BAZAARS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 345, 28 November 1879, Page 11

BAZAARS.

The following letter, addressed by the late Cardinal Wiseman to an ifing ieh journalist, has been recently exhumed by the editor of the Jrxsh Monthly. It forcibly deals with an absurd objection to which even Catholics are sometimes tempted to pay attention :

_. „ _ Talachre, Rhyl, Sept. 2, 1862. Dear Mr. Walhs.— So far from -wishing you to burke the subject oi bazaars, I hope you will go fully into it, more tvo. I could not believe that your sentiments were expressed in the letter of Cogitans," but I did not know of the plot. My Tablet has not reached me yet. The Pope's lottery is a serious fact for the enemies of those oJd-fashioned expedients of charity. You are perfectly right in considering the antipathy to the blending of a little sober and innocent excitement with a work of charity as a mixed result of Puseyism and iresoytenanism, whose union here is mysterious. I believe the form of amalgamation was the infusion of Puritanism into the High Church befoie any of its members joined üb. No doubt it would be the heroism of charity for 200 Catholics to walk demurely into a room with a ticket-taker's box at the end, and eacn put down his contribution from £5 to ss. or £100, and walk back home with a sort of self-satisfied grimness in his countenance and a phansaical mockery in his tossed-up nose at the thought that he had performed a deed of charity. But, unfortunately, " heroes and Heroines of charity" are phenomena, and not generally people who can .give you £5. May not poor human nature be coaxed and won a little to do good, by an admixture of amenities and playfulness and relaxation, which even prolong and diversify the performance of a virtuous act? In the Hymn for Lauds, in the Office for St. Elizabeth of Portugal (February 8) there is a pretty allusion to her converting %nto roses the charity she was bearing, so as to conceal it. We cannot do this, but we can conceal it in a simpler way as the verse insinuates :

.. " Id innuit rosis operta charitas." -Now, that is what a bazaar does. Igo in with £10 say. I might stalk up to kind Lady Bountiful's stall, lay down my money, desire it to be put down to the account of the charity, and walk out again without deigning to look at the vanity fair on either side, nor at the cneeeful yet modest vestals who are trying to palm its goods or its evils on me. This would be, to my mind, mock heroic, and possibly real phansaical. Instead of that, I walk through the bazaar, go from stall to stall, pretend to let myself be taken in and done for by the kindhearted saleswomen, who know I have gone there for no other purpose, and whose extravagant prices only mean the highest alms you will give ; sow my ten pounds in fractions over the various counters, and retreat without anyone the least knowmg what I have given, though tne fractions of it will join together to form the stated figure. I go out, covering my charit-, not indeed with roses (unless in Berlin wool), but with slippers, pincushions, most useless baby things, lucifer boxes, and very coarse Roman collars, five shillings' worth of the veriest trash, for which I have given £10. Yet Ido not grudge it. Ihey were the roses which concealed my charity. In the meantime, I have passed an hour of London weather in a bright hall, and have met and talked with scores of charitable loungers like myself, whom I should not otherwise have met without a formal visit, who are also going off with pockets and arms full of equally useless and flimsy articles, which will be very much valued at the distribution of prizes in their poor schools, or at the next bazaar. Will any one go to bed heavier-hearted for having thus mingled the utile of charity with the dulce of recreation ? Under what commandment shall it be put in our evening examination of conscience when we come to look at our failings that day 1 I suppose one might write an essay " On the ungodliness of bazaars which come of the lurks, and the malignity of lotteries which come of the Pope of Rome and his shavelings." But a Catholic could hardly do it. I have let myself ramble on, but really there is a great deal to say on the matter. ******* Your affectionate servant in Christ, N. Card. Wiseman.