 1881. Having professed to have received a revelation, he neither ate nor slept for a week, and on May eve summoned his co-religionists to his honse to hear the revelation. They assembled, when he told them that God had commanded him to offer his beloved daughter Edith, a beautiful child, as a sacrifice,, This lie set at once about doing, using his kitchen table as an improvised altar. He stabbed her to the heart with a knife, and poured out the blood. Her mother said it was quite right. The deed done, the Adventists closed the door to wait for the promised resurrection on the third day. The authorities gofc information, and arrested Freeman and his -wife. The body was taken possession of and buried, greatly to the disgust of the fanatics, who declared that Freeman was quite right, and that God would justify Mm. The Adventists having threatened to take up the casket and throw it into the river, guards were kept on the gave night and day. Twelve men and women have been arrested as accessories. They fully believe that the dead child will be raised to life, or else bodily translated to heaven. This is a case of crime resulting from religious fanaticism; or shall I offend Protestant ears by saying, ft direct outcome of private interpretation of the Bible. WhateTer may be said of the < creeds,' they save their deluded followers from sucn abominable crimes as this." • What wonder, then, if the Holy Father is filled with sorrow and indignation at seeing the fountain of such evils established at the very foot of his throne, and that he openly regrets the violence that has stripped Mm of the power of protecting th« people, who are doubly hia, from being subjected to its influences.

The sun of English patriotism ifc appears is on the decline, A writer in a magazine named Time, that lias recently appeared, found the men. about to emigrate from Kent indifferent to their fatherland. He appears to have expected to evoke some sentiment of affection and regret from them, by asking if it was illwill towards England that induced them to leave her ; he received for an answer, "England be d d," and a murmur indicative of sympathy^ -with the respondent was heard amongst bis companions. The patriotism that cannot bear the hardships of an. adverse season or two has but shallow roots, and if it be a sentiment, as it is commonly held to be, that does honour to the human heart, the heart in which its roots are shallow is one of not much value. What Irish emigrant on the eve of leaving the green isle, was ever heard to curse her ? Adversity there may not have been of a season or two, but of a whole life-time, of generatious, and ages, but still he was about to go forth with a full heart, with hardly re

pressed tears, and with a soul filled to overflowing with blessings on all that must remain behind him. "England be d d;" the words are ominous. Are the working classes there generally ready to turn and curse their country when times are bad, and they feel the pinch of adversity ? Is this the patriotism and the stability that have made England what she is, or are days of degeneration setting in, and with the decay of religion are all things high and holy crumbling into dust 1 Behold once more the fruits of the "Reformation ! "

The English papers are commenting in language that is nothing, if not strong, on the good people of Sydney. "Cads," "blackguards," " greedy crew," " cowardly Colonials," such are the agreeable and polished terms used, and, even judging from the highly-preju-diced reports given by these newspapers, it is hard to say whether the alledged misconduct of the Australians or the language of the accusing journalists is the most disgraceful. It is impossible to believe that anything like the outrageous conduct complained of actually took place at Sydney ; it would have sufficed to blacken even the character of the inhabitants of the most noted slums, and to attribute it to citizens who have hitherto borne the repute of manners more obliging than are generally to be found is a matter of no light gravity. Something of the kind might, however, have been expected. Lord Harris appears to have borne continually about him the consciousness of his rank, and to have expected a degree of obsequiousness that it was quite impossible could have been bestowed upon him in a country where one man is accustomed to he considered as good as another, and where, truth to tell, titles begin to be considered rather things to be laughed at than otherwise. We must recollect too that it has always been the habit of writers in England to cut up the colonies for the amusement, or it may be the disgust, of their readers ; a few years ago a most scurrilous attack upon the ladies of Sydney was published by some man who had visited the city in question on hoard a man-ef -war, and which caused considerable pain to the people of New South Wales generally, until it was explained that it had emanated from some contemptible individual who wrote in mingled ignorance and spite. We do not know, however, that — except for the sex of those abueed — it was worse than all this that is now put forward by some of the reputable London papers. Again the Americans were long the mark for this kind of thing ; not only were they exposed to the wit of Dickens, and the stringing satire of Mrs. Trollope^ but a host of lesser scribblers were also continually endeavouring to be funny at their expense ; and it is not to be wondered at if much ill-feeling was stirred up on this account. It is an Anglo-Saxon fail' ing to i ail at all that seems foreign, even should it embrace a considerable portion of the favoured element, or actually be principally made up of the chosen race itself and its descendants. Bailing of some kind, then, we might have expected, bnt railing in such extremely gross language we wore hardly prepared to find in journals capable of holding their own amongst the chief issue of the London Press. There is, howe.ver, a way in which this coarse abuse may go far to inflict a serious injury not only on New South Wales, but upon, the whole of the Australian colonies ; it is known that at present there exists at no great distance from the Australian shores a nest of the most infamous criminals that Europe has ever produced, those now held as convicts in the French settlement of New Caledonia. Already it seems there is a disposition on the part of the French authorities to rid themselves of their charge by conniving at their •scape to the mainland of the British colonies, and they have been remonstrated with more than once on the subject. But if they hear, as they certainly will, that the leading London papers are not ashamed to speak of the colonists in a manner that one might shrink from adopting towards a pick-pocket ; it is highly probable they will not trouble themselves to pay much attention to any remonstrances that may reach them from Sydney. They will laugh at the idea of those who are evidently treated by their own nation as the descendants of convicts objecting to make acquaintance with the class from whence they will conclude them to have sprung. Meantime it is to be hoped that those visitors who come from Europe to the Sydney Exhibition will bring with them more of a disposition to give and take, and that they may in a considerable degree reverse the verdict of Lord Harris and his " bloated aristocrats."

The Irish Catholic members of Pailiament have presented Dr. Newman with an. address of congratulation on his being raised to the Cardinalate. They have done so not only as a mark of respect and gratitude to the great ecclesiastic who has delighted and instructed English speaking Catholics by his intellect, who haa done so much also to open the eyes of their Protestant fellow-subjects throughout the Empire to the reasonableness of the Catholic faith, but in acknowledgment of the sympathy ever shown by him for the Irish people, and the services he has rendered them. The reply of the Cardinal elect was, it is needless to say, distinguished by its grace ; it gently deprecated all the acknowledgments of obligation professed by the Irish gentlemen, and instead assumed for the Bpeaker a deep indebtedness never to be acquitted of in life, but to be handed down to

those who should succeed him in the office he filled. "I do not think there is any other country that could have treated me so graciously an you did," he said. "It is now nearly thirty years since, with a a friend of mine, I first went over to Ireland with a vitw to that engagement which I afterwards found there, and daring the seven years through which that engagement lasted I had a continual experience of kindness, and nothing but kindness, from all classes of people — from the hierarchy, from the seculars and regulars, and from the laity, whether in Dahlia or in the country. As their first act, they helped me in a great trouble, in which I was involved. I had put my foot into an unusual legal embarrassment, and it required many thousand pounds to draw me out of it. They took a great share in that work. Nor did they show less kindness at the end of my time. I was obliged to leave Ireland by the necessities of my own congregation at Birmingham. Everybody can understand what a difficulty it is for a body to he without its head, and I had only engaged for seven years, because otherwise I could not fulfil the charge the Holy Father had put upon me in the oratory. Not a word of disappointment and unkindness was uttered, when there might have been a feeling that I was relinquishing a work which I had begun. And now I repeat that, to my surprise, at the end of twenty years I find a silent memory cherished of a person who can only be said to have meant well, though he did little. And now what return can I make to show my gratitude ? None that is sufficient. But this I can say, that your address will not die with me. I belong to a body which, with God's blessing, will live after me— the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. The parchment, which is the record of your generosity, shall be committed to our archives, and shall testify to generations to come the enduring kindness of Irish Catholics towards the founder, and first head of the English Oratory." But can we admit that Dr. Newman has only meant well by Ireland ? His pen is his sword, and some of its noblest blows have been dealt in her service. Take for example the following, in which he describes what Ireland truly is by what an English Catholic on coming to visit her finds there :— " Churches which are the houses of God, a clergy who are the physicians of the soul, an innocence in the young face, and a piety and patience in the aged voice, which strikingly and sadly contrast with the habits of his own rural population. He finds the population as munificent as it is pious, and doing greater works for God out of their poverty than the rich and noble accomplish elsewhere in their abundance. And he finds himself received with that warmth of hospitality which has ever been Ireland's boast, and as far as he is personally concerned his birth is forgotten in his baptism." When Dr. Newman, then, says to Irishmen, " Ido not think there is any other country which could have treated me so graciously as you did," Irishmen may well reply : And who is there that has treated us as you have done ? Our own flesh and blood ; men born of our race, the inheritors of the faith we have inherited, have not painted us in nobler colours than those you have used in describing us. The loftiest flights of their genius, in which they have sung of the deeds of our ancestors in days before it was deemed possible that misfortune or persecution could touch our land, have not told of a nobler race than that you tell of— you, who in the faces of the young, in the voices of the old, in the "poor efforts of us all, have read our hearts and vindicated them in the language you alone can employ, and which of necessity commands the attention of the world. No ; Irishmen cannot admit that Dr. Newman has dene little for them ; were it only that he has taken them in to his loving sympathies, he has done much for them. The honour and love of a man such as he is are a crown of glory to the people upon whom they have been bestowed.

"We feel that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." We have, it seems, been walking about in worse plight than that in which the famous prophetess Cassandra found herself ,of yore ; she knew that her prophetic vision was true, although nobody believed her ; but although nobody believed us, we had not the least idea that the foresight vouchsafed to us was likely to be -verified. It is very Btartling to find that we have prophesied truly such an nnpleasant and inconvenient event as the burning of the Dunedin Athenaeum, which to our great regret took place on Monday night last, or, more strictly speaking, early on Tuesday morning. We can only plead in excuse that we were but following the example of a shining light of " Evangelicalism " in England, who attributed the destruction of the Birmingham library to .Sabbath-breaking. The prophecy was a kind of second hand affair, and we do not consider that its fulfilment has by any means qualified us to set up a system of f ortuae-telling. But do not our authorities now recognise the danger of opening the Museum on Sunday 1 It is very patent, and more especially as it was the novel department of the Athenaeum that bore the brunt of the fire. The marks of a judgment are perfectly manifest.

It must be very convenient to be born into the world already the member of a Church. Baptism becomes a superfluity, and "conversion " a myth, and the sectarian brand at once is apparent. But are any babies so bora besides Presbyterian babies ? We do not recollect

to hare seen it claimed for any others, although we cannot doubt tha* in the instance named such is the case, seeing that we have for it the grave authority of a most estimable minister, given the other evening at a meeting of the Otago Presbytery. This rev. gentleman said he was " born a Presbyterian," and we conclude he was no exception to the other members of his creed. It is quite evident that here the spiritual descent has ousted the natural ; John Knox has usurped the place of Adam towards our Presbyterian friends, and in their case the stain of original sin has' given place to the impress of the " Reformer." We acknowledge that if any one could once more have stamped with corruption the babe unborn, John Knox was the very man fitted for the task ; he, at least, succeeded in preparing for generations to come a slough to inherit.

Mb. E. B. Cabgill is indignant at its bning hinted that the powers that be in Otago are exclusive, and desire to shut out from their province all those who do not tend towards Presbyterianism. He says : " Their object had never been to exclude other sections of the Church." The question then arises as to what definition of the " Church " is accepted by this gentleman and tho3e on whose behalf he speaks, but it is a question which we are not prepared to enter on. We doubt, indeed, if those who were present at the meeting addressed by Mr. Oargill, and which bo applauded his sentiments, themselves are prepared to give a clear definition. Perhaps were -we admitted to hear a discussion amongst them on the subject, we should come away not much enlightened. We suspect we should do so even more perplexed than we are at this moment. What wa are prepared to pronounce upon is the evident fact that there are certain people that these powers to whom we allude do not regard as a section of the " Church." We nave the most conclusive proof of this in finding that all the emigrant Teasels despatched to the colony from the old country set sail from English and Scotch ports, and never from an Irish port ; that, moreover, the New Zealand emigration offices are to be found only ia England and Scotland — with one exception, that opened in .Belfast, and opened there for the express purpose of excluding from this colony those recognised as not forming a section of the «' Church." It seems, we confess, a little out of date at this time of the world to hear men talk of not desiring to exclude from any country those who may be considered as a section of the " Church." It would have a most ludicrous sound did we Hot know that the " Church " is considered capable of embracing all sorts of men — fish of all sorts are to be found in the net, hut there is just this difference from the old notion that one fish now is looked upon as being as good as another ; there will never be any picking-out for the angels to do— if, indeed, there be any angels to do the picking-out. We do Mr. Cargill the justice to say we believe he and those like-minded with him have for the most part no objection in the world to the pouring in here of all " sorts and conditions of men," Catholics only excepted, and we base our belief on the facts that we see glaringly displayed with regard to the immigration arrangements.