Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 454, 23 December 1881, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The Timet is much disturbed by the attitude of the the United States towards the Panama Canal. The PANAMA CANAL, claims of the States it says had not been generally understood in England until the communication made to the Senate the other day of a letter sent to Mr. Lowell last June, and in which Mr. Blame had repeated with emphasis the declaration already made, on the first mention of the canal scheme, by the President, that the United States must have the control of any canal cut through the territory of Colombia. In 1846 a treaty had been made between the United States and the Republic of Colombia, guaranteeing the perfect neutrality of the canal, and now when the Republic wishes to terminate the treaty, and obtain from the European powers a joint guarantee of the neutrality of the isthmus and the sovereignty of the State, " Speaking in the name of the Executive of the United States, Mr. Blame declares that there is no reason for any change. The treaty of 1846 is sufficient. That guarantee ' does not require reinforcement, accession, or assent from any other power ;' and it is added that ' any movement in the sense of supplementing the guarantee contained therein would necessarily be regarded as an uncalled for intrusion into a field where the local and general interests of America must be considered before those of any other power save those of the United States and of Colombia Alone.' " The claim made by the States refers only to the political control of the canal, and does not pnrpose to interfere with commercial enterprise. The Time*, however, questions the right of the Btates to make any such claim, and cannot sec why England and France should not be permitted to join in a guarantee. **' One consideration strongly urged by Mr. Blame in favour of Ms country is tbat its possessions on the Pacific coast » would supply the larger part of the traffic which would seek the advantage of the canal. 1 Thiß assumption is very questionable. Indeed, it scarcely admits of a donbt that the great bulk of the vessels which for some years to come would pass through the canal would be English. At all events, dues paid by the American mercantile marine in its present unhealthy state are not likely to form at an early date a considerable part of the shareholders' receipts. Great though the interests of America are in this matter, and necessary though it is for her that there should be free communication between her Atlantic and Pacific States, this does not efface the fact tbat England also is at once an Atlantic and Pacific Power, and that she is bound to have regard to the welfare of her subjects in British Colombia, and to think of securing free access to her Australian colonies."

A fbeethinkeb ON hib system,

The following paragraph from the Ban Fraacisco correspondence of our contemporary the Otago Daily Times strikes us as of considerable importance. It requires no comment on our part: "At the head of American Freethinkers stands the Rev.

Dr. Frothingham. lie is, by long odds, the ablest exponent of the Gospel of Doubt. For many years the head of the Uiiiversalists, he drifted away from that exceedingly latitudinarian sect, and took up with Freelovism, Freethoughtism, eternal Nihilism, and, indeed, every other ' ism ' opposed to creeds and Christianity. Yet bis life has been a pure one all through. Like Colonel Ingersoll, he stands free from reproach among men—a saintly character, clothed in white raiment, compared with tbat sensual gospeller Henry Ward Beecher, and many others that could be mentioned. Well, this champion debater has published a card, addressed to the American people, in which he admits the failure of his mission and life. While recanting nothing, and regretting nothing, he is yet forced to admit that there ia a subtle power in Christianity too strong for the combined assaults of pure reason. Every attempt to substitute something else for Christianity he admits has failed, and in presence of this fact he doubts the propriety of continuing the fight. He is filled with gloom. Faith he has not and cannot have himself ;it is repugnant his reason ; but he donbtt if he should continue to undermine the

faith of others. It may he said that this proves nothing. To my mind it proves a great deal. It proves that a conscientious Free* thinker who stops to consider the merits of the whole question, and who realises the momentous issues of life and death which faith and no faith open up foi mankind, is unable to preach the doctrine of cold negation with the moral and spiritual forces of Nature manifestly against him. Colonel Ingersoll has not ceased to lecture for coin. With him the lecture-field is his means of livelihood. The time may come when he, too, will be true to his better nature, and with the still greater doubter before mentioned exclaim in substance : • I doubt the purpose and scope of my work. It has been a failure. Men cannot rest upon a mere negation of a future state of being as the end and outcome of life any more than they can sustain their bodies without food and air. Hope springs perennial in the human breast, and though I am without hope myself, I will live and die in gloom, but I shall refrain from casting the chilling shadow of doubt over the fair and brighter domain of simple faith.' Those who know Colonel Ingersoll best believe that he is a man capable of making as heroic a confession of the failure of the Gospel of Doubt as Mr. Frothingham has already done. The cause of religious truth would be promoted thereby."

GOOD WOEKS.

Wk had lately occasion to refer to some of the good works performed by Catholic ecclesiastics in South America during past times, and we are happy to find that the successors of the devoted priests we chronicled are treading carefully in their footsteps, as the following paragraph, which we clip from the London Tablet, testifies : — " The Church by the ministry of the great religious Orders has ever been the pioneer of civilisation. While these have preached Christianity, they have at the same time taught their heathen converts the arts of civilised life. It was so in the middle ages — witness the Benedictines, the Cistercians, and other religious communities in various parts of the world ; and the Jesuits in more recent times. It is so still ; the propagation of the faith and reclamation from savagery go hand in hand. We learn that in Parana, in South America, a Capuchin Friv, Frey Luis de Cimitilli, who arrived at the San Jeronymo settlement of Indians on July 25th, reports that along the banks of the Tibagy many Indians were beginning to hire themselves for farm work and to form a settlement. At San Jeronymo many Indians are employed in agriculture and in making sugar and rum. The same friar was, at the time of his writing, about to meet 2,000 wild Coroadas who had shown a desire to settle down into civilised life. At the Indian settlement of San Pedro de Alcantara, which was founded about 25 years ago by F. Timotheo de Caatel Nuevo, there are now about 600 Indians, who are gradually being brought to lead a settled life."

MOEE TESTIMONY.

Yet another testimony to the good deeds of the religious Orders, and this time from a writer in a Protestant paper, published at Bolton. Referring to the lepers in Trinidad, he speaks as follows :— '•They are attended in the most devoted and loving manner by French Catholic Sisters of Mercy, who have given up all — friends, home, pleasures, everything — and have come out to an almost deadly climate to attend these poor creatures afflicted with the most horrible disease that it is pcssible to conceive. I cannot speak too highly of the devotion of these truly saintly women. I feel it a duty and a pleasure to testify to the earnest, loving labour of the Roman Cathoiic Church in the island of Trinidad, and especially would I wish to say that more complete self-sacrifice, more total self-forgetfulness, more noble surrender to a painfully arduous duty cannot possibly b© conceived than that shown by the Sisters of Mercy labouring in the leper hospital of Trinidad."

THE turning of the worm,

The worm, it appears, has turned at last, and re* fuses any longer to be looked upon as the vilest and most insignificant of creatures. He claims, in fact, by the month of hia advocate, Mr. Darwin, to b» one of the most efficient fertilisers of the soil and

most industrious agriculturists, if not the very chief of all. Mr Darwin speaks of him as follows :—": — " Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than most persons would,

at first suppose. In almost all humid countries they are extraordinarily numerous, and for their sifce possess great muscular power. In many parts of England a weight of more thau ten tons of dry earth annually passes through their bodies, and is brought to the surface, on each acre of land ; so that the whole superficial bed of vegetable mould passes through their bodies, in the course of every few years. From the collapsing of the old burrows the mould is in constant though slow movement, and the particles composing it are thus rubbed together. By these means fresh surfaces are continually exposed to the action of the carbonic acid in the soil, and of the humus-acids which appear to he still more efficient in the decomposition of rocks. The generation of the humus-acids is probably hastened during the digestion of the many half-decayed leaves which worms consume. Thus the particies of earth forming the superficial mould are subject to conditions eminently favourable for their decomposition and disintegration. Moreover, the particles of the softer rocks suffer some amount of mechanical trituration in the muscular gizzards of worms, in wbich small stones serve ag mill-stones." But the worm is not only the fertiliser of the soil, and the destroyer of the rocks ; he is also the source of beauty and enjoyment. " When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we should remember that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years, through the bodies of worms." Before the plough was invented this ancient husbandman tilled the soil, and being of old-fashioned tastes he failed to adopt the implement in question when it was invented, and still continues to despise its use. " The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions ; but long before he existed the land was, in fact, regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed, by eaTth- worms. It may be doubted whether there are many ether animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly -organised creatures." The Spectator, in an article on the work from which we quote, alludes as follows to its bearing upon the argument adduced to prove conscious Design in Nature : — '" We call attention to the subject, however, not, of course, becau c we can add anything whatever to the evidence adduced by Mr Darwin, or to the physical inferenoes which he has so acutely adduced from that evidence, but because he has said nothing concerning what seems to us one of the most important of the aspects of the case, — the bearing of this discovery of his on what is ordinarily called the argument adduced to prove conscious Design in Nature. Hitherto, the tendency of Mr. Darwin's writings has been declared by the preat school of Continental Atheism to be all in favour Of their materialistic view of Nature. It has been shown, they think, that what was mis' a kin fox anticipatory purposes by our old naturalists, was nothing but the selective tendency, necessarily resulting from the great conflict far existence, to favour such variations in organisation as help the individual to live, and to extinguish such Tariations in organisation as render the individual less fit for the great melee. It has often been pointed out that, though this criticism would have some weight as regards all those variations which benefit the individual even in their initial and immature state, it has no weight as regards those variations in organisation which do not benefit the individual at all until they are complete. The sensitiveness of a nerve, for instance, is supposed to be the rudimentary stage of a new perception ; but though a new perception of the outside world, so soon as it is rt-al)y complete, would constitute an immense advantage to the creature possessing it, a new sensitiveness which carried no new perception of external things, might well constitute one of the greatest conceivable disadvantages in the corjflict for existence. This consideration, however, has not forced itself strongly upon the minds of materialistic Atheists, probably because we know too little of the history of the initial stages of those organs which, in their mature stage, are of the greatest advantage to the animal world, to bring its drift successively before the imagination. Iv the case, however, of the subject of Mr. Darwin's present study, it appears peifectly clear that tha benefit conferred upon the individual by the work of the earth-worms, is almost in inverse proportion to the benefit conferred upon the individual by that woik. lv otoer words, the more, earth passes through the worm in proportion to the nourishment which it receives, the more benefit is conferred on the world at large, the more ploughing is done by the earth-worm for the benefit of other cr.-atures, and the more is the soil chemically improved by its agency. Yet, of course, the less work the worm has to do for its own adequate nourishment, the better would be its chance of obtaining that nourishment, and of multiplying its species. We gather, indeed, from what Mr. Darwin Siys, that part of the essential structure of earth-worms — the gizB»rdn, in which the earth is powdered, by being crushed up with the little stones swallowed for this purpose— is provided solely for the execution of this extra work, and is not to be found at all in other Tftrieties of the species which live in mud or water, and feed exclusively on dead, or living vegetable matter, without taking the troxible

to grind down an enormous proportion of innutritious soil, for the cake of the very minute fragments of organic matter which it may happen to contain. The function of earth-worms in their ordinary state appears to be closely analogous to that of the miners who grind quartz for the sake of the grains of gold which they find scattered through it, but with this difference, that the miners do not know how to find the grains of gold in equally large supplies in any other way ; while the earth-worms, hut for the instinct which compels them, at certain parts of the year, to swallow so large a quantity of earth, would find a much richer supply of the Hourjphment most suitable to them on the surface of thegronnji, without passing so muelf that, to them, is pure waste through tfie'mili, for the sake of so minute a proportion of food. It seems perfectly clear, then, that the instinct of the earth-worm has its end, mainly, not in the good of the individu<At which does that work, but in the good of other and more highly^ organised being 3, who did not even begin to exist on the earth for ages upon ages after the earth-worm had been preparing the surface of the planet for their appearance. These creatures pierce and grind down and bring to the surface the particles of the earth, not for their own good mainly —for they could obtain that good equally well, at far less expense of labour, if, like the mud and water worms, they fed on vegetable matter only — but for the ultimate good of Man. The earth-worms are the ploughs by which the surface of the globe was being prepared to yield man harvests long before either we or our harvests had been even conceived, except in the mind of that Eternal Wisdom to which the future is present, and the present contains the augury of the future."

A DISGRACEFUL TBAFFIC.

Exeter Hall bas received grounds for grievous lamentation, but all men of true liberality and breadth of mind may rejoice. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a word, the Earl of Shaftesbury with other leaders of the " Evangelical " world, and the Cardin a Archbishop of Westminster, have appeared together on a platform in London in advocacy of the same cause — that of the abolition of the opium trade. This trade, we need hardly say, has long been a deep blot upon the fame of England ; we should, perhaps, say the deepest blot if the spectacle of oppression in Ireland were not so vividly before our eyes ; and in the name of common humanity everyone is bound to detest it. Cardinal Manning in proposing the second resolution — i.e., " That in the opinion of this meeting the results of the sale of opium in British Burmah are a disgrace to our government of India, and demand the most thorough and immediate remedy"— thus described its effects :—": — " In British Burmah, to which his resolution referred, the population before we entered it were sober, industrious, and orderly, and both their religion and their law positively prohibited the use of opium. Now tbey found that, in consequence of the introduction of opium, the people had been involved in demoralisation, misery, and ruin, for which we were exclusively respons.ble. The population were entirely wrecked in body and soul, and there was a universal consensus of opinion among the natives that the traffic should be utterly and entirely extinguished." There cannot, wo should think, be any difference of opinion among honest people with respect to the necessity that exists for putting an end to so abominable a trade, whatever may be the interests involved, and we find a double reason for gratification in notiDg the union against it of all sections of Christians.

THE SCOTCU LANDQUE£TIOX.

The land agitation in Scotland still continues, and Scotchmen, therefore, who condemn the Irish National Land League condemn also an institution under whose shadow their own fellow-countrymen are striking for what they regard to be their rights. It is evident that it was the persistency and ability with which the agitation in Ireland has been conducted that led to the movement among the farmers in England and Scotland. The following paragraph clipped from the weekly edition of the Times of October 28 shows how the matter is still being carried on :—": — " On Friday afternoon a public meeting of the East Lothian Agricultural Club was held in the Corn Exchange, Haddington, to consider the present agricultural depression. Mr. Harper Snawdon occupied the chair, and there was a large attendance. The Chairman, after referring to some of the causes of agricultural depression, said that mere temporary abatement of rent would not avail in the present crisis. There should be a revaluation of farms and a substantial reduction of rent?. Were the land revalued and the reduction extended, say for five years, that would enable farmers to keep their lands clean and in good order and enable them to go on with spirit and in hope. But that must bo done at once if it were to be of any benefit to the existing tenants. It would even be true aud sound policy in the interests of the landlords themselves. Without some such measure, he had no hesitation in saying that a larger number of the present class of tenants would nlowly but gurely bleed to death, and be turned out of their holdings ruined men. The following resolutions were agreed to : — ' That this j meeting, believing that farms, taken for a considerable period back,

have been let greatly in excess of their present value, considers that , a revaluation is absolutely necessary to moot the existing conditions of agriculture, and advises tenants to approach their landlords in ( order to carry the present principles of ibis resolution into effect.' ' That we petition Government to introduce a Land Bill for Scotland i in the ensuing session on the lines of that drawn up by the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture ;' aud ' That we resolve to support any future meeting of farmers hell for the purpes? of farthering the objects of this meeting.' "'

THE CHRISTIAN BBOTHEBS' SCHOOLS.

Among the most successful schools in training their pupils for the late Intermediate Examinations held in Ireland may be reckoned those of the Christian Brothers at "Waterf ord. We find in a local paper a long list of successful candidates, from which we take the following: John Carroll gained an exhibition of £20, passed, with honour in ten subjects, and passed in three others ; the subjects including, amongst the rest, natural philosophy, chemistry, French, Euclid, algebra, drawing and music. There were three other prizemen who passed with honour, each in several subjects, and a boy named Charles Burke was one of the three who secured the highest marks in drawing in all Ireland. In the middle grade there were six who passed with honour, each in various subjects, and in the junior grade forty-two passed with honour and two passed. French, music, drawing, and all the branches of an English education — science, history, geography, grammar, literature, book-keeping — were the subjects examined in with such excellent results. The system of intermediate examinations is not, indeed, such as it might be wished that it should be, and is capable of being vastly improved upon, as it is to be hoped it may be ia process of time ; but meanwhile it is well to find that the schools of the religious Orders make the most that can possibly be made of it, and among them those of the Christian Brothers hold, as it was to be expected, a high and honourable place.

AN INNOCENT ABROAD.

We are reminded by a letter, signed " Ah Ching," and which lately appeared in several of our contemporaries, pretending to be the translation of an epistle addressed by a Chinaman in New Zealand to his bi other in Hong Kong, of a letter of somewhat the same description which, about eleven year 3 ago, we might have come across, also in some paper occupied with Chinese correspondence. It might have been dated from Paris and run something to the following effect : — " Know, O Sham, that I am living at Paris, which is a city in Europe, and I write to tell you there is now a great religious excitement here. The people are barbarians and also savages. They are all of them Europeans ; none of them Christians, but all Freethinkers. Their mottos are ' Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,' and this, that some consider blasphemous, — ' Jesus Va dit, tons leg homines sont freres.' Their chief religious ardour is shown in a hatred, even to gnashing of teeth, against the worship to which of old their fathers belonged, and we have but now seen how they combine this hatred with the practise of the brotherhood which they profess. As an instance of this, let me mention to you a case in which one of their noted leaders, having driven away with every mark of detestation and every brutal circumstance, the holy women devoted to the charge of a certain orphanage, converted the place into a harem, to the total destruction of the unhappy children of the people — many of whom have died, and whose survivors are now found in a condition too loathsome to describe — not even their childhood having proved a safeguard from the band of brothers, whose prey they became. Numerous other instances, which it is declared no pen dare describe, of a similar nature, are reported to have occurred at and around their chief temple, nam.'d the Hotel de Ville. One of their nigh priests, moreover, is a man named Fenouillas, most energetic against the old faith and all its appurtenances, and who, at the commencement of this essentially Freethought movement, emerged from his position as patron of a house, that even the police speaking among themselves, for decency, name only by a number. Under such leaders, O my brother, you may picture to yourself with what ardour a sacrifice of the priests of the old rite has been offered, and how zealously many of them have been tortured." — (See for all these details M. Maxime da Camp's " History of the Commune.") To this we find our Chinaman may have added a postscript yesterday, somewhat as follows :: — *' Under the motto ' Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,' O my brother, the uew, and yet a primeval, religion has continued to prosper famously. This town is now to its heart's core settled down systematically as the town par excellence of the high priest Fenouillas, the Pacba of the Orphanage, and all the brotherhood. Orgies are bubbling up under that sacred motto of the old rite, blasphemously perverted, Jksus Va dit, tous les hommes sont freres. Filth is thrust upon you in the streets, and your eyes hardly can open but to behold it. Crime thickens, and vice is everywhere rampant." — (See M. Othenin d'Haussonville's papers in the Revue des Deux Maudes.") We fancy, then, that Chinamen (?) who compare

Christianity with Freethought for the purpose of advancing the interests of the latter might also compare this latter with their native heathenism and find it wanting in nothing.