Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 387, 10 September 1880, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

EVIL DOINGS. Catholic Bule.

THE Edinburgh Review for April has an article entitled « Catholic Rule in Ireland," in which the writer seeks to prove that Home Bule would be " Such a House of Commons," he says, would be in a great measure returned by the priests, and subservient to them as they are subservient to their Church." We do not, however, think tnat in the course of hia fair-spirited but somewhat confused article ne has by any means made out his point ; nor can we see how he cornea to such a conclusion when, a few paragraphs previously, he has already described the attitude of the Irish clergy as follows • "In the days of Rinuccini, at the time of the Remonstrance, daring the discussion of the Veto, at the present day, the priests have always taken the popular side, sometimes leading, sometimes following the people." We do not purpose, however, to follow the writer in tnis argument which he vainly imagines applicable to the present question of Home Rule. We do but intend to gather up here aud there some particulars which he gives us as to men and matters during the Great Rebellion, as it is called, of 1641-48, and whose atrocities, until Mr. Lecky exposed their exaggeration and falsehood were supposed to have justified the abominable cruelties ol Cromwell The reviewer, however, shows us that, although the insurgents were far from blameless, the conduct of the English and Scotch was very barbarous. Take, for example his account of the principal Scotch settler in Leitrim, Sir Frederick Hamilton. Hamilton, it seems, was at Londonderry when the rebellion broke out, but he managed to reach home, " after killing a few rogues." « Connor O'Rourke, who held the office of Sheriff, was friendly at first, but after a few days Hamilton's own Irieh tenants deserted him, and he was practically beseiged with some fifty Scots. The investment being careless, they made many successful sallies, and, hearing that some English had been slain at Sligo, Sir Frederick had a high gallows erected outside his castle, upon which eight out of twenty-four prisoners were hanged in retaliation. A list is given of fifty-six prisoners, including one woman, thus summarily disposed of in fourteen months. Little regard was anywhere paid to sex during this horrible war, nor did women always show it themselves. During an ambuscade in Westmeath, contrived by one of the young Dillons, a few peasants with spade* and other rude weapons, • with the feminean sex followed ... the women were not idle, the ascending vapour of their liquor caused them to be somewhat bloody. As many as they found tumbling (though striving to get upon hia legs) did dash out his brains with stones, and though their skulls mortered to powder, never thought them dead enough; twenty-three were killed and one escaped.' Incursions were made into the surrounding country, and men, sometimes women too, were killed in their beds. Battles 'took place under the walls, Lady Hamilton coming out and serving food and wine to the soldiers. On July 1, 1642, the daring Hamilton entered Sligo, burning the Abbey with the friars in it, except two who were killed in their cowls running out, and it was ' confessed by themselves, we destroyed that night 300 souls by fire, sword, and drowning, to God's everlasting great honour and glory and our comMnt: " Sir Frederick Hamilton, the reviewer tells us further on, was *a " zealous Covenanter." If such, then, were the settlers in Ireland it is hardly to be wondered at that the people rose against them. They were a race of murderers, and in self-defence it was nece^ar.i to resist them. But of the feeling with which the Irish wwe regaided J>y the English and Scotch at the time we are given a striking instance. It is contained in the paragraph in which are described the fortunes of Montrose's Irish auxiliaries. "The Ulster contingent " say the reviewer, "shared in all Montrose's victories from Tippermuir to Kilsyth. Shortly after the latter fight, Al ai .ter himself left Montrose, and, returning after a time to Ireland, fell in battle on the Englishman's Hill near Mallow. . . . Sever hundred of his men remained behind in Scotland to furnish victims for the carnage of Phihphaugh. It is not likely that many escaped, for the camp-fol-lowers were massacred promiscuously, the preachers looking on and

1 ? 11 "^*^"^ * Parliament brtSfeTX? I ** y asßize or process ' confom to tbe tr «^ Partaentsh^^ ' F"" 4 * "*-' Both English and Scotch te S t Pi Jrdinance « Meeting no quarter to be given BneSah VrTl \ " I *^™ of these barbarities is that unS Ih! p , ?^- 1 '*" IO ° ked Upon Irißh Pa P ißts *» O-ttam did extended S J^iaus-hell hounds of savage war. The. feeling nonWt ,°? Wh ° emplOyedßUch "^ries, and Montrose did qulsMon n°f m< ; y PUWiC feding ° Q the Sub^ ect -" Bnt « altho^ *» EnttT, H^^°n entered thus intimately into the feelings of the as fuch lS? 8c ° tC l toWßrdß the Iri <*> it is quite evident &* it had as such little or netting to do with the attitude of the Irish towards it w^ST^l^ th6y feltaQ y articular loathing of Protestantism, it was because they were obliged to associate it with the barbaroni treatment they received from the foreign settlers, just as at the present day any sentiment of bigotry that may exist against it in Ireland anses from its association with an oppressive class and government, curing this rebellion we write of, for instance. Bishop Bedell, a proselytising Protestant, was treated with the utmost consideration P T I by the insur gentßg entB whose hands he had fallen, and m as, when the town of Wexford was in the possession of the rebels, the Protestant rector, Archdeacon Elgee, remained therewith perfect satety m his rectory house. The movements alluded to were not religious, m fact, and that such was the case with regard to that of 1641, the reviewer from whom we quote has furnished us with more than one proof. Take, for example, what he tells us concerning the feeling exhibited towards the Old English settlers who were Catholics : Events," says he, "had placed the gentry of the Pale in a position of extraordinary difficulty. Many of them were probably aware of what was impending, but as a rule they took no part in the outbreak, reeling instinctively that, though religion might bind them to the Irish for a time, nothing could really obliterate the distinctions of race. Ambrose Bedell often heard the Irish say to the Old English :— You churls with the great breeches, do you think, if we were rid of the English that we would spare you 7 No, we would cut all your throats also; for you are all of one race with the other English, though we make use of you for the present.' " Indeed we have every reason to believe that throughout the whole contept, as it must necessarily be in so horrible a state of things, religion was at the lowest ebb. Rinuccini, at least, the Pope's Nuncio, who had had ample means of judging of the matter, and whom the reviewer calls " a thoroughly pious and sincere priest" when he had at length returned to France, gave his opinion as follows : "It may be by the will of God that a people Catholic only in name, and so irreverent towards the Church, should feel the thunderbolt of the Holy See, and draw upon themselves the anger which is the meed of the scorner." "Poor Ireland ! " says the reviewer, " it is hard that this of all crimes, should be laid to her charge." Let us mark, however, the inconsistency of attempting to prove that Home Rule would now mean total subserviency to the Church by the narration of a state of things concerning which the Pope's Nuncio uttered such words.

BEATRICE CENCI.

Another popular fallacy, with which the character of a Pope also was more or less supposed to be con* nected, has recently been exploded. It is that relating to the story of Beatrice Cenci. Many of our readers will, no doubt, be acquainted with the version of this unfortunate lady's career which has hitherto prevailed. It was that she had been a young, beautiful, and interesting pirl, almost a child, who had killed her father, and excusably kilkd him, in so far as so fearful a depd could be excusably performed ; that she also, although deserving pardon, had b^cn put to death by Pope Clement VIII., in a great degree because His Holiness was desirous of seizing on her property, and from the cruelty of his disposition. Guido Reni was supposed to have painted her portrait, a well-known picture of a female, with large melancholy eyes and golden hair, wearing a white turban. Shelley has made her the subject of a tragedy ; Guerrazzi of a romance, and Alexandre Dumas has written the history of her crime and death, with every circumstance of horror, amongst his crimes cZttbres. The researches of an Italian scholar have, however, DO w brought to light facts substantiated by authentic

documents that prove the whole legend in question to be almost without foundation. We take the following particulars from an article reviewing the work alluded to by M. A. Geffroy in the Revue des Deux Mondes of April 15. It had been supposed, he says, that the Sixteenth Century had shown the angel of parricide, as the French Revolution was to reveal the angel of political assassination! but M. Bertolotti, the author reviewed, has destroyed such an imagination. Ho shows that Beatrice was indeed shut up by her father in his lonely Castle of Rocca di Petrella, and harshly used there ; but it was because of the bad life she had led, and she was at the time twenty-two years of age, not sixteen as it has been supposed. In order to free herself, then, she formed the plot of murdering hei father, and drew into it her brothers and her step-mother. She armed the actual murderer, and placed him and his assistants in a hiding place and herself administered to her father a narcotic to stupify him for the fell deed. Afterwards she dragged out the corpse and aided in throwing it down a precipice. She also had one of the assistant assassins, who tried to go away, followed and killed to prevent his divulging the crime. The discovery was made, however, by an anonymous communication, and the Cenci were arrested and put in prison. Their trial lasted during a year, and at first Beatrice denied everything, and sought to lay the whole guilt upon her step-mother and the other accomplices. It was only by torture, then universally in use, as well as by the overwhelming force of proofs that she was at length induced to confess. Meantime the Pope, Clement VIII., was most desirous of showing indulgence, but crime at the time was rife and terrible. He had recently pardoned a man named Massimo, and his mercy had been abused for this man in a little time after committed fratricide by poisoning his brother. Another man named Santa Croce, a relative moreover of the Cenci, had murdered his mother. The Pope, therefore, perceiving that an example was needed, signed the death warrant of Beatrice and her companions ; and thus the accusation of cruelty brought against him is disproved. Again, as to his avarice : we are informed that, although confiscation followed by law on condemnation, Clement permitted Beatrice's property to be disposed of as she had willed it away, and the property of her brother Giacomo, who took part in her punishment as in her Clime, was restore:! to his widow and children. Another illusion that is destroyed is that the picture said to be Beatrice's portrait painted by Guido Reni is not in fact at all of such an origin ; the artist did not arrive in Rome for nine years after the death of the Cenci. The picture is in all probability a mere study, a production of the imagination, but, although it's appropriation as a likeness of Beatrice, seems to have no earlier date than the beginning of this century, the reviewer thinks it has evidently served to keep the memory of the parricide before the world. So much then for the value of this popular and pathetic legend, and, once more, so much for aspersions cast upon the characters of the Popes.

AN ENEMY of the JESUITS,

The persecution which the Jesuit Fathers are now again undergoing in France necessarily recalls to us that carried out against them towards the end of the last century, and brings before our minds the memory of their persecutors. Of these there were several, such as D'Aranda in Spain, Choiseul in France, Tanucci in Italy ; but of all the fiercest was to be found in Portugal in the person of the Marquis of Pombal. It ia but a few weeks sines we had occasion to summaiize an account of the vile doings of this philosophic statesman from the brilliant historical sketch of which a translation was published by U3 in extenso some months since, that is Paul Feval's " Jesuits I" so that, with one or two brief exceptions, we shall not now return to this source of information — doubtless well remembered by our readers in connection with the remarks lately mad'? by vs # Keverfcheless it may be as well for us to refer those who, perhaps, have omitted to read the very admirable work in question, and moi-e especially that portion of it to which we now particularly allude, to the New Zealand Tablet of August Ist, Bth, 13th, 1879. It now suits our purpose better to quote from a non- Catholic writer, who is to a considerable extent favourable to Pombal, so that we may see to what extent he confirms the account given by M. Feval. lv the Edinburgh Review, then, for July 1872, we find an article on the subject in question, and it is from this we shall principally quote. Pombal, as we know, was a philosopher belonging to the school of Voltaire and the Encylopedists. The reviewer attributes the opposition offered to him at first at the Court of Portugal to his philosophical reputation ; he says, '• The course of Carvalho's studies in French philosophical literature had probably reached the friar's ears " (p. 188) he tolls us again that the Marquis had complained of .having found in Portugal " a people subject to the grossest superstition " (p. 101), and again he says that " " Carvalho commenced his attack upon the Ordei with much adroitness, and by it he marked an even greater schemo than the destruction of the Society, and that was the crippling of the power of the Church " (p. 205), and finally he narrates how the Marquis brought about with perseverance and much insult a complete rupture with Rome (p. 208). We may be convinced, then, that throughout bia career Pombal preserved bis philosophical teneta intact, and

that M. Paul Feval has full authority to base the statement of h^s crowning a philosophical life by refusing the sacraments of the Church upon his death bed. He was, therefore, a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him from practising gross deceit when it suited his purpose. " His detractors," says the reviewer, " assert that when Carvalho was hanging about the court looking eagerly foV place, he sedulously cultivated the society of the Jesuits. . . The manner in which he repaid the fraternity is a matter of history. Moreira (one of the fathers who had helped him on) languished oitf his days in the prisons of the Junquiera " (p. 189). Neither did hl| philosophy prevent him from persecuting for heresy, or pretended heresy, when it so pleased him. On the Inquisition he had early laid hold. The reviewer tells us "In 1751, the year after he entered the Ministry, the power of the Inquisition received a serious blow. It was enacted by decree that in future no auto da fe should take place, and no execution be carried into effect without the consent of the Govern* ment, and appeals were allowed from and inquiries made into the sentences of the Holy Office " (p. 190). The Inquisition, then was in his bands, for he was omnipotent in Portugal, and the King but a puppet in his toils, — " His preserving his authority over the King, and his making the most violent use of absolute power, are but equivocal proofs of his understanding, and courage ; cunning obstinacy, and revenge mque ad internecionem are qualities willingly allowed. (Note p. 203.) Such being his power then, he prostituted the Holy Office to the condemnation of Father Gabriel Malagrida, of whose saintly career and cruel end Paul Feval gives so fine a des^ cription. The reviewer's account varies in some degree bu* it is all we need to prove our point. " Master of the situation," he says, "the Court of Oeyras (Pombal) now put into execution the remainder of his schemes against the Jesuits. The goods of the fraternity, moveable and immoveable, were confiscated by the Crown. The unfortunate Malagrida, who in spite of the consideration he had obtained in Portugal, appears to have been a half, crazed fanatic, was sentenced to death, not for complicity in the attempted assassination of the king, of which he had been declared guilty, but for heresy. He was accordingly burned, not alive, as is generally believed, but after beiDg strangled." (P. 209.) He, however, tells us, in a note, that Gomez, one of his authorities, distinctly says 'brute vif, 1 burned alive. Whether, then, Malagrida was a saint, ap Paul Feval asserts, or, according to this reviewer, a "crazy fanatic," it is clear that Pombal, the master of the king, the master of the Inquisition, condemned him to death because of his religious opinions. Here, then, is a philosopher who burns I a heretic, or a pretended heretic, when it pleases him. Nor did Pombal's philosophy preserve him otherwise from cruelty. We know what Paul Feval has said of his action with regard to the Tavora case : the reviewer's description of this terrible transaction varies in some particulars, but his conclusion is this, " The procedure against the prisoners was secret and scandalously unjust ; the execution of the sentence was atrociously cruel ; and the whole transaction is tainted by its evident connexion with Pombal's political desig-is and personal animosities." (p. 203.) Is it not an honour to the Jesuits to have been persecuted by such a man as this ? But let us conclude our notice of this statesman, this philosopher trained in the school of Voltaire and the encyclopedists, and persevering in them to his death, with the sentence passed upon him by a well-known English writer, the reputed author of the " Letters of Junius" We shall learn from it once more, that " liberty and the rights of man," however fine a theory they may form, are not always to be found marking the practice of those who make a profsssion of belief in them. Philip Francis, then, writes as follows, '• The last question to be considered is, whether he has made the Portuguese a richer or a happier people than he found them ? If he has, it must be confessed that the means he makes use of would hardly have produced that effect in any other country. If he has not, his maxim that sovereigns are not to be restrained by treaties from consulting the internal welfare of tlieir subjects, leaves him without the possibility of a defence. If the measures which he calls expedient, fail of success, he is precluded from pleading any obstructions that might arise from the engagements of the crown with foreign nations. The conclusion reverts, with accumulated force, against the wisdom and mildness of his administration. Hitherto it has only been marked by the blood of the principal nobility, and universal oppression of the pe<2jJe. There can be no increase of wealth in a conntry where industrials effectually discouraged, and no man's property secure. There can be no domestic content or happiness among a people, one half of which are spies upon the other. Racks, gibbets, and dungeons are the emblems and resources of his government. It is but the natural consequence of such a government that the Portuguese, with maay advantages o£ personal character and local situation, are the meanest and most degraded people, and the crown of Portugal the least respected of any in Europe, (p. 215.) Such then was the state of Portugal under tne rule of Philosophy or Freethought. To-day, we learn that things are on a much more prosperous and happier footing there, and we may add that our authority for this statement is Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, Her Majesty's consul at Oporto, of whom the Saturday Review speaks as follows ;— " Mr. Crawfurd is sympathetic

where Ford (author of a hand-book on Spain) was sarcastic ; and indeed, so far as onr personal acquaintance with Portugal goes, we should say that he paints in too rosy colours. But it is difficult to dispute the conclusions of an author who is thoroughly well informed as to all he is writing about ; and if his apologies and arguments fieem occasionally sophistical, his descriptions bear the vivid impress of truth. . . . His official position at Oporto has made him conversant with the conditions of Anglo-Portuguese trade; he has for I many years been a practical farmer ; and he has devoted the time he could rpare from these pursuits to historical, archaeological, and literary studies." (Saturday Review, June 5, '80, p. 734.) It was from this review, as we plainly stated at the time, that we took the extracts repeating Portugal given by us in a late issue, and which our readers will, no doubt, remember.

ATTITUDE OP THE FRENCH CLERGY.

The Abbe Martin has an article in the Nineteenth Century for July, in which he explains the true disposition of the French clergy towards the Republic. It is not that by any means of enmity* he says, on the contrary, the clergy, being for the most pait drawn from the middle and lower classes, to which the Republic looks especially for support, may be supposed to be republican in their sympathies. The Church prescribes no particular form of Government, and with the monarchy, in any of its forms, the French clergy, in later times at least, have never had reason to associate their interests. It is clear, indeed, that the common belief which associates them with the wncien rigime is totally groundless. Under it their revenues were largely sequestrated ; the Crown disposed of ecclesiastical property in the most reckless and frequently shameful manner. It was bestowed upon laymen of all degrees of character, and diverted without scruple from its original uses. The religious Orders were suppressed or placed under grave and harrassing restrictions, and the freedom of the Church in many ways cm tailed. It is even now by virhie of measures passed during the ancien rSffime that the expulsion of the unauthorised Orders takes place. Again, neither the restoration nor the reign of Louis Philippe were friendly to the Church, and the Third Empire was her secret enemy. But, the fact is, the Abbe Martin, and every other apologist must fail in an attempt to set the attitude of the French clergy in its proper light, and have it clearly recognised amongst extreme Republicans. The extreme Republic, like its source the Revolution, will not consent to be regarded with favour by the clergy. It is determined to oppress, and drive them out, and no submission or marks of friendship on their part will appease it. It was so during the Revolution ; the priests who approved of the change of Government, or who accepted it without a murmur, were persecuted none the less fiercely than if they had resisted it. " The ruling passion," says M. Tame " flings itself on all obstacles, even those placed by itself across its own track. Through a vast usurpation the incredulous minority, indifferent or luke-warm, has striven to impose its ecclesiastical forms on the Catholic majority, and the situation thereby created for the Catholic priest is such that unless he becomes schismatic, he cannot fail to appear as an enemy. In vain has he obeyed ! He has allowed his property to be taken, he has left his parsonage, he has given the keys of the Church to his successor, he has kept aloof, he does not transgress either by omission or commission any article of the decree In vain does he avail himself of his legal right to abstain from taking an oath repugnant to his conscience. This alone makes him appear to refuse the civic oath in which the ecclesiastical oath ig included, to reject the constitution which he accepts in full, m'mus a parasite chapter, to conspire against the new social and political order of things which he often approves of, and to which he almost always submits. In vain does he confine himself to his special and recognised domain, the spiritual direction of things. Through this alone he resists the new legislators who pretend to furnish a spiritual guidance, for, by virtue of his being orthodox, he must believe that the priest whom they elect is excommunicated, that his sacraments are vain ; and, in his office as pastor, he must prevent his sheep from going to drink at an impure source." (" The Revolution," p. 337.) What then may be expected from the Republic which glorifies the Revolution ? We are well persuaded it only awaits its opportunity to repeat all this, and once more, assuming that there is resistance where none in truth exie+s, by every " legal or brutal act of violence," as M. Tame says a page or two fuither on, " io crush the rebellion even in the inaccessible sanctuary of personal conviction." The Martin, and all others with him, then, must fail in producing any impression on the present Government of his country ; but still if he succeeds in making the truth clear in England, he will have accomplished no vain task.

equality based on theology.

Another old house is tumbling about our ears ; we are in fact quite as much puzzled by the aspect of "science" as we are used to being by that of " Evangelicalism " when we give our attention to it. Science, in short, seems just as much divided

against itself, and it is impossible for us to find out which of its schools is the one that claims most consideration. The one thing only of which we can be certain is that they cannot all be right, whereas it is quite possible they may every one of them be wrong, and, under the circumstances, the best thing we can possibly do, it seems to us, is to cling close to the fine old ship that has weathered so many storms, and which, it is our strong suspicion, and a good deal more besides, will come gallantly sailing into port at last with all hands well on board. Meantime we find a professed sceptic giving us some information that will not go smoothly down at all with other sceptics that we know of. It is Mr. Mallock, and his article to which we allude is to be found in the Nineteenth Century for May. He gives us to understand, then, that without the belief in a personal God there is no foundation for the *' rights of man." " This belief in the rights of man, as the world has held it hitherto," he says, " will be seen to have been essentially a theological belief. The belief in men's equality was a belief that men had souls. The belief in men's rights was a belief in a God who sanctioned them. As tried at the tribunal of knowledge and calm intellect, the social doctrine relies on the religious, not only for its support, but for its meaning Nor is it too much to say of the entire fabric of Liberalism that, in so far as it is either a fact accomplished, or a clear ideal to work towards, it has directly sprung from theism, and has been at once fortified and maintained by it. Theism and the Rights of Man have till quite lately been convertible terms. The latter has indeed been nothing but one aspect of the former." The Liberal school of the day, he tells us, view this fact defectively. " "Whilst proclaiming with increasing vehemence that Theism is an illusion, they forget that the rights of man may prove an illusion likewise, and that, instead of their being recognised more fully in the future, there may in the future be nothing of them left to recognise." It is, moreover, a very notable thine to find it acknowledged, and that not only by the sceptic, from whom we quote, but even by a writer of the Liberal school itself that the Catholic Church, to which the opposite is so frequently objected, has had a considerable part in the advance of liberal progress. " One of this school in America," continues Mr. Mallock, "has recently written thus :— ' Entire equality of rights implies entire equality of natures ; and as the latter quality does not really exist, the former will never exist in the moral law ; the equality in civil law representing only a gross approximation to it

. . . The Catholic Church created au artificial and absolute equality in salvation. . . Which could be applied indiscriminately to all. Such an equality is certainly rejected by Positivism.' " The writer, however, he says, although •' he admits that the theory of Catholicism had practically a profound effect in the direction of liberal progress," does not seem to grasp the whole situation ; "he fails to inquire if, as the cause ceases, the effect in question will not presently cease likewise. I say presently, because in cases like these such cessation is never immediate." The following sentences have, moreover, a strong bearing on what we ourselves have more than once advanced as to the morality and Christian virtues of Freethought. " There is a certain momentum possessed by ideas and sentiments which makes them outlast for a time the beliefs which justify them ; just as a man's credit may for a time outlast his finances. Thus the liberal tendencies we at present perceive around us can contain, as they are, no pledge of their own continuance ; and we can make no calculations at all as to their future, until we have deprived them carefully, in imagination, of all those forces which we know must in time exhaust themselves, and have considered with equal care the changed condition of the remainder."

EQUALITY A FABLE.

We already hare heard a German writer declare that the scientific doctrine of the " survival of the fittest" was one totally at variance with the notion of equality, and which might be availed of to excuse any system of tyranny. From Mr. Mallock also we learn that the belief in equality is opposed to science. •' Modern science," he says, "as the writer just quoted admits (that is the American alludsd to in our last paragraph), denies that men are equal. This, however, is but half the truth ; it insists that they are unequal ; and it does so with a fulness and hardness of meaning, which, it may be sßfely said, was till our day inconceivable. The brutality to his slaves of no Eastern despot, the contempt towards barbarians of no Attic philosopher, ever implied this doctrine so fully as modern science expresses it. All its tendency is to prove with increasing clearness that each man is the creature of his parentage -and his education, that of his human value his body is tbe cause and index, and that not only are men's apparent inequalities real, but that in reality they are greater than iv appearance. No spiritual vision can pierce through them, and discover beneath the surface somo treasure that is shared by all, for no such treasure exists. There are but two ways in which a man's value can be conceived or measured — by the pleasure he is to himself, and by the use he is to others. And this use and pleasure are these things as they are, not any nee

and pleasure that we conceive might have been. Had a man been in the least degree other than he is, to the eyes of modern science, he would have been another man. What each man is, is all that each man could have been. Nothing was ever possible but what has been or will be actual. Thus, to talk of equality between men as men is , as absurd as to talk of equality between dogs as dogs, or between horses as horses. It is indeed probably more absurd ; for between man and man there is room for yet greater difference. There are savages who, accurately in the scale of animals, are nearer the highest than the highest of their own species ; and if creatures so iar removed from each other can be called in any way equal, then not only may we say that dogs are equal to dogs, but that a cat is equal to an elephant." Here then is a sceptic who informs us that (science, of which Freethought makes its boast, scoffs at the notion of equaliy ! But Freethought is loud in its assertion of equality . What are we to believe ? Is Freethought at variance with science?

xo bights of man nob state education fob the GODLESS,

Again*, as to the Eights of Man, let us see what it is that Mr. Mallock has to tell us. " The conception," says lie, "of such rights, . . . implies a God who sanctions them." He then goes on to examine the meaning of the word "rights," and thus defines it. " A right is a claim or a possession, which 6Otne power or other will either protect or vindicate." And again he sajs, " the sanctioning power is as essential as the claim or the possession— a right unsanctioned is not a right a* all," and again, " Whilst the sanction is essential to the right, justice essentially has nothing at all to do with it." '• Rights, then," he says, " are the creations of the supremest might that has any practical bearing on the possession or claims that may be in question. This is what they are essentially, and they are no more than this." " The conception of rights," he tells us again, " as in any way self existing is merely a loose expression of the belief that a certain Being existed in whom absolute justice was united to absolute might." " Again" he says, " justice itself, in its political and social bearings, depends for at least all its Liberal meaning on the same belief and on a kindied one — on a belief in God, and a belief in the soul of man." Apart from these it still means something, but " something very limited" as he explains, but " as connected with any theories of political and social progress, as forming part of the conception of the rights of man justice includes . . . not the idea that to each man must be given his due, but that the admitted debt is of a certain stated amount. The amount ot the debt," " he continues, "not the fact of it, is the real question debated by progressive Liberalism. And the calculation of this amount, as the Liberalism of our day makes it, is either based on nothing or is based on the belief in question." As an instance he takes the modern doctrine of State education, whose main conception is, he says, " that each man must have a certain mental training, so that as a man he ruay do his best for himself." " Now" he continues, " the only ground on which such a view can be justified is the belief that man as man owes a certain debt to himself. In this belief there is the farther belief included, that a God exists who is concerned in and will enforce the debt ; and it is because some debt like this is supposed to be universal that the State is conceived of as bound to give all men the means of paying it." State education, theri, we are told by this Freethinker, is only justified by a belief in God ; from whence we see the inconsistency, as well as the impiety, of making such an education godless.

promising schools.

Thr German Minister of Education, Herr Von Puttkamer, has recently issued a circular, in which he draws attention to certain associations that prevail amongst the school-boys, the pupils of the Gymnasia, in Germany. These societies are in imitation of those which exist amongst the students at the universities, but they are necessarily many degrees more undesirable, and Herr Pnttkamer regards them in no favourable light. He accuses them of encouraging amengst the boys habits of drinking spirituous liquors, and he says in many cases " proceedings at the drinking-parties have degenerated into the filth of common immorality." They further lead to deception ; to a system of terrorism over boys who are non-members, and they oppose a heavy obstacle to the moral or intellectual advancement of tjwir members. The formation and growth of these associations without effectual check by the teachers, whom the Minister blames in many instances for not having shown a proper sense of their duty, form a striking comment on the wisdom of the German Government in having suppressed the Catholic seminaries, in which such a state of ihjngs never could have obtained. It further gives some warning of what may be expected in the immediate future from the laicised educational system in France, in whose lyceums already serious disorders, extending even to loss of life, have occurred. We need not be surprised to receive any strange intelligence, then, as to what takes place in German Government schools, and we may accept without question the news that, in Baden, seven of their pupils committed suicide during the six months commencing with the Ist of January, So much for an educational system, then, which is largely secular, and decidedly anti-Catholic.

" WOKTH ONE D — M."

There is % lawyer in Donedin who does not know an 7A from an n. This is a pity, for if he had been sharp enough to have discerned the difference, he might, by virtue of his legal acumen, have suspected that there was something in it, and have thus prevented a certain editor, who is his very intimate client, fro jo committiag himself by a most uneditorial blunder, Our editor, then, all unwarned by his lawyer, fancies he has caught ua in the company of bullock-drivers and employing their language, — though why this should be looked upon as a reproach by universal Brotherhood, by •' Liberty, Fraternity, Equality," it may not be so easy to explain. Why should FreethougV-fc be fettered to the notion that the bullock-driver is not a " man and a brother" as worthy of respect and imitation as any other 1 Even Freethought has its aristocratic prejudices, we perceive, and " Equa* lity" with superiors, as wa have already affirmed, is what it really aspires at. But to return to our quotation, " Worth one D — M," will it be believed, or rather is it not already known to anyone even moderately acquainted with English literature, that we borrowed the line, not from a bullock-driver, but from a well-known English poet 7 But is it really possible to be an editor without literature, as well as a philosopher without philosophy ? Meantime it will form a useful literary exercise for our editor to try and discover the author from I whom our quotation was taken ; we recommend it to his attention.

hateful TO tybanny and VICE.

The Paris correspondent of our contemporary the I/yttelton limes, from whom we occasionally derive some questionable news, now informs us, in speak, ing of the Jesuits, ■& follows — " It is not to the creed, but the moral teachings of the disciples of Loyola that the law has teen applied— just as did Louis XV. and Charles X." To this, however, we may reply in the first place that almost every tyrannous step — every one whose author could not as yet afford to be openly reckless and brutal, that has ever been taken has of necessity been based upon some false pretence or accusation, but none has been more calumnious than that relating to the moral teaching of the Jesuits. The correspondent, moreover, to whom we allnde, has not been very fortunate in his reference to King Louis XV. A regard for morality seems, indeed, to have had very little to say to the suppression of the Order as consented to by that most despicable being, concerning whom, for insiance, Sir Archibald Alison, who otherwise takes an unfavourable view of the Society, speaks as follows :—": — " But at length when the monarch in his declining year?, be* came more devoted to sensual enjoyments, and found that the Jesuits about the Court might interfere with the orgies in the Pare avx Cerfs, he yielded to the persecution which the Parliaments had long carried on against this celebrated sect, and by a royal decree, in November, 1764, their Order was entirely suppressed in ifrance." (History of Europe, Vol. I. chap. 2, sec. 6.) Every form of tyranny, and every form of vice, has persecuted the Jesuits, to their immorta honour, whatever may have been the particular lie invented to excua the persecution.

Such excellent results have been obtained at the establishment of Trappists at the Tre Fontane in the Roman Campagna, about three miles from Rome, by the employment of convict labour there under the superintendence of the monks, that a plan is on foot for the formation of an association of landed proprietors in the Campagua with a view to the employment of convict labour on a large scale. Whether, however, it may be easy to find supervisors of convict labour equally good at the work as the Trappist fathers may, perhaps, be doubted.

Many people are under the impression that England stands at the head of all the Continental nations as regards the ni mber of its periodical publications. Such is not the case. Germany heads the list with 3778 ; England follows with 2509 ; and France comes next with 2000. There is tben. a great falling off. America boasts 9129, being more than the three nations abovenamed put together. Borne of the residents of Le Seur, Minn., believing a spiritual medium's piediction of a tremendous tornado, dug holes in the ground for refuge, and spent the whole of an unusually calm day in them. A negro criminal was whipped by a mob at Jone's Crossing, Ohio, and. by way of retaliation, the negroes resolvod to serve a white offender in the same manner. The only available person was a woman, but that was not allowed to prove a hindrance. The Roman Catholics of England are building a magnificent cathedral at South Kensington, London. It will rank in size next after St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. Over 1,000,000 dola. hare been raised for it, and money is still pouring in from all quarters. It will be in the florid Gothic style. The German papers announce the conversion to Catholicism of M. de Roquet, who fills an important military position, and who made his abjuration at firlangen. M. G. Evers, the Lutheran pastor at Urback, in Hohnstein, has also been received into the Church. The latest crime laicl to the door of General Hancock is that he is a Catholic. Unfortunately for him, the story is not true. It is every day becoming more apparent that the railway bridges in England are not safe. The Tay bridge is an instance. A com* mittee of experts have announced that the iron work, where defective, was covered up with putty and cement. After an excursion train containing 8000 people had crossed a bridge on the Herford, Hay and Brecon Railroad last week, it gave way with a crash. The people had a miraculous escape. Periodical inspection is now urgently demanded - -