Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 335, 19 September 1879, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD

fE have come across another authoritative endorsement of our resistance to the secular system : it occurs in the Spectator of June 21st, where, in an article on the late scenes in the Chamber of Deputies, the Bill of M. Jules Ferry is spoken of as '-justly resented by the Catholics of France as utterly inconsistent with the liberty of the private household." It is certainly, to say the least of it, very thoughtless of leading London journalists to be backing-up the prejudices of antipodean Catholics in this way. Our secular Press should let them hear of it. Theke is, it appears, a large population in England that has fallen into the evil ways of the old gentleman described in the nursery rhyme, who " would not say his prayers." They attend no place of worship, sing no hymns, read no tract!?, and, in fact, have as little thought of anything connected with the Christian religion, or of any other, as if there w*e no such thing to be found in all the world. This population is that of East London, and says the Spectator :— " Here are a million of people, fairly fed, fairly intelligent, fairly orderly, who seem to care as little about the great problem of the ' whence and whither ' as the animals do, or the fishes ; to have no feeling at all about it, no desire for any special form of worship or mode of expressing religious feeling, no fear that if they neglect it utterly anything will happen to them. No other people except the Chinese seem to be in that frame of mind." This is a pretty state of affairs to be reported, and truly reported, of London, the capital of Protestant England, the city raised to her great position of wealth and influence by reading the Bible ! How have things come to such a pass, and what cure shall be found for them ? If it were of some foreign city, Paris for instance, the matter could beat once accounted for, and London newspapers would be at no loss to furnish both a reason and a remedy. They would say it was but rational to suppose the people had been revolted by the "mummeries of Popery," and the empty churches were the result of their reasonable disgust ■ they would prophecy a flooding on their part into " Evangelical " temples f only Rome could be expelled, and all would be explained smoothly and to the satisfaction of readers or inquirers. But how comes it about that in London, amongst all the forms of the " Reformed" Faith under the shadow of the Established Church, such a state of apathy exists ? There are a million of people who do not care one jot about the ' gospel " that is proclaimed all around them, and the nature of their disposition is, not a violent hatred as against something powerful and real, not a wicked, murderous hatred, as of the false and corrupt against the true and pure, such as we see in Catholic countries where the men of the Revolution hate the Church, but a quiet, orderly disregard, as of something beneath notice, a contemptuous over-looking as of some nonentity. Such is the disposition we find amongst the largest city population of working-men in the world, towards the pure faith of the Reformers now for over three hundred years established amongst them. But how shall this indifference be overcome ? The Spectator proposes the ordinal y method of the Protestant propaganda—of course adapted to tie circumstances. He proposes "a mission for decorously and kindly bribing people to go to church " # ISI lndced > would be the most legitimate application of the bribing Astern, that would ever have been made. It might, in this instance perhaps, be " decorously and kindly " applied, and wear altogether a different aspect fiom that worn by it in those places where it has lung been called into exercise for the searing of consciences, and the perversion of honest people into cheats and hypocrites— as in the case of the " Irish Church Missions," and other attempts by Protestants on the faith of Catholics. But we greatly doubt as to whether there is the least chance of any such means being employed for the quickening of this inert Protestant mass of London working-men • and we greatly doubt as to the wholesomcness of the results to be accomplished by it if it were employed. The bribery here should take a substantial shape; the lion's share should go to the people bribed

and there would hardly be afforded sufficient for the handsome entertainment of the large missionary staff required-* consideration that enters gravely into this undertaking elsewhere. And, again, it people with a genuine distaste for the religious exercises of their creed were brought to attend upon them merely for the sake of receiving a bribe, they would be most likely to be hardened in their disinclination ; calm indifference on their part most probably would be irritated into positive dislike. On the whole our worth* « Evangelical friends would be foolish to take the Spectator's advice : let them cling to Ireland and Italy, the pickings there are far more lucrative, and the broad daylight is not so glaring. Both purse and reputation would certainly suffer from the change

Lord Haktington declares that the only cure for the agricultural depression is a complete revision of the relation of landlord and tenant. This ft a very important declaration, and if acted upon will possibly hivolve a most deeply felt and revolutionary change through the United Kingdom. The intelligence «has reached us by cablegram, and we cannot, therefore, tell what it is that Lord Hartington exactly means by this complete revision, but we may suppose that it includes an increased fixity of tenure to the tenant, and in many vital points curtails the privileges of the landlord. We shall, howevej, await with much curiosity the details of this matter which is one of great interest to all classes of fee community, but more especially to Irishmen, who have, we may say without erf&eption, experienced evils eituer personally or in the persons of some of their friends and kindred from the law of landlord and tenant in Ireland. Meantime it will not be out place to consider what it was that Lord Derby proposed on the same subject at Liverpool last June. His opinion was that the day for large arable farms paying in England had passed by, but that pastoral farms and small arable ones migftt still be made to pay, provided the landlords were in a position to make all the improvements required on them. And to do away with the class of impoverished landlords, whose means would not suffice for this, he proposed the introduction into England of the encumbered estates system which, it cannot be .denied, worked on the whole satisfactorily in Ireland. All landlords, $nen, not able otherwise to do their part by the lands must sell their estates to men in a position to do so. Tenants at the same time would -retain their right to all such unexhausted improvements as increased the value of the soil, and it would remain with themselves to make good contracts when leasing land, a matter now much simplified by the number of farms that had been given up. The important thing is, however, that it has at length come to be recognised in influential quarters that some radical change must take place with respect 'to the tenure of land in the United Kingdom ; and considering the great interests that not only the law, but prejudice and custom have identified with it, any change it undergoes must necessarily be attended with important results from several points of view.

Scotland is about to honour, or has by this time honoured, the memory of two of her notables by the erection of their statues The one is King Robert the Bruce ; the other John Knox j men differing widely from each other in all the circumstances of their lives. The one was, a glorious hero, a noble Christian soldier, who freed his country from an oppressive yoke, and conferred upon her the title to rank ,with nations renowned everlastingly for their bravery and patriotism ; the other was a base apostate, the champion of self, and devoured by self-sufficiency, who robbed his country of her greatest hentage, the Catholic faith, and delivered her over bound in chains to the gloomy, iron rule of the Kirk, with its menaces of the devil, and continual invocation of hell-fire. It is curious to speculate on what the tune at which these statues are erected is about to bring forth ; for thar things are not to continue as they have been there is good reason to believe. On the one hand the clouds are beginning to clear away, that wrapped in obscurity the ages in which the patriot king won his high renown, and stigmatised them as « dark ages." Men of candour no longer are content to allow the great "Protestant Iradxtion to block their minds against the entrance of enlightenment; the true sources of civilization begin to be recognized, and the prejudices inspired by the « Reformation " show signs of an increasing faintness. lake for example, the following passages from a recent number of a prominent periodical: « And as a matter of fact it is not to the period glorified by M. Michelet's brilliant rhetoric that we must

go for the germs of our present intellectual greatness, for the inventions and discoveries which lie at the root of our material civilization, for the establishment of the only political institutions now existing, which have succeeded in reconciling individual freedom with stability of Government. It we will use the term "Renaissance" in a sense at all approaching that of M. Michelet, we must put back the date of the re- birth for some centuries before the timu of Columbus ; if not, indeed, to the days of Charlemagne and his Cloißterschools, at all events to the age of vast intellectual activity, when Dante's mystic song opens the volume of modern poetry ; when the revived study of Roman jurisprudence spreads from the law schools of Bologna throughout Christendom ; when St. Thomas Aquinas and hig followers among the scholastics survey the whole field of human thought with a comprehensive maßtery, and map it out with a subtlety and precision unknown to the ancients, and too little appreciated, because too little known among ourselves ; when Roger Bacon, in his cell at Oxford starts the physical sciences upon the great career which they have pursued to our own times, and anticipates their principal achievements ; when Nicola di Pisano lays the foundations of the art schools that were to cover the face of Europe with those vast edifices which (in the words of Milman) can hardly be contemplated without awe, or entered without devotion, and to fill its churches and palaces with pictures which we admire and wonder at, and copy, but cannot rival." — Quarterly Review, April, 1879, page 373. The true character of the "dark ages," then, bids fair to be made manifest, and the statue now erected to the memory of the Bruce may, ere many years have passed away, be generally regarded, not merely as the statue of an isolated individual who appeared in the midst of darkness, as a single sun-ray may occasionally be seen to pierce the clouds, but as that of one of many great men who were preparing the way for modern civilization in ages not dark, but full of light and beauty ; for the admiration of patriotism and devotion are civilizing influences also. Oalhe ether hand, the statue of John Knox goes up at a time most critical for the cause in which he played so marked a part. Culture and refinement are undermining it, and a less rugged generation begins to feel its burden too heavy to be borne. " Heresy," too, although the name so employed suggests a most ridiculous inconsistency, threatens its stability, and it may be that, in fewer years than we reckon on, for thought and religious changes travel rapidly in these days of ours, the image of the truculent preacher will be allowed to stand on its pedestal more the object of curiosity than of reverence, and as a monument rather of a historical crisis than of a public benefactor.

Who would not be a soldier 1 There is no finer trade to be had ; it's all glory and jollity. That is in story-books and poetry and songs — which by the way are not always poetry — and such like things. However, one of the most poetic, prettiest, quaintest songs we know is all about a soldier. It is Emile Debraux s " Fanfan la Tulipe" and it ought alone to have gained for its writer a smoother mode of life by far thau he enjoyed, Fanfan gets turned out by his step-father who bestows on him five sous, with which he goes off to seek his fortune. As it may be supposed, he does not go far until he is obliged to close with an offer cf employment ; which happens to be that of a recruiting sergeant, and so he comes to the wars. When be hears the rattle of the guns he wishes himself well at home, but the sight of the battle stirs his spirit and nerves him to determine that no one shall see he is afraid. For twenty years he behaves himself, valiantly and like an honest fellow : "vn franc et loyal militaire" and then he retires to a comfortable shelter, where he occupies himself by cultivating rosec,

" Sans nigliger le laurier." This is the soldier of poetry ; now, let us look at the soldier of real life. He is an enviable individual for whose correction and right behaviour it is considered necessary to continue, in the British Army at least, the punishment of the lash ; at ordinary times to be applied, it is true, only in outrageous cases, but in time of war to be used at the whim of the commanding officer, against which there is no appeal. But as an especial act of grace the number of his stripes has been reduced from 50 to 25. When his twenty years of service have run out. it may be also that, without any thoughts of roses or lauiels past or future, he shall present himself at the bleak door of a workhouse and beg admittance there, Sucli a case occurred the other day, for instance, in Wexford. A man who had berved Her Most Giacious Majesty as a soldier for tweuty-oue years came to the Poor Law Guardians to beg admiss ; on to the miserable refuge under tueir direction. And what was their answer? That they would take him in if he would engage to break a ton of stones each day in order to pay for his support. One of the Guardians, it would appear, a patriot we presume, seems to have been touched by the humour of the thins;, as may be seen from the following :—": — " Mr. Wolaban — ' Serve you right. Why did you not join the Zulus, or some people like them, and they would not have asked you in your old age to break a ton of stones daily.' — Chairman : ' But he did not conduct himself.' — Major-Geneial Guise : 'It is well to encourage good conduct in the army ; to do so a pensian is refused for misconduct.' — Mr. Wolahan : % But, General, it was nigh time they discovered that he did not conduct himself ;

not until he was unfit for service did they find out his misconduct. Had he served King Cetewayo, instead of Queen Victoria, for twentyone years, that barbaric monarch would not have asked him to break a ton of stones in his old age.' " Verily it is a generous service. How brilliant are the prospects offered to recruits I Meantime, saya the Saturday Review, " What we want is soldiers, and soldiers we must have. We annex a large slice of country, and before we have had time to absorb, assimilate, or organise our new possession we become^ involved in hostilities with some new and powerful neighbour. Thia » cannot go on for ever, and we must sooner or later choose one of two alternatives. We must either find soldiers to fill the ranks of our army, or we must cease from further wars and conquest. The only question is, is the latter alternative possible 1 "

We do not gain much by the rebukes administered to the Catholic world in general bj the non-Catholic Press. There are few instances, if there are any, in which we do not perceive that our would-be monitors are shallow, inconsistent, or absurd. Take for example the following, which seems just at present a tid-bit for New Zealand editors : it it taken from the writer of London Town Talk in the Melbourne Argus :—": — " Sixty thousand Poles have been performing a pilgrimage to a miracle-working picture of the Virgin at Crinstoken. A flash of lightning struck 15 Poles, besides the pole on which the picture (which seems to have been of the sign-board order of art) was hung. One would think that the kind of people who believed in a picture-miracle would also believe in what Protestants term a ' judgment,' and if so, here is surely a staggerer. But they won't." "Or those eighteen," said our Saviour, " upon whom the tower fell in Siloe and slew them : think you that they also were debtors above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem 1 No, I say to you : but except yoa do penance, you shall all likewise perish." Yet we naturally conclude those eighteen had believed, if not in a " picture-miracle," at least in a standing miracle connected with a pool of water. " Now there is at Jerusalem a pond called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered, waiting for the moving of the water. And an Angel of - the Lord descended at certain times into the pond, and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under." If sudden death were no special " judgment" on men who believed the power of God acting on water could miraculously heal disease, why should it be considered a " judgment " on men for believing the same power could work miracles by means of a picture. Our journalist's " staggerer " is dealt with a feeble arm.

A SERIES of papers by M. Maxime dv Camp, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, has been recalling to the people of France the true nature of the membeis of the Commune of who n so many have been recently turned once more loose upon the city of Paris. The following passages will acquaint our readers slightl}' with the wretches in question. What is to be thought of the shoemaker Oridc Noe, who made his wife and one of his friends fire at French soldiers " for nothing," said he, " but the pleasure of firing." Of the coachman Pierre Miezecage who, crossing the rue des Cordeliers one morniDg saw the currier, Lelu, shaving himself at a window, and took aim and fired at, but missed him. The mason, Gilbert Tauveron was more dexterous ; be came into the rooms of a married couple named Faisant, where he lodged. Faisant, sick in bed, begged of him not to strike the floor with the butt of his gun as the noise hurt his head. Tauveron then opened the window to fire out of it, but Faisant got up and said, " Be quiet, I beg of you ; if you fire through the window you will make us fall out." He then went back to bed. Tauveron looked at him and laughed. " Come," he said, " you have a queer head ; I have a mind to kill you," and he killed him. Towards the end of the struggle, when the fall of the Commune was no longer doubtful, some of the combatants killed at haphazard for the sake of killing. They seized on the passers-by, accused them of imaginary crimes, gathered the mob, constituted themselves judges, and. taking upon them the executioner's duty, executed the sentences they liad pronouncer 1 . When the French army was heard descending towards the Ecolc Mihtairc, a young man was passing across the Place de Foiitenoi/. He •was dressed in the whitj blouse that the tag-ia^of the Parisian populace takes for the livery of the secret police. people gathered lound him and cried out " You arc a spy." Troy then dragged him away to the Hotel de Yillc, a long way oil, and when lie anived there his clothes were in rags, his face swollen from blows, and the hair turn from his Lead so that the skin was seen all covered with blood. He was taken in and kept there about a quaitcr of an hour ; then he was dragged to the Avenue Victoria, and placed against a tree, but owing to the cruel treatment he had received he fell down. They raided him up, tied him with a halter, and killed him by a single shot. The women vied with the men in murdering. A man was crossing the Place de hi Bastille ; he, too, wore a white blouse, and had a moustache. They concluded, therefore, that he was a gendarme, and brought him before the court-

martial at the Petite-Eoquette. This court eat in their shirts, with bot« armßStripped ' at a table on which was nothin g bufc ttles ; the eldest of these magistrates was not twenty years of age. a man bore a bold front, in spite of the cries he heard all around thT " Sh ° Ot Mm '" " KiU him '" and Buch like dcm a ndß - Amongst ™ese demoniacs a woman distinguished herself by her shouting; she had a gan m her hand, and a cartridge-box at her beit : her name was arcehne Epilly. The man was, of course, unanimously condemned to death, and they dragged him out of the prison to execution. And now a violent digpute arose between the chief of the escort and Marceiine as to which of them should command the firing party. The m ?<? eC - lared in faTOur of tbe f emale who was still young and pretty, a *"* decided that she should preside at the murder. The man was placed against a wall, but he was strong and determined, and throwing himself on his murderers knocked down several of them by butting with his head. They, however, Iripped up his heels, threw nun down, and fired at him ; he still raised himself, all covered with wood, and his left arm broken. Marceline then cried, " Let me manage him ; let me manage him,"' and placing her gun against his chest, she fired. He fell, and as he yet moved, she gave him the coup >de grace. The Orleans railway having been torn up below Paris P7 the insurgents, the company each day sent one of their employes to Juvisy, the temporary terminus, to carry the correspondence for PViK 11^ 1 mana S ement at T o ur 8. On May 23rd, an employe named ■Gilbert was going on foot with despatches when he was taken prisoner. A man who carries administrative letters, which are easily opened and verified, can only he a spy, belonging to Versailles, a public enemy to be got rid of as soon as possible. So judged the candid members of the Commune. Philbert was very brave and very simple ; he explained that the administrative mission he was concerned with had nothing whatever to say to politics ; that he was not more responsible than a postman who delivers letters ; that he was married and had five children, and relied not on the indulgence but the fairness of the tribunal. He was unanimously condemned to instant execution. He then asked for a priest ; for, said he, " I wish to yield up my soul to our Father who is in heaven." They smiled at his simplicity, and had already denied his request, when one of the judges said there was a cure at hand. In fact, that very day one of the curates of Vitry had been arrested and brought to the fort. The priest heard the confession of the condemned man and gave him his blessing. Poor Philbert was shot, and died bravely, like the good, honest, French Christian he seems to have been. But these are the men the Republic are now welcoming back into its bosom. Not political offenders, not ordinary conspirators, but dastardly, wanton, most vile murderers ; or, at the very best, their companions or sympathisers. They must be very sanguine who hope the present rigime will result in good to France.

We have already quoted a paragraph in which the Saturday Review speaks of the necessity that exists for England's finding a plentiful supply of soldiers. If this cannot be managed, says the journal alluded to, the course of conquest must be put an end to, if that indeed be possible. But while the conclusions of the Saturday Review are evidently just, in view of the annexation of Zululand, the probable annexation of Afghanistan, and the not altogether impossible one of Burmah, the recruiting fields of England threaten to narrow their limits considerably. Already by her own fault she has done much to lessen their extent ; her misgovernment of Ireland, her culpable neglect to prevent the starvation of the terrible famine years, has hindered an overflowing population from being there to supply her needs. The results of her tyranny, her penal laws, her myriad oppressions, are that the people wha should have swarmed upon the face of their own fertile land have in large masses gone to supply other countries with inhabitants, and now, instead of being at home ready and willing to serve her, are abroad, for the most part, amongst her most inveterate enemies ; while amongst those who remain in Ireland her service is unpopular and only to be adopted under extreme necessity. The new aspect of the land question too promises to reduce to still smaller dimensions the means of supplying the army with men. If it be true that arable farms will no longe r pay, but that pastoral must be adopted in their place, the population must largely decrease. Pastoral farms will not provide the means of livelihood for nearly so many labourers as subsist upon the arable and, V some way or another, the people must be cleared away from ofE hem. The change will certainly be attended with a great amount of hardships, for although emigration may be called upon extensively as a method of relief, it will not be possible for nearly all the humble households that must be broken up to avail themselves of it, and want and misery may be looked forward to almost with certainty, in an unprecedented degree. For the time, however, this may serve to furnish the required number of soldiers, but it is not a transitory supply that is needed, that is, if conquest is to continue, or the conquered territory of " anarchic peoples " to be kept in due subjection. What then is to be done 1 The empire upon which the sun never sets bids fair to be feebly garrisoned, or else, with an immense loss of prestige, of safety, and it may be of peace, since the "anarchic" encouraged

by any signs of weakness might perchance become aggressive, the showy god, Terminus, who now loudly boasts his position so far removed from London Bridge, may be obliged not to remain stationary, but even to retrace his steps. And that we know has ere now been looked upon as a mark of declining empire. The case undoubtedly appears a perplexing one. We shall, however, most probably see the move already partially made carried out completely ; that is, the native Indian troops will very likely be made use of for service in the United Kingdom, so as to permit of genuine British Boldiers being more largely available for the East.

Captain Cakey, we know, did nothing that he ought not to have done. That famous taitve qiiipeut in Zululand was quite en regie. It was quite according to all the rules and regulations of war since the Prince Imperial was in command of the party, that the party Bhould scamper off and leave him to his fate. The fame of the British arms among the rest was a mere trifle, and it was nothing that the eyes of all the world were upon that particular battle-field ; life is surely dearer than laurels, and to " live and fight another day" cannot be regarded as unworthy of a man. Captain Carey and his troopers are dashing cavaliers sans peur ct sans reproche. Such is the sentence passed upon them and far be it from us to contradict it. Still we confess we had a misgiving, a groundless one we know. Somehow or other we did not like the notion that Captain Carey was an Irishman, and as the name is not uncommon in Ireland we were in doubt concerning the matter. Although, of course, since Captain Carey is a brave officer he would only be an honour to Ireland, as he is now to England his native country. In a word he belongs to Devonshire, and comes of a family celebrated in the fictions of the late Rev. Charles Kingsley ; his name is Jahleel Brenton Carey. In conclusion it is a pity he did not live in the times of good Queen Bess. We can fancy he would have found himself at home " potting" from behind the bulwarks of a man-of-war at monks who were roasting Indians on the Spanish Main.— For all who read the Rev. Charles Kingslay's fictions must know there were such monks.

There are few Irishmen who have not at some time or another felt the blood rush to their faces and indignation swell their hearts at the mention of the informer— that unspeakable, miserable creature, the product amongst their honourable race of ages of oppression ; the more hateful because of the contrast presented by him with the great mass of the people whom he disgraces, and whom ages of oppression have not moved one inch from the path of rectitude and honour. The informer is found in times of disturbance, and a corrupt Government buys the wretch's soul, and sends him out to murder and betray. But, alas ! it is not only in the times of disturbance that he exists ; some members of his class— a thin class, thank God, is always to be found, and dogs his fellow-countrymen to every part of the earth, for their shame and disgust. Even in these colonies he is to be met with, not literally informing, indeed, for which there is no need, but ready to come forward in any filthy capacity that may add to his substance or importance. Now, we see him unable to endure the burden of good fortune ; by some means or another he has attained to considerable wealth ; his belly is well filled and his back well covered ; insolence overpowers him, and he even presumes to think that God Himself should bow on His eternal throne and condescend to his conceit. Some such poor, miserable creature occasionally comes forward during any anti- Irish or antiCatholic agitation that may be taking place, and enters his base whine against the country he shames, or the religion he never was able to appreciate. We find an instance now of this, if, indeed it be genuine, in a letter published in the Melbourne Age, a letter false, ignorant, contemptible, utterly beneath notice, but which may serve as a specimen of the kind of tactics on which secularists rely in their oppression of Catholics. This creature, who signs himself " Catholic," writes as follows, and his letter requires no comment :— " When in County Clare we worked for 3s. 6d. a week, with buttermilk and potatoes to eat. Our children got no learning, only the Catechism taught under hedges by our priests. Many thousand* of us were not able to read and write. When I look back I think that God has been good to us in bringing us to this fine country, where many of us have land and cattle and plenty to cat, both ourselves and our children. Our boys are young Australians, not Irish, and don't care for the priests. Yet if the fathers and mothers send their children to the State schools, tuc priests theaten to turn them out of the church. Let them turn mine out ; my children shall never again enter a Catholic church. The Government has spent tens of thousands to put up schools for our children that they may not be poor, ignorant creatures as we were in the old country. The Government has the best learned teachers entirely. Never in the wide world was the poor so cared for as in this fine country. Send all your children to the State schools that they may get fine learning. The priest's duty is to teach religion; if they won't do it, we will find another Church. Irishmen all stick to your children ; don't give them to the tender mercies of the priests. They want only our money aad our children to domineer overi Let

them turn them out of the church. Follow my advice, stick to the State schools. We have no enemies but the priests, who would drive us hke cattle before them, and keep us under constant fear of them. Let your children get good learning, which is now in your power and you will S ee your children grow up fine learned men and women. Let us look at ourselves. What learning did the poor in Ireland get ? Religion has been left out in the State schools, and very properly • we want no religious squabbles, no domineering priests driving our children like sheep, as we were in old Ireland, the whip cracking over our heads and on our backs. This is what they want to see in this fine country. Let them keep to religion only, and they will get my support, but I will not have my children's minds filled with hatred towards others who profess another religion. Their young minds are pure. Why do priest* constantly try to instil into us about enemies? Where are they ? I have n^ver found them, and do not believe that Protestants trouble about us any how ; and the Government care for us all alike. So let us behave well to them, as they are the best for the poor that I have known, and, please God, I for one will stick to them."

The Bishops of New South Wales are valiantly continuing their anti-secularist crusade, and are splendidly supported by their people The following passage from an address presented to the Bishop of Bathurst at. Dubbo, during His Lordship's visitation of his diocese is well worthy of attention :-While highly appreciating both the opinions of a liberal Press and the enactments of enlightened legislators, in subjects of a purely secular character, we instinctively recognize m the living voice of the successors of the Apostles, the safe°st guide and unerring teacher in such matters vitally affecting the salvation of souls as Christian education ; and therefore,,in the spirit of the Catholic Faith, we cheerfully submit to the precepts and abide by the counsels of those whom Christ has commissioned to " Teach all Nations" and empowered to rule and govern His Church. It is in truth, but dome simple justice to your Lordship to assert that ever since your arrival in the Colony and notably since the Provincial Council of Melbourne the rule which is being insisted upon has been the strict law of your Diocese, and it was because of such a law that the Catholics of this district erected and maintained at considerable sacrifices that building which is now the certified school of this town and which has been for the last ten years a standing protest on our part against the purely secular system of education. It is needless therefore, for us to say that we have ever been as one with your Lordship, and the Catholic Hierarchy of this provice in this all-im-portant matter of education, and that in urging on the legislators of this colony, the necessity of a system of education based upon religion we are but giving expression to the sincere belief of every Catholic worthy of the name in this and every other country."

The veteran bigot; of Australia is well known to be Dr. Macartney, the Dean of Melbourne. He is an Irishman, and his hatred of Catholicism is of that class peculiar to the Irish Protestant, when he is a bigot, in which the natural tendency of a man to feel a spite against his neighbour who disagrees with him, is mistaken for religious zeal. This we have always marked as a distinguishing feature of the unfortunate people in question, and Dr. Macartney is one of its mort striking examples. When, therefore, we find such a man coming forward in support of any demand of Catholics, we may be perfectly sure matters have reached the extreme. We need not, indeed, thank him much for the aid he proposes to give us, for he offers to fling it at our heads in the hope of injuring us instead of aiding, but, although his opinions are matter of ridicule to us, we are ready to accept his facts with all the gratitude it is incumbent upon us to yield in return. Here is what he says :— " He was not an Orangeman, but he knew that Orangemen were Protestants, and a 8a 8 Protestants he wished to speak to them. He thought it was matter for regret that the Education Act was of such a character as to give the Catholics an opportunity of declaiming against the system as an irreligious one. Mr. Crews had remarked that they had given up the Bible to satisfy the Roman Catholics; but this idea had never occurred to him, because he felt that nothing would satisfy them short of driving every Protestant out of the country. Seeing, then, that the Protestant denominations had sacrificed the Bible for naught, it became them to look about them. He believed that in so doing they had really strengthened the hands of Rome, as the Catholics had established their own schools, and the education of their children was completely uuder the control of the priests. He did not know how many Catholic children there were in the State schools, but he believed the number was very small, and he considered, therefore, that the object for which the Bible had been excluded from the State schools had failed. He highly appreciated the work done by young men's associations and Sunday schools, but practical experience convinced him that the religious instruction of the young could not be properly carried out unless Bible teaching was made part and parcel of the State school system. He might tell them that his own individual views were not in favour of compulsory or secular education, but he

fully recognized the impossibility of eliminating these features from the system that had been established. Mr. Crews had remarked that if the Roman Catholics had a separate grant, the Church of England and other bodies would want the same ; but he thought he mi^hfc answer for the Church of England that no claim would be made by that body. The Anglicans had no desire to have the care of the schools thrust upen their hands. They were aware that the Roman Catholics were asking for payment by results, and he might remind them that the late Bishop and the Rev. Mr. Flescher, Congregational minister of Richmond, both arrived at the same conclusion that this was the best way out of the difficulty. To give a grant to the Roman Catholic Church would be to make that the State Church, but if payment were made tot secular results, irrespective of the denomination, the Act might be availed of by Jews and others as well as Catholics, and Protestants could have their children instructed in Scripture truths without any hindrance. He did not think it would strengthen the Roman Catholics, but rather the reverse, because their schools would be open to Government inspection, and would not be so much under the influence of the priest as they were now He concluded by exhorting them to give up the idea that they were guarding against Popery by dropping religion. Before sitting down he expressed his willingness to answer any questions." This, notwithstanding its tone of detestation, is valuable testimony and affords an answer to a vast deal of the nonsense by which our secularists back up their tyranny, and attempt to discredit the good, will of the Catholic laity respecting Catholic education. This old man, whose bigotry has strengthened every year for the greater part of a century, contradicts the assertion that the laity are divided from their priests. He says that, ©n the contrary, they have effectually placed their children in the hands of their priests. He contradicta also the assertion that the State schools overflow with Catholic chil. dren ; he does not know the number that attends there he says, but he believes it to be very small. He tells his Orangemen, in a word, that secularism cannot stamp out (t Popery," and he tells the truth.