INFATUATED " X."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 498, 27 October 1882, Page 15

INFATUATED " X."

The Otago Daily Times published on last Tuesday morning a letter headed " Religious Fducation," and signed " X." The heading is hardly appropriate, for in this letter there is nothing about religion and hardly anything about education. But there is a great deal of vituperation of Catholics. Who is " X." ? Is he one of the well-paid Otago schoolmasters, or is he a member of one of those families rather numerous in New Zealand, which rejoice in large, regularly-paid incomes, drawn from the public revenues by several sisters, or bi others and sisters, all members of the same family, or is he some fanatic, anxious enough to strike down the liberties and trample on the rights of Catholics, but so craven as to be afraid to append his name to his letter ? We do not know, but one thing is quite certain, he is a coward and would be a tyrant. And he is •something else also. He candidly acknowledges that " the system of public schools in New Zealand is a Protestant one, and the whole tone of the schools anti-. Catholic " : and yet he maintains that Cathoficß have nothing to justly complain of in being compelled to pay for the maintenance of this avowedly Protestant and anti-Catholic system. " X." has lost shame as well as all sense of justice and fair play. His openly acknowledged position that of an absurd demented man. It is clear from " X's " letter that he upholds the strict right of the majority to do as it pleases, and the obligation of the minority to submit in silence to whatever the majority may ordain. It is on this ground and on this alone that he can censure the agitation of Catholics for justice — for a fair share of the taxes devoted to education in aid of their own schools. Very well, be it so for argument's sake. Why, then, his and, others perpetual whine about the treatment of Protestant minorities in Catholic countries ? If the majority has a right to do as it pleases, no wrong on his own principles is

done to a Protestant minority, and they and their friends hare no right to complain. " X." wants to know " was any portion of the public revenue devoted to Protestant schools "in Rome." We answer no, because there were no Protestants in Rome ; and we answer further, that if there had been a minority of Roman citizens Protestant, their schools would have been placed on a footing of equality with those of Catholics. " X." tells us that the Church of Rome is opposed to Parliamentary Government. "X " must be profoundly ignorant of ordinary history. Were he not he would have known that it was Roman Catholics who established Parliamentary Government in every nation of Europe where it existed, and that at was Protestantism that first introduced Parliamentary tyranny into Christian Europe. It was Protestantism that gave birth to the doctrine of the divine right of kings, as it is Protestantism and its daughter, the Revolution, that has introduced the divine right of the majority to do what it pleases, even to repeal the law of God and trample on the principles of eternal justice. l " X." quotes from « Louis Vetillot " and the " Civilta Cathohca." Our answer is, Catholics are not bound by what these write; and in the second place, we refuse to accept « X.'s " translation of their words. We have some experience of the unfitness of Otago gentlemen to undertake translations of foreign languages either ancient or modern. Let " X." tell the public where the passages he pretends to quote are to be found. Then his fidelity as a translator can be tested. " X." says — " That conscientious Roman Catholics cannot make reliable citizens in a free community is a fact that should never be forgotten." With all due respect to « X." this is not a fact at all. But it is a palpable falsehood and a shameless calumny. And all this tissue of falsehood, misrepresentation, spite, and calumny arises from the fact, that Catholics m New Zealand demand justice in a peaceable, orderly nnd constitutional way. We break no law, we violate no precept, human or divine ; we act on the lines and within the bounds of the constitution. We do precisely as our fellow citizens do when they protest against any grievance or fancied grievance. We proceed byway of legitimate agitation,— petition, public meeting, and discussion in the Press ; and because we adopt and confine ourselves to this constitutional course, a portion of our fellow-citizens become rabid, and look upon themselves as injured because we complain of having to 1 pay for the free and godless education of their children. And | not content with venting their displeasure at our unwillingness i to continue to pay freely and largely for their exclusive benefit, they spare no pains to raise a false issue in order to poison the minds of fair-minded men against us. But this will not silence us, we are grievously hurt and we mean to cry out, feeling assured that there is still left in this community enough of honest, just, dispassionate citizens to see justice done to us in the end.

A lamentable accident occurred near Ballarat on the 9th inst , by which the Rev. Michael Sheridan, one of the priests of the diocese lost his life. He was, it seems, driving out from the town to give religious instructions in the Catholic schools at Navigat.-rs and Dunnstown, when his horße bolted and he was thrown from the buggy, striking his head against Ja stump in the fall. When found he was, however, sitting up and declared that nothing serious bad occurred to him, nor could any marks of injury be seen except a cut over the right ear. He was, nevertheless, suffering from concussion of the brain of which he died in two hours afterwards. Father Bheridan, who was a native of Cavan, and.;had;been educated at All Hallow's, Dublin, had been only four years in Victoria. He was a young man of great promise, and especially beloved by his people, among whom his premature death has occasioned deep and sincere sorrow. R.I.P. The Rev. Father O'Neill haa been appointed to tbe Queenstown mission, where he will act as assistant priest to the Rev. Father Mackay. The opening of the Dominican Cenvent Chapel and the^blessing of tne new school will take place at Invercargill on the second Sunday in November. Pontifisal High Mass will be celebrated on tb« occasion by the Most Rev. Dr. Moran, at 11 a.m., in St. Mary's Church, where his Lordship will also administer the sacrament of confirmation. A procession will be formed at St. Mary's Church at 3 p.m. •nd all persons who take part in it will wear badges. It has also been arranged that admittance to the convent grounds on^tha occasion thall be by ticket only.— The badges and tickets may be' obtained by applying at the Dominican Convent,

Tenants in Ulster object to the valuatonfappointed £in connection with the Arreara Act, and Mr. Trevelyan has announced that the Act, if it does not woik successfully, will be abandoned An association called the Patriotic Brothers is said to have been discovered having for its object the murder of landlords— but to this report wo do not give too much credence. It is further reported that Mr. Parnell has agreed to support the Closure Bill in return for Mr Gladstone's pledge to advocate the concession of a large measure of' Home Rule. Tbese, however, are all telegraphic reports. How fortunate is our colony in having justice and righteousness both together administered to it by the members of one household— by man and wife. For the administration of the justice the public pays, but that of the righteousness we gather is conferred upon it gratuitously— not that we are for this reason to consider it the less valuable ; no doubt it will be found in the end to have been far more so than the justice. His Honor Judge Ward, then, as we have long known, dispenses justice among us, and now we learn that •' Mrs Judge Ward " has become a dispenser of righteonsneßß. Here is an announcement we clip from the South Canterlury Times of Saturday and which cannot fail to give edification to many people :— " Mrs! Judge Ward will preacb, morning and evening, at the Primitive Methodist Church to-morrow." How fortunate, we say again, is the colony in possessing such a household— Mr. Judge dispensing justice and Mrs. Judge dispensing righteousness— and albeit the lady steps' forward intotbe pulpit with an announcement of the dignity the judicial bench invests her with, her humility is still manifest in the pulpit she selects— which indeed is frequently to be found constructed of an inverted barrel, and stigmatised as that of the " Ranters." But when greatness stoops at all it is well it should let its humility be marked. This union of the ermine with the Geneva bands in their humblest sphere is very touching. Let us hope, however, the lady has good lungs, for without them all the worldly dignity she can summon up will avail her .nothing among the Ranters. They know what a rousing sermon is, as many an unfortunate Anglican i arson interrupted in bis tanctuary by their shoutinsr can testify. Is '• Mrß. Judge Ward " equal to the occasion 1 Op Mr. S'out's ingenuouness, and the sincerity of his pure benevolence, and the nature of the universa^brotherbood he so loudly advocates we find a certain proof in his allusions to the contents of the Chiistian Brothers' schoolbooks. Surely Mr. Stout esteems the legend of St. Dorothea and that of Clovig' conversion as being quite as authentic as the accounts of any of the Scripture miracles. His only reason, then, for making such an allusion must have been an anxiety to avail himself, in his fight for atheism, of the bigotry and fanaticism of religious Protestantism— which, nevertheless, he so much professes to condemn. Mr. Stout, who " goes in " for the bluff and honest should also " go in " for consistency, but for this he must be a little more careful and better conceal his hand. As it is the eye that cannot see through his " little game " must be blind indeed But bigotry will carry the day, and Mr. Stout knows it ; so long as the cry of •' no Popery " is maintained it matters not one jot to him whether it be kept up by religious fanatic or atheist. It will work out his godless ends and that is all he wants. A correspondent of the Tiniaru Herald^fioro plains bitterly that folk will not "stick to" their Bibles. They7Eell them most commonly at auctions, he says, and that is a grievous matter. 41 1 regard it as a very bad sign of religious growth in our midst," he complains, "and it appears to me like people parting with their Maker to part with their Bible." Can "Bible-worship go much further than this ? But can this correspondent find no compassion in his heart for the benighted ones " who jeer and ridicule GcmTb Word when it is offered for sale." If they were versed in the contents of the Book, and had pondered them, and privately interpreted them, would they make thus light of them ? Impossible— or why should we have a movement on foot for the introduction of the Bible into schools 1 Is it only in auction-rooms it can be ridiculed and jeered at? A man of true compassion, moreover, should rejoice to see tLe Bible not only sold in any way, but even given gratis— as in fact it is by the thousand, and we very much fear with hardly a better result than that produced among the impious attendants of auctions at Timaru. But since those who attend auctions^ Timaru are impiouß and ignorant of the Word, would it not be well that Hot only should Bibles continue to be offered them for purchase there, but that an ' agent of the Bible Society should attend each sale and distribute his volumes gratis. AH that is needed we know is the distribution of the Book, or else the raivon d'etre of the Bib'e Society has vanished into thin air. This correspondent, then, is a most uncharitable Christian, and, like a certain prelate reproved by Constantine the Great, manifests a disposition to plant a ladder and climb up into heaven by himself. We find from an advertisement in the Irish Times that the military officers employed in hounding down the unfortunate peasantry occupy themselves during their leisure, aod keep their handi in at the same time for tbe work they are engaged at, by a very congenial amusement, " The officers of the garrison can have rats at all

imes. Dogs sold for gentlemen on commission, and taken in ex* change. R., 3, Upper Buckingham street." — So runs the advertisement. But do these officers also eke out their pay by doing a little ' in the dog-trading line ? It, at least, looks rather like it. The delicacy of the advertiser, moreover, in concealing his name is worthy of being remarked — but might it not have been as well if he had also concealed the standing of his customers ? What a charming school for soldiers and nursery of martial valour, meantime, must be Ireland taken altogether as things are now. We learn that the value of the property at Brighton left by the late Dean Backhaus, as a home foraged clergy, is £6000 with an upward tendency. We observe that Messrs A. H. Ross and J. B. Thompson are' candidates for. the Mayoralty of Dunedin, Oue contemporary the Dunedin Evening Star quotes from the Natal papers what it considers to have been an "affecting iucident ' that took place during the late war. " A wounded officer was lying helpless on the ground, and a Boer had his weapon raised and was just on the point of giving him the finishing stroke, when the officer in despair made the Masonic signal of distress. It was understood by the Boer, who lowered his weapon, and, at the risk of his own life, bore his brother to a place of safety." For our own part this incident affects us also, but it affects us with anything rather than admirationThere are Masons, it seems, who will murder the wounded in battle 1 and only refrain from doing so on learning they belong to the brotherhood. God help all the rest of us, then. But here is, at least, a system of pure benevolence very different from that of the " Good Samaritan." Arrangements are being made in Dunedin to hold a Carnival in aid of the Benevolent Institution. A number of our fellowtownsmeu are very energetically engaged about the matter, and it is expected that their labours will be crowned with a brilliant success The musical portion of the entertainments in particular has already been amply provided for, and promises to be a source of great enjoyment. The object is one^ deserving uf all the aid it is in the power of the citizens to bestow upon it. Among the persons who suffered from accidents during the week have been Thomas Brier ly, who fell from the roof of the Oddfellows' Hall in Stuart street, Dunedin, and broke his thigh ; Joseph Bruce, kicked in the head by a horse near Maheno, and whose skull was fractured, •with little hope of his recovery ; James Alexander, drowned in the Avon ; a man named Conroy and a boy named Wright seriously injured by a trap in which they were crosssing the railway at Wanganui coming in contact with the engine ; John Paskall, killed by a fall of earth at Adam's Flat ; Thomas Mayze, killed by a horse's running away at Invercargill ; William Cook, drowned by the foundering of a boat at Auckland ; a man named Marks drowned at Stewart Island by falling overboard from a dingy. The train from Dunedin to Oamaru was completely wrecked at "Waitati on Saturday evening by the engine's running off the line. Fortunately the accident occurred on a portion of the railway enclosed by high banks, or the resultb would have been most fatal. There were ninety passengers in the train, of whom only one, Mr. D. Dunbar, of Waikouaiti, was seriously injured, his legs having been crushed— but not broken — between the engine and the first carriage. The accident is atributed to some defect in the rails at the particular point in question. Mb. Jamks Mubphy, who has for some time been teacher of the Catholic school at Milton, has been appointed to the mastership of the Catholic school at Leeston, Canterbury. " Bbidget Connolly," then, whatever the clerks in the census office may aver to the contrary, can not only read but write too, and that to some purpose as the following passage written by her in reply to a rigmarole which appeared in the Otago Daily Times will show — Bridget is certainly a girl of spirit : — '• ' X ' says that conscientious Roman Catholics cannot be reliable citizens, no matter what protestations of loyalty they may make. What a piece of impertinent presumption 1 A calumny of the blackest dye. Who was it fearlessly befriended the Stuarts when they were driven from the throne but Ireland ? Who was it, when England was attacked by the •Spanish Armada, and to whom did the sovereign entrust the command of the fleet but to Catholic Admiral Lord Howard ? Yes, Catholics, and particularly Irish Catholics, have been the mainstay of the Ciown, not by words, but by valorous deeds ; enduring hardships, and sheddiDg their blood freely in the Peninsula under Wellington, at the battle of Fuentes D'Onoro, after taking the village which was retaken by the French, and when, on the point of defeat, General Packenham — himself an Irishman — passed the word to the commander of the 87th Irish Fusiliers — 'Let them loose ; take the village," with a ringing cheer, and the cry " Faugh-a-ballagh " (clear the way), men who never knew defeat before — the French Guards, the finest troops in Europe— fell before the Catholic 87th Regiment. Let ' X ' accuse them of not being reliable citizens. What did General Eyre say on the 18th June to the 18th Royal Irish in the Crimea I— ' I rely on you, and expect you will this day do deeds which will make every cabin

in Ireland ring with pride and joy." Bis reliance was not misplaced : the brave fellows snatched victory from the enemy, although surrounded by the defeat of two armies. With a ringing cheer, without wasting powder, they rushed into the grave-yard and drove the Russians before them, occupying it all day under a burning sun, and under a heavy fire fighting their way out with the same desperate courage. Were these Catholics reliable citizens ? Now in Egypt the same Catholic and Irish regiment have again given the bP6t proof of Catholic loyalty. Their valour and hold courage are particularly mentioned in Sir Garnet Wolseley's dispatches." '• Bbidget Connolly * is again needed to reply to a statement made in a speech oE Sir Edward Lee on the charge of the Light Brigade, and published by our contemporary the Dunedin Evening Star on Wednesday, the 28th anniversary of the day. Sir Edward said :—": — " We are glad, without being boastful, to think that • only Englishmen could have done it.' " Nevertheless, more than half of the six hundred were Irishmen. In the Egyptian war, again, not only the 18th and 87th were Irish regiments, but the Irish element must have also been very strong in the 104 th and the 74th Highlanders, in which the London Tablet says there are a " large proportion — if not an actual majority— of Catholics." We do not. however, mention this as in any way desiring to claim a name for Irishmen in a Highland regiment above that of the genuine.Highlanders. It will be sufficient if they conduct themselves in ,the ranks as bravely as the men have always done from whom the regiment take 3 its title. They can do no more. We regret that owing to pressure on our space we are, again this week, obliged to hold back a considerable quantity of matter Amongst it the report of the Bth annual meeting of the H.A.C.8.5.. at Invercargill, and the concluding portion of the account of the Christchurch Cathedral. Eight hundred delegates werejpresent at the conference held in Dublin to consider and promote the national cause. But we need not kope to receive any true report of what took place there before the arrival of the Irish newspapers in a month or two. The telegraph is altogether in the hands of the enemy. It, by the way, sends us word that " it is alleged that the Land League accounts omit receipts to the extent of £98,000." No doubt it is so alleged— and no doubt the allegation is a complete falsehood. We only wonder they stop at so low a figure as £98,000. Why, it is not many months ago since a gentleman from England, making the grand tour with a couple of aristocratic scions, walked straight into this office and told as that a mortgage of several thousand pounds had been cleared off the Avon.more estate with Land League money. He did not say that he had himself seen the records of the release in question, but said that somebody else had. And, although incredulous, we could not contradict him. for he had the latest news in his cranium, and had the advantage of us. But a week or two after himself and his high-bred striplings had proceeded on their grand tour in comes a newspaper with the admission of an enemy that wherever the Land League money had gone Mr. Parnell had not received a penny of it. So much for these reports, then, whether by word of mouth or by telegraph. Another affecting incident was that mentioned by the Rev. Mr. Fraser, when the Presbyterian were founding their church at Caversham the other day on a quick-sand by the aid of the Freemasons He told how a party of shipwrecked sailors were relieved from their fear of dying of hunger or being killed by savages by seeing, all of a sudden, the spire of a village chapel. But suppose it bad been the sign of the Marquis of Gianby, or the Cross Keys, or the Royal Oak, or something else quite unlike the spire of a chapel, although also unlike a Pagan Lyceum or a statue of liberty, they had seen, would they not have cried out "saved, saved," just as joyfully? Meantime, the shipwrecked approaching Cavershaai can hardly, if they have the right use of their eyes, discern in its Presbyterian Church, so founded, a mark of " Peace of on earth and good-will to all men." The " affecting incident " reported from Natal— as well as the monument lately erected to Morgan in America— tell quite a different story from + hat. Churches built under the auspices of the Freemasons, in fact, very strongly suggest, to the initiated at least, both the Pagan Lyceum and the Figure of Liberty.

The Enniskillcn Boarding-house, Barbadoes street south, Christchurch conducted by Miss Keenan, will be found an extremely comfortable and convenient place of residence. Miss Keenan, whose experience of all matters connected with housekeeping has extended over many years and been gained in the most respectable quarters, will be found a most agreeable and kindly hostess, and her house, situated moreover within easy reach of the Catholic church and convent schools, will afford a most desirable home to those who avail theD The Ye worshi p o f Satan is at last becoming public in Europe. On« of the crimes of the Press noticed by Pope Leo XIII, in bis adiress to the Romans on July 13, was the publication of a hymn to Satan I But this is only a single incident of this dreadful curt, not new indeed but hitherto followed out in secret. Not many weeks since the " anti-clericals ' of Genoa marched at the inauguration of a statue to Mazzini, " marched under the banner of Satan. It is well nieh inconceivable, yet it is a fact, and one of the vile papers, noticing the fact says that hitherto this worship was secret and confined to the lodges, '■ but now it is the duty of Italians, who have so long lived under the menaces of hell fire, to render at length to Satan, the honors \yhicU are due to him,"— Catholic Mevieic,