TAKING AN OATH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 392, 15 October 1880, Page 19

TAKING AN OATH.

A curious fact in psychology is the facility with which men tak« oath that they have not the remotest intention of keeping, and which nobody dreams of expecting them to observe. Not long ago Oxford students at their matriculation had to swear to conform to the statutes of the university. Among them was one which actually prohibited " the use of herb nicotiana or tobacco ;" while another enjoined on under-graduates that they should be always apparelled in garments of a dark or " sub-fuse " hue. In the solemn oath which is administered to Knights of the Garter, they are reminded that " this garter "is " never to be forgotten or laid aside." Even the original knights, to whom the institution was something more serious than we regard it nowadays, must each and all of them have re« peatedly broken the vow. There are, however, some remarkable instances of sensitiveness on the subject of obligations which the generality of honourable men regard as of no force whatever. All Souls' College, at Oxford, was founded by Archbishop Chichele that the fellows of the same might pray for the repose of the souls of those who fell at Agincourt, and not long since there was a fellow who regularly paid for certain masses at the little Catholic chapel. A Protestant himself, he could not comply with the letter of the obligations imposed upon him, but he fulfilled its spirit. James 11., by the way, when passing through Oxford, reproached the fellows for their neglect of this duty. How much significance do statesmen of the school of " blood and iron " attach to the first senteuce of every treaty between Christian princes — " In the name of the most Holy and Indivisible Trinity ?" It is to be feared that treaties are not the less denounced for those words. Louis XIV., in renouncing the crown of Spain for the issue of his daughter-in-law, swore " by the canons of the Mass, by the Holy Gospels, and by the Cross of Christ." This oath he did not scruple to break a few years later, and yet he was a devout man according to his lights. Jove was said to laugh at the perjuries of lovers, but those are trifling compared to those of diplomatists. — Exchan ge.

M. Renan's portrait is thus described in the Morning Pott : — M. M. Renan is seated upon a sofa. What with the long hair, the pala round face, the quick, uneasy eyes, the thin lips firmly compressed, the little hands almost feminine in form and expression, and the nails grown to length and semblance of claws, the likeness is alarm* ingly tiuthf ul.