THE MOST REV. DE. MORAN AT LAWERNCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 398, 26 November 1880, Page 15

THE MOST REV. DE. MORAN AT LAWERNCE.

November 24, 1880. His LoßDship, the bishop of the diocesa, held a visitation here on Sunday last the 21st inst., when he administered tbe sacrament of confirmation to eighty-one children and one adult (thirty-nine boys and forty-two girls). His Lordship having exhorted the recipients in a most touching discourse to perpetually cherish the great graces and favours they had just received, then addressed tbe congregation generally. He felt very great pleasure in being able to congratulate the parishioners upon their having paid off the heavy debt of £700 which was owing on their church for some time past, besides £150 for Church improvements, providing pews, etc., and now that it was liquidated he rejoiced with them, and expected a new era would begin for this parish. It is but just to remark that were it not for the indefatigable exertions of our worthy pastor (the Key. Father Crowley), to whose appeals the people have always so generously, and at no small sacrifice, responded, this most agreeable announcement of his Lordahip could not have been made on the present occasion. I say at no small sacrifice, for, when we consider the general depression in trade, with the very low price of cereals for the past two seasons, on which most of the farmers of this district have to depend, and that several of onr people have to rely on their daily labour for the maintenance of themselves and families, it will be seen that it required not a little self-denial, and earnest love of the good cause, to accomplish the foregoing projects within the short space of three years.

As a proof of how much his Lordship appreciated the exertions of the people of this parish, he has most munificently made them a present'of forty acres of freehold property adjacent to the town ; later on, I understand, this will be sold, the proceeds of which are to form the nucleus of a fund for the erection of a new church, the present one to be devoted exclusively to school purposes. His Lordship further congratulated them for having amidst many tiials and difficulties so nobly maintained a Catholic school here. The rule is : wherever there is fi priest there must Jilso be a Catholic school, or a probability of its being established within a reasonable time, otherwise the priest would he withdrawn, as his labours would be compaiatively useless without a school. He showed in a very lucid and forcible manner tbe extreme folly, the utter madness of those who ignore loligious education, and establish secular education in its stead — he had studied the history of the school question sill over the world, and found that the secular system of education was demoralising and impoverishing every nation in which it existed. In England, for example, the erection of deuoiui national schools and the education of nearly three millions of children attending them cost £1,700,000, while it cost nearly £8,000,000 sterling to provide accommodation for less than 000,000 attending the secular schools, and what is the result? We have it on the authority of the Government inspectors (who are athoioughly upright and strictly impartial staff of gentlemen) that the amount of secular knowledge imparted by the denominational schools is fully equal to that given by the secular ones. In Amc.ica likewise, where the secular system is general, the schools have been found inefficient in imparting secular knowledge, and society, fruni the absence of moral training, has become rotten to the very core. He was, therefore, confident that the people would maintain their «chool in the future sis they had done in the past, no matter what ■were the sacrifices to be made or the costs to be incurred.

His Lordship then made a collection for his cathedial, when the cum of £41 13s. Od, was subscribed. 'J'birf would have been much larger only for the many calls that have been made on the parishioners recently, which His Lordship took occasion to refer to before collecting, so that-, under the circumstances, the amount handed in may be considered a very fair sum from this parish, and for which His Lordship returned his most sincere thanks.

His Lordship, accompanied by the Eev. Father Crowley vis-itcd the school on Monday for the purpose of examining itpur&uaut t > his expressed intention the day before ; and after exumiuing eat h class j^om the first to the last, in the various subjects taught theicm he c*pres<cd himself greatly pleased with the result. He said the reading was admirable, the writing excellent,, in fact, taken collectively, he had never seen better wiitmg, if as good, in any school he was ever in. The answering in the other subjects he described as most satisfactory, and on the whole pronounced the school to be in a high state of efficiency and a credit to the teacher. • * He then encouraged the pupils to persevere and to attend the school regularly, after which they were granted a holiday in honour of the event,