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New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 495, 6 October 1882, Page 1

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AT HOME AND ABROAD.

It would be interesting to learn whether the Bight Rev. Bishop Nevill is acquainted with any brother prelate whose family likeness to Judas Iscariot is not to be mistaken. It will be recollected that it was by discerning such a likeness ia a certain bishop of the Anglican Church that the famous Sydney Smith, According to his own confession, became convinced of the truth of the doctrine of apostolical succession, aDd Dr. Nevill pronounces himself equally convinced of its truth — leaving us to conjecture that he must have, at least, as firm a basis for his belief. We are sure he can have none that is firmer. Dr. Nevill ; however, as reported by our contemporary the Dunedfn Morning Herald of last Saturday, acquaints us with more than one point of doctrine of which we had so far been ignorant, and gives as instruction that contradicts one or two things that we find stated on what might otherwise seem pretty good authority. For example, his Lordship told his listeners that : " Every scholar was well aware that for 300 years after Christ no one supposed that Peter was the rock upon which the Church was founded." Now we make no pretensions whatever to scholarship, and if we have picked up here and there a sentence that seems to be at variance with what the Bishop puts forward, we have come across it in the mere course of ordinary reading. We have, nevertheless, met with a passage or two by which St. Peter was identified with the rock alluded to by writers who wrote less than 300 years after Christ. Tertullian, for instance, writing in the second century, calls St. Peter the " Rock of the Church," and says that " the Church was built upon him," and in the third century Origen md St. Cyprian are found repeating that the Church was "founded on Peter." But even a scholar of our own times, and one whom Dr. Nevill will hardly refuse to acknowledge as such, that is the German Protestant historian Neander, seems here to be at variance also with the Bishop, for, although he most inconsistently and even absurdly reasons against the primacy of St. Peter, the words of our Lord have been too strong for him altogether to deny them. Writing, therefore, of the outward unity of the Church, he says : " Now it was, without doubt, no accidental circumstance that the Apostle Peter, rather than any other of the apostles, became the representative of this unity for the religious consciousness of the Western Church. For on him especially, in virtue of his natural character, ennobled by the Holy Spirit, the charisma of Church Government had been besto\v«d. This Christ adopted for the development of the first community when He named him the Man of Rock, and made him the man of rock on ■which He would build His Church." We see, then, how authorities differ, and how Dr. Nevill varies in bis interpretation of a text from the interpretation given to it by Dr. Neander— but at least Neander might have been expected to know what the Christians of the first three hundred years had concluded concerning the test in question, or not to have contradicted them so flatly — or has he here signally failed in his scholarship ? What has principally pleased us, however, in the report of Dr. Nevill's address has been the ease with which his Lordship has disposed of another somewhat knotty point, or one at Jeast commonly considered so, and the confidence with which he smoothed away all the difficulties that might saem to the unlearned to have beset the path of the Church of England. This Church, it PfcUps, has marched straight down from St. John unimpeded, and the Bishop has seen its path mirrored in some unruffled reflector whether in the countenance of a bishop of the Judas Iscariot type or not, it is not for us to say, but we have given our authority for stating that such a method of proof of the apostolic succession alluded to has been availed of before Dr. Nevill's time. Are we to blame if we know of no better method, or of no worse, or, in fact, of none at all ? For we are wholly ignorant as to the extraordinary process to be followed in connecting Bishop Selwyn with St. John through the apostolical succession. But let us not doubt any man's ingenuity ; does not the negro grammarian show how the name " Jeremiah King " has beea derived from " mango," and can he not

A BC0CB8S0& OT st. johv ob or aotnaoDY else.

glibly follow the course of the derivation ? What we, nevertheless, do know is that, whatever may have otherwise been the steps of the apostolical succes«ion in the English Church, in the consecration of Queen Elizabeth's Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, they met with an obstacle that it has never been found possible to surmount or explain away. Even passing over as doubtful that cause of much anger, and no very reasonable anger either, the story of the Nag's Head, it cannot be explained why for fifty years after the asserted consecration at Lambeth nothing was heard of it. No answer given to the Catholics who were asking for proofs of the succession in the English Church, and taunting Parker with his want of consecration — no word of it to be found in Stowe, Parker's friend, who records, on the other hand, the consecration of Cardinal Pole. — There are, moreover, some considerable grounds for i\ doubt as to the whole question of Anglican consecration — even apart from the historical obscurities of the matter. " Previous baptism,'' writes Cardinal Newman, "is the condition of the valid administration of the other sacraments. When I was in the Anglican Church, (he continues) I saw enough of the lax administration of baptism even among High Churchmen, though they did not, of course, intend it, to fill me with great uneasiness. Of course there are definite persons whom one might point out, whose baptisms are sure to be valid. But my argument has nothing to do with present baptisms. Bishops were baptised, not lately, but as children. The present bishops were consecrated by other bishops, they again by others. What I have seen in the Anglican Church makes it very difficult for me to deny that every now and then a bishop was a consecrator who had never been baptised. Some bishops have been brought up in the north as Presby teriai> , others as Pissenters, others as Low Churchmen, others have been baptised in the careless perfunctory way once so common ; there is, then, much reason to believe that some consecrator3 were not bishops, for the simple reason that, formally speaking, they were not Christians. But, at least, there is a great presumption that where evidently our Lord has not left a rigid rule of Baptism, He has |not left a valid ordination." Elsewhere, in replying to the argument of an Anglican clergyman who had objected to his views on Anglican Orders and brought forward some cases which he supposed would make against them from Arianism and abuses in the Catholic Church, the Cardinal gives the following sketch of the condition of things that has obtained in the Anglican community, and which hardly falls in with Dr. NeviH 1 * assertion as to the smooth and unbroken chain of succession between Dr. Selwyn and St. John. " Instead, then, of isolated parallels, from the history of the fourth or the sixteenth century, from Syria and Asia Minor or from Lombardy or Spain, let me ask you to confine yourself to one quarter of Christendom, aDd to show me, if you can, any religious communion, of present or pr.st time, which has eventually been on all hands acknowledged to be a portion of tbo Catholic Church on the strength of its Catholic Orders which, nevertheless has been for three whole centuries unanimously ignored by all the East and all the West ; which for three centuries has employed the pens of its occasional and self- constituted defenders in laboriously clearing away, with but poor success, the aboriginal suspicions which have clung to it on the part of so many of the invalidity of those Orders ; which, as if nathankful for such defence, has for three.centuries persistently suffered the Apostolicity of those Orders, and the necessity and grace of such Apostolicity, to be slighted or denied by its Bishops, Priests, and people, with utter impunity ; which ha<? for three centuries been careless to make sure that its consecrating Bishops, and the Bishops who ordained the Priests, who were to be consecrated, and those Priests themselves had been validly baptised ; which has for three centuries neglected to protect its Eucharist from the profanations, not only of ignorance and unbelief, but of open sacrilege, — show me such a case — such a long-sustained anomaly and such ultimate recognition — and then I will allow that the recognition of Anglicanism on the part of the Holy See is not beyond the limits of reasonable expectation." — The continuity, then, from Bishop Selwyn back, from age to age, to St. John hardly appears so clear to everyone as it is to Bishop Nevill. Cardinal Newman, indeed, tells as again that for himself, in order to believe in this episcopal succession of the Anglican Church, be must have " St. Philip'a giCt, who saw the sacerdotal character on the forehead pf

a gaily-attired youngster." But we will not all aspire to the gifts { possessed by the saints, let us rest content with the proof that con- i verted the Canon of St. Paul's, and make up our minds to acknow- ' ledge the fact as established when we have, like him, seen Judas Iscariot scowling from some episcopal countenance. Yet may heaven ! defend us from such a conversion, on more accounts than one.

CATHEDRAL BUILDING.

Among the monuments which the ages of faith have left to the world not the least impressing arc those great cathedrals which are everywhere to be met with throughout Europe, the glory still of Catholic countries, and a record of a glorious past as well as a beacon of hope in countries that have lost the faith. There are many things that, as M. Tame tells us of monastic institutions, are in the blood of all Catholic peoples, and which are sure to mark their existence wherever they are to be found, and among these splendid fanes raised to the honour and glory of God hold a chief place. But, indeed, it could hardly be otherwise, and when we consider what the use of a Catholic church is we see at once the necessity of this. For when God deigns to dwell upon our altars hidden under the veil of the Eucharistic species those to whom His presence there is a certainty will ever feel the need to do Him honour, and according to the measure of their faith and fervorr will be the desire they feel to raise above the tabernacle in which He is lodged a shelter — not indeed suitable to Hiai "Whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, but the most suitable that the powers of the Christian people are capable of constructing. Such then has ever been the spirit of the Catholic, and the manifestation of his spirit remains to us from of old in the magnificent shrines that mark the places wherever he has had his horne — the monuments, moreover, of the faith of successive generations, who, in more than one instance, during hundreds of years have each given themselves to the work of building some one particular church. It is especially touching, moreover, to think of those pious men who in the olden times went away from home to labour in building some notable cathedral, and spent a life time at the work, leaving no record behind them by which their names might be handed down to posterity, but content to know that the work they had done would remain for ever open to the eye of the Almighty, and would plead for them before the throne of God as potently as if the voice of prayer were without cpasing raised in their behalf — for indeed it was no other than a prayer wrought in the lasting stone, which God would read through all their lives, and which, when th«ir lives had ended and they had gone to receive the purgation needed ere they could enter into the eternal light, would still be there to plead for them. Their prayer, indeed, endures to this day and we doubt not still pleads with God, while those who formed it have already received for themselves its full reward, on behalf of the men who have come after them. But that beautiful churches spring from the blood of the Catholic people, and still continue to mark their existence, we see on every side of us. We have but now received the accounts of the completion of the first portion of the cathedral at Sydney, and the news has been most grateful to the Catholics of the Colony, testifying as it does to the vitality of the faith, and speaking to them of an effort made to return to Almighty God the honour due to Him, testifying also to the unity of the Church of all ages and all nations, whose faithful people have everywhere and at all times made it their firet object to build churches that so far as in them lay, and so far as possible, might be worthy of the divine mysteries, and to be the dwelling place of the Most High. Among ourselves also there arc not wanting the evidences of a like zeal and a like faith with those of which our fellow-Catholics of New South Wales have given such convincing proofs. Our cathedral of Dunedin continues to make visible progress, and for some time we have been able to discern in it the outlines of a building of extreme beauty — and such as will serve to mark the fervour of a Catholic people and their zeal for the beauty of God's House. The architectural details of the building have already been described in our columns, and all the technical particulars furnished to those capable of understanding them, but a word or two of plain description to such as are not acquainted with architectural terms may not be out of place : The outer walls, then, of the church have been completed, and consist of blue stone, faced with the white Oamaru-stone — with which also the walls are lined on the inside. The window-frames, also of Oamaru-stone, have been fixed in their places, and are very handsomely worked, each one being of a different tracery — but faced on the opposite eide of the building with one of the same pattern. On either side of the building within is a row of pillars, of Oamaru-stone likewise, supporting arches of the same material, and on which the inner and higher walls, containing also each a row of traceried windows, are to be erected. Both pillars and arches are singularly light and graceful —which may also be said of the clustered columns to support the tower above the transept, and of which two, out of four, are completed. The pillars, however, still want the elaborate carving of their capitals, and the polished granite columns with four of which each of

them is to be surrounded. The front wall of the cathedral has also been erected to a height equal to that of the outer side walls. It contains three doorways, one at each side (opening into a tower) between the pillars and the outer wall, and that for the great door of the building in the centre. This doorway is very beautiful, its expansi re arch being filled above with very 'fine tracery, in which stained glass will by-and-bye be set to form a magnificent window.—- The siDgle stone or monolith* which divides it in the middle is- one of the features of the building. This opens into- a' porch, flanked on either side by a tower, and -of which four columns of "clustered pillars erected to their full height already mark the width. The tower on either side is likewise in progress of building, and it is of particular interest to watch the great nicety and skill which are at present being shown by the masons who are at work upon the groinedstone ceiling of the baptistery, which is to occupy the basement of the tower on the right as you enter the building. This is a piece of work which none but a workman of the highest skill need undertake, and the manner in which it is being carried out reflects much credit on Messrs. Macnamara and Parker, the contractors, who are personally engaged on it— indeed the whole way in which they have performed their work cannot be too highly spoken of, and will form a lasting monument in their praise — as will the noble and exquisitely beautiful plan of the building be a record of the ability shown by its architect, Mr. F. W. Petre. A monument of a higher nature still » however, will this building be of the faith of those who have helped towards its erection — and especially it will last for ever in the eyes of Almighty God as a powerful prayer for those whose piety has led them to deny themselves in aiding towards its erection. It is to the praise of the people of the diocese that there are many such already to be found among them.

AN 'ENFANT TERRIBLE ' IN HIGH PLACES.

The Anglican Bishop of Melbourne is positively a sort of enfant terrible upon the episcopal bench of his Church. He has got a habit of saying things that are ever so much too near the simple truth, and because of his freedom of speech, there is some danger that the fair appearance which covers much that is hollow and barren, may fail in concealing what is beneath it. The Bishop, then, has been giving his opinion, it seems, as to tbe thanksgivings for the victory in Egypt, and we find that in substance he actually does not differ very materially from what we have ourselves ventured to pronounce concerning the matter — albeit we made our mind known with some degree of fear lest we should be accused of Fenian proclivities and a general state of disloyalty. Here iff what the Bishop said then, as we read it in the columns of a contemporary :—: — " It had pleased God that our interference had been so far successful, and we all naturally devoutly thanked God. But what was it for which we thanked God ? Did we thank God that we, a powerful nation, were enabled to overcome the rebellious soldiers of a weak nation when they had not quarreled with us 1 As well might a giant thank God that he had overcome a stripling upon whom he had forced a quarrel. Why, then, were we to thatk God ? Was it that success showed that God had set the seal of His approval upon our policy? If success wras to be taken as the seal of Divine approval, then some of the vilest wars that ever were undertaken, some of the worst wars due to Napoleon's unscrupulous ambition, had received the seal of Divine approval. Surely not for that did we thank God. Then for what were we thankful ? Well, he thought, in the first place, we were thankful, and properly thankful, that another proof had been given, in spite of receat disastrous failures, that our soldiers had strength and courage, and that self-sacrifice which came from a sense of duty. Then, in the second place, he thought that we were all thankful that we had kept the keys of the East and held the road to India." It appears, then, that even among true-born Britons themselves there had prevailed some fear that Britannia's rule over the 4 waves had passed away into the traditions of the olden times, and that the wooden walla and their protecting lion had become merely monumental. Bnt has the Bishop given expression to all that his tongue of an enfant terrible might be expected to let slip ? Does he really think this " giant " has asserted his " strength and courage, and self-sacrifice " by the conquest of this " stripling ? " Have the soldierly qualities in question really been proved by so unequal a struggle, and one of so short a duration ? Had the viccoiy been treated as a matter of course, and infinitely less fuss made about it, impartial people might have taken it as a proof of England's continued strength, but celebrated as it has been and magnified, it can hardly fail to be considered as a mark of weakness. And, again, if it be unreasonable as the Bishop implies, to give thanks for the victory in an unjust cause, howjean it be reasonable to return thanks for the strengthening of a rule that is notable for its injustice? England, for example, keeps the keys of the East, among the rest, for the enforcement of the opium trade with China. Does Dr. Moorehouse consider this a matter for whose continuance God may lawfully be thanked ?

A DIFFERENCE.

It is wonderful to contemplate the fallings-out that may occur among the most pious people. Here, then, we have the Irish Disestablishment as mad as ever its members can possibly be with another bcriy of Evangelical Christian*, who, it seems, have been giviug an account of it in Canada that it by n > means relishes. The Irish Disestablishment, however, should remember that its own most devout adherents have for long been accustomed to speak of their neighbours in just the sam« style as it now finds itself spoken of iv its turn. But to calumniate Cathulics, and to boast as to their falling away from their Church and embracing the Gospel of the Church of Bngland in Ireland is one thing ; to find the Methodists proclaiming an abandonment of their creed by the members of the Church in question is quite another. And the Disestablishment does not by any means relish the difference. Two Methodist ministers, then, speaking the other ;day in Toronto, maintained that the Irish Episcopal Church, as they called it, and the name is as good as another, was in the last stage of *cline. "During the last eleven years," said one of them, "the number of ministers employed has decreased nine hundred, and a great number of their churches have been closed." He added, that the only thing to be done, in order to preserve the poor stray, shepherdless, sheep from going at once over to Popery, was to call on the Methodists to look after them— that we need hardly say would secure their salvation without farther delay. The Irish Episcopal Church, said the gentlemen alluded to, would never rise again, and their rery practical conclusion was that " The people of Canada should, therefore, do what they can towards raising Ireland to that position, temporally and spiritually, to which she has for a long time been a stranger." That is, of course, that the people of Canada should be very liberal in theii subscriptions towards the object in question— especially as represented by the gentlemen who were there as its advocates.— The Irish Episcopal Church, however, for its part, was, it would appear, by no means so anxious to surrender the field to the' Methodists as these would-be benefactors of the Irish race would have desired. Their organ, the Ecclesiastical Gazette, indeed, may be. taken as having expressed the voice of the community it represents, and its method of expression was by no means nice or of extreme politeness :— " For ourselves," it said, "we have no hesitation in ■tigmatising the assertions we have italicised as gross falsehoods, without a shadow of foundation, and sincerely hope our Canadian contemporaries will publish our contradiction to their countrymen Some time since a northern Canon took us severely to task for our remarks upon Methodists. We do not think that even he will object to our calling attention to what we regard as outrageous misrepresentations about the Church of Ireland." As to whether the.Methodists should take over the congregations of the Irish Protestant churches, however, or not, it is no concern of ours, nor are we interested in the future of the disestablished Church. We have merely found the controversy amusing because it seemed to us that a measure of justice had been returned to the Church in question, for the many false boasts of the conversions from the Catholic Church by which its congregations were swelled, or perhaps, in most instances, were about to be swelled without delay. At the same time we may remark the readiness with which these good people misrepresent and give the lie to one another, so that we may the less wonder at the reckless way in which they deal with all things Catholic.

WHAT COMES OF COMET-GAZING.

Thbbb is nothing like the learning, and it is we that can get the full of our skulls of it any day in the week by throwing an eye upon the columns of , our daily contemporaries, for they are brimming over with intelligence. There are people among us it seems, who are just bursting with information, and all that is wanting to them is the opportunity. The minute that offers itself out the learning comes with a rush. There is someone or another, for example, to whom our contemporary the Otago Daily Times devotes a paragraph with a headiDg, " The Comet," and who has been rewarded for getting up at all hours in the morning, or for half burning his eyes out at noon, by the flow of learned recollections the comet has carried with it, like another and a brighter tail, into his head. This gentleman is philanthropic also, and pines to share his intellectual treasure with his fellow creatures ; it is in such a commendable frame of mind he has written to our contemporary for the instruction of the public. Our contemporary, moreover, has thought his^hmunication worthy of especial consideration, and devoted to it a pi* -inent paragraph. This pundit, then, tells us ever so much about a comet which he says appeared in 1459, and, among the rest, he writes as follows : -" Pope Calixtus 11., terrified for the fate of Christianity, directed the thunders of the Church against the enemies of the faith, terrestial and celestial, and in the Bame ball exorcised the Turks and the comet ; and in order to perpetuate this manifestation of the power of the Church, he ordained that the bells should be rung at noon, a custom still observed in Catholic countries. Neither the progress of the comet nor the victorious arms of the Mohammedans were, however, arrested. The comet tranquilly proceeded in its orbit, passing through its appointed changes regardless of the

thunders of the Vatican, and the Turks established their principal mosque in the Church of St. Sophia." Now, here, we undoubtedly have some very startling information— but comets, as we see, have always been looked upon as portentous affairs, and if a pundit inspired by staring at one under trying circumstances, either in the halfwakeful condition of the hour before dawn, or the distressing glare of mid-day, is accountable for a little that is queer, we must not let amazement overcome us altogether. We find it, nevertheless, exceedingly strange that Pope Calixtus 11., who died in the year 1124 should, in 1459, hayed issued a bull by which he " exorcised the comet and the Turks." Nor will it mend matters very much charitably to presume that the mistake is due to a printer's error, and that Pope Calixtus IIL was the Pontiff meant by the writer, for Calixtus 111. died in the year 1458, and therefore he could not possibly have 11 exorcised" the comet which appeared only in the following year, unless it be admitted that he was skilled in the science of astronomy far in advance of his age, or that he was endowed with the gift of prophecy,— neither of which hypotheses, we fancy, will be agreeable to the learned writer of whom we treat. This comet-struck man, again, is not quite accurate with regard to the ringing of the bells at noon — very inaccurate is he indeed, and very much misled by his luminary when he attributes this ringing to Calixtus 11., who at the time it was ordered had been dead for more than three hundred years — if that makes any difference to the comet-stricken who deal with Catholic matters which to them, and some others likewise, are obscure as the path of their mysterious guide. But under any circumstances this writer is wrong altogether as to this matter of the bells. What the Angfclus bell was, in fact, ordered by Pope Calixtus 111. to be rung at noon for was to call the people together that they might implore the aid of God in the war against the Turks, being then waged with the Pope's assistance, and their prayers were notably answered by the great victory of the Christians at Belgrade. This victory is moreover commemorated, not by the ringing of bells, but by the Feast of the f ransfiguration of our Lord, celebrated yearly on August 6th, and appointed to be observed by the Pope Calixtus 111. So much then for the historical knowledge that is acquired by gazing at comets, and, if every one who rises at unearthly hours for such a purpose receives an equal reward, it would be as well for the world in general to remain comfortably wrapped in their blankets, and allow the strange wanderer to go its way unwatched. — But since we have shown the flagrant nonsense written concerning matters of fact by this profound correspondent of the Daily Times, we may leave unexamined his utterances on matters of the imagination, among which there may be included the exorcism of a comet by the Pope. — And surely if this correspondent has drawn his inspiration from the world of comets they remain unexorcised still, for out of them has come an impish influence that has induced him to expose his complete want of knowledge on the subject he still presumed to write on, and which his ? ilence would have concealed— at least from the public.

ENGLAND IN INDIA.

It is not every one, however, -who is so frank and outspoken as Bishop Moorhouse, and notably among those who are not so we find a leader-writer of the London Times. " Englishmen," says he, " have no desire to parade force as the charter by which they keep their Indian Empire. But they are in India in right of qualities they possess, and for the fulfilment of duties to which they hold themselves obliged. Their consciences compel them to rule India for the benefit of its people in accordance with principles they are convinced are just and right." As if any one in the world could by any means be brought to believe that Englishmen are in India for anything but their own interests, or that they rule India in accordance with anything else. Verily, it is not the natives who profit by English rule there. Omitting all other considerations, they do not even receive from it so much as the benefit of the Protestant Christianity it might be supposed to foster ; but, so far as England is concerned, are today hardly less heathen than when the first conqueror sent out by her placed his foot upon their soil. Even the English missions are a striking failure, as when theirtrue condition is examined becomes apparent, and of this we find some striking details given in a recent number of the London Tablet. " The real Buccess of the Protestant missions," say 8 the Tablet, " was in the beginning of the present century, when the English power was fast rising, with assiduous charge of the wealth rather than of the souls of India, and when, after the French Revolution and the suppression of the Society of Jesus, maHy Catholic missions were broken up. Of the Madras Protestants— less than 118,000 in all— there are 50,000 in Tinnevelly, their strongest point, and it is notable that these are mostly descendants of families, once Catholic, who were won over during the desolate period at the beginning of the present century." The Protestant mission schools, our contemporary tells us further on, are a failure ; they are " to a great extent mere teaching establishments, where very little practical religion is learned, where children may attend unbaptised, and remain, as they began, Hindns or Mohammedans." " The ordinary newspapers of Madras," adds our contemporary, " have at times mado

common-wnse attacks upoo this delmsive system. As the JBvropean said a few years ago, the Protestant mission work, pure and simple, having proved a failure, educational work was the resource ; and, in so many words, the outspoken Madras newspapers went on to say that these schools have a half-learned class, sceptical and prettmptuous, in whose eyes the Vishnu of the Hindus and the Christ of the Christians appear aliketo impostors. This strong statement is far from exaggeration. The Pagan children of those schools are reckoned Christians because they are merely learning catechism among other lessons. . . . It is a well-known fact that the masters who teach the Bible are often Pagans themselves ; and that the mission schools, for all their immense money support, are not a success even in secular teaching, for they are considered inferior to the Government schools. The disproportion of the adult Protestaats to the children shows that the schools are largely filled with Pagan pupils, who nevertheless figure in the statistics of mission societies." If is a noteworthy fact, then, that the principal benefit conferred upon India by Europeans does not come to it from England, by which it is governed, and of whose empire it forms so important a portion, but from the Catholic people of Europe, with whom otherwise it has no connection, and who profit nothing by it in return. The Toilet describes the Catholic missions as follows :-" The work of the missions has advanced so far that seven-eighths of the clergy are natives. There are four great Catholic colleges, ranking among the most successful in India— Bombay, Calcutta," N«gapatam, where there is a seminary, and the new college at Maugalore. In a single year we may coant the annual increase at about 100,000 baptisms ; and, so far from being the mere form of conversion which often is counted in Protestant statistics, these conversions are so thorough as to have an effect apparent among the population. Dr. Hunter, a Protestant writer, chief of the Education Department, says in his recent book on The Indian Empire :— ' The Boman Catholics work in India with slender pecuniary resources The Roman Catholic priests deny themselves the comforts considered necessaries for Earopeans in India. In many district* they live the frugal and abstemious life of the natives, and their influence reaches deep into th« social life of the communities among whom they dwell.' "