Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 509, 12 January 1883, Page 1

Current Top ics

AT BOM UVD ABROAD.

M. Bbnan ' continuing his auto-biography. It is, . non-catholic however, n* r very pleasant reading, and we can testimony, readily discern in it the rock on which the writer's religious faith was wrecked, that is a profound, allabsorbing, self-conceit. A character so totally void of humility, or apparently of any capacity whatever for it, is necessarily and essentially anti-Christian. M. Benan's recollections, nevertheless, of the ecclesiastici who were his professors at St. Sulpice are interesting, and represent those gentlemen in a very favourable light, both as scbolanTand Christians. Their conduct towards him, especially when he decided to relinquish his course as an ecclesiastical student, was most kind and liberal. — M. Dupanloup, afterwards Bishop of Orleanß, moreover, offered him, with all cordiality, a helping hand, and placed his slender purse at his disposal, but this, Benan refused. We are not generally very anxious to quote from M. Benan as a theological authority, for, in fact, we have long discerned in his writings the spirit that seeks rather distinction for self and an original reputation, than to give sound or useful opinions, but a word or two which he speaks concerning the works of St. Thomas, in the paper we allude to, seems to us worthy of notice, and the testimony borne is that of a witness who cannot be suspected of partiality either towards the Angelic Doctor, or Catholic methods of discovering the truth. Having told us, then, that in the Sunima may be found, by anticipation, all the future decrees of councils and of Popes — every anathema of the Council of ,Trent having already had its place there, the writer goes on to say' that in the scholastic system reason is before everything ; "Reason," he continues, "proves revelation, the divinity of Scripture and the authority of the Church. When that has been done the door is open for all deductions. The only fit of anger that Saint Sulpice has experienced, since Jansenism has been no more, was against M. de Lamennais, on the day when that exalte raid that a beginning must be made, not by reason, but by faith." — But this, at least, will be news to those good folk who complain that Catholic theologians make light of reason. — Meantime it will not be thought out of place if we quote another passage also relating to the works of St. Thomas from another notable non-Catholic of the day, that is Bonghi, the Italian ex- Minister of Education. " Thomas's commentaries on Aristotle," he writes, " are a miracle of acumen and subtility. Notwithstanding the great lack of means for correct interpretation, he divines with unusual skill the meaning of the Stagyrite ; or when he does not succeed in the correct interpretation, he brings forward one of his own which is not of less value. ... It cannot be doubted that a clergy instructed and educated in the works of Aquinas, so rich in thoughts and logical deductions, would be very powerful for the defence of the faith whose servants they are." As attention has of late once more been drawn to A WORD ON THE the Syllabus with its supposed enormities, we " syllabus." cannot do better than quote a passage referring to the much misunderstood document in question, and which we find in an article drawing a contrast between the Popes Pius IX. and Leo XIII. from the pen of M. A Leroy-Beaulieu, a nonCatholic writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes fcr November 15. especially we could wish that Judge Higginbotham of Victoria might gain even so much information respecting the Syllabus as that contained in the passaga in question, since, perhaps, he would be thus led to conceive some little doubt as to the interpretation placed by him upon such of its sentences as hjave come under his notice. The passage runs as follows : — " In spite of his predilection for the old scholasticism, in spite of his inclination, in our eyes singular and perhaps hardly practicable, to have the clerics of the Church brought up with the methods of the thirteenth century, Leo XIII., in harmony on this point with the age, has been pleased to declare the progressive character of our civilisation ; he has celebrated its conquests in the social and political spheres as well as in the material. And that he appears to have done with a sincerity, a warmth, which

we were little accustomed to meet with in ecclesiastics, outride that brilliant and courageous group of Catholics called liberal, held in snch great suspicion at Borne under Pius tX. This same progress, this continued and indefinite development of civilisation is in the even of Leo Xtlt. intimately bound up with the maintenance of Christianity and reverence for it. Outside of it there is for humanity only • false civilisation,' only superficial and lying progress ; and it was this false progress alone that Pius IX. had in view, when, in his Syllabus, he declared that the Church could not reconcile herself to progress and modern civilisation : cum progress** et cunt reeenH civilitate. This false civilisation which, in sapping Christianity, undermines the basis of true progress Leo XIII. repulses no less severely than Pius IX. Absolute liberty in thinkiug and writing— * the liberty of evil ' — finds no more favour with him. In this respect, nothing separates him from the Pope of the Syllabus, although, by character, by natural moderation, by policy' also, he is less ready with anathemas." And so our High Schools are to embrace in their the dominie carriculum the inculcation of a due respect for again. Mammon. An exhibition is to be made there of the advantages of wealth, so that the clever poor boys may not become conceited because of their intellect, but may be regulated in mind and brought to a properly balauced condition of the spirit by their contemplation of purple and fine linen. Such was the announcement made, at least, by Dr. Macdonald, speaking at Christchurch the other day as follows :— " It was a safeguard of true progress in the community that the sons of the rich and poor met together — the rich to learn that riches were not enough, and the poor to learn that intellect alone was not enough." But how is thii superiority of young Dives to be sufficiently manifested? — Young Lazarus of course will make plain his higher nature by the manner in which he learns his lessons, and we are to take it for granted no young Dives will in this be found io rival him ; but how will the excellent standing of young Dives be shown off ? Must he ride a poney to and from school, if he be a day scholar, must his books be richly bound, his attire faultless in cut and costly in material, his watch-chain heavy with trinkets, must all his belongings, in short, be of the very best quality possible, and display a perfect disregard for expense 1 Or would it be advisable to intrfcduce a fagging system especially adapted to the occasion inio our High Schools, and to let every rich boy have a poor boy for his fag ? Something or other out of the common, it Btrikes us should be done, if a peculiar reverence for riches is to be inculcated in oar High Schools, for otherwise a respect for these quite as marked might be obtained without a boy's ever setting his foot in a school of any sort. The very cleverest larrikin in the street, jn fact, might attain to a suspicion, or even to a perfect knowledge, that his intellect would be of far more advantage to him could he secure a share of the wealth he saw about him ; and there is reason to believe the larrikin sometimes acts on such a conviction. The worship of Mammon might, indeed, by the inexperienced, be taken as coming by nature, and needing very little to be introduced into an educational curriculum of the higher sort. It is not always, moreover, that the sight of wealth and the advantages conferred by it on others proves a wholesome discipline. We read the other day, for example, an account of a French ly cie t by a wellknown writer, who described the pwhs of the college, as, on their own confession, filled with hatred and envy at seeing the privileges enjoyed by the sons of wealthy people. We doubt greatly as to whether young Lazarus would actually be improved in tone by its being pointed out to him that if he worked hard he might in process of time become possessed himself of |the pleasures now in the possession of Master Dives, or that he might, at least, gain the power of bestowing them upon his children. But, again, must it be only from poor boys -of intellect that rich boys would learn that riches were not enough, or would this not also be evident to them from the contact with rich boys of intellect ? for let us suppose that there are such boys. But all this is, nevertheless, beside the purpose ; in our High Schools the poor and the rich are not mixed ; the attendance there is the privilege of rich boys only, and, as the schools are constituted at present, poor boys cannot have the advantage of studying the excellence

of Mammon in them, however great that advantage might be. Let us console ourselves by the thought that an opportunity for quite an effectual stndy of the kind may be found elsewhere, and will probably be neglected by comparatively few. Possibly many of us who ate advanced in years, also, have studied it quite sufficiently in our day, even without the aid of the mixed High School. Dr. Macdonald again, advocates the maintenance of Government High Schools for the prevention of schools' being opened by " private speculators or denominational propagandists," but, the " private speculator " being capable of conducting a good school, it in not easy to see what reasonable objection might lie against his doing so — many able men hare bean educated at such schools. And as to the " denominational propagandist," we conclude the doctor means simply the teacher of a school belonging to any particular sect— an institution that can hardly be reproached with propriety by a man who is perfectly aware that he holds his own situation because he is a Presbyterian, teaching a school on Presbyterian plans, and in Presbyterian interests, and in which character, moreover, we perceive the good dominie is also very fitly a somewhat ardent bigot. In conclusion, then, if the future of the colony is, indeed, in the hands of the teachers, as Dr. Macdonald asserts, and, if the doctor himself is a fair sample of those teachers, the future will certainly be very prolific in folly, and will also produce a fair percentage of the genus snob. . OUR worthy contemporary continues his notice Of CONTBADIC- the Jesuits with a farrago which pretends to be a TIOKB. ' just historical view of the progress of the Order, who, among other things, are accredited with driving a rapidly conquering Protestantism out of Italy by means of the Inquisition. But, admitting for the sake of argument that it was so, how were the Jesuits more wickedly occupied in this than were the champions of Protestantism, — for example, in Ireland, where they were engaged, at that very time, in torturing ecclesiastics, and murdering the Catholic population wholesale ? We would further ask how it came about that Protestantism was exterminated by means of persecution, and why in this it differed from primitive Christianity concerning which it was said that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church ? — Or was this growth of the Church in spite of persecution, and almost, it would seem, because of it, also one of the corruptions which are said to have ciept in among the early Christians, and from which it was one of the provinces of Protestantism to purify the Church ? An Italy about to become distinguished as the land of Protestantism, had it followed in the path of the Italy that became of old the land of Christianity, must have persevered in spite of the Jesuits with all their violence and cruel devices— that is, had Protestantism been of a kindred nature with the Christianity that prevailed over the persecutions of Paganism, and had the Jesuits, in fact, been persecutors. But, strange to say, this article to which we allude, besides attributing all kinds of wickedness to the Jesuits, is also loud in its approbation of them. "In following the steps of the Jesuits, among heathen nations and savage races," says one of the authorities quoted, "it is alike impossible to with-hold our admiration of their burning zeal and intrepid courage, or our wonder at their prodigiously rapid success." " The Jesuits alone made humanity the object of their settling in the new world," says another authority. And we are further told that the Protestant biographers of St. Franvis Xavier agree in commending his " uprightness of purpose, sincerity of conviction, mildness and intrepidity of character, selfdenial, and his fervent zeal for the propagation of the Christian religion." Let us, nevertheless, remember the principles with which the Jesuits had already been accredited, and, remembering them, admire the corrupt tree that bears good fruit, — the fountain that at once sends out bitter water and sweet, and, again, the division of Satan against himself. Let us, in fact, admire the flat contradiction of Holy Scripture made by the people who profess to take it as the constant guide of their lives, and to build upon it all their doctrines. — But the folly of these Evangelical writers pleads their excuse, and, co patent is the nonsense they put toward, it is hardly worthy of notice. Superstition, then, it seems, is not confined enlightened to Catholic countries, as the utterances of many England. Protestant and non-Catholic writers and speakers might lead us to suppose. England, herself, the centre of enlightenment and the fountain from which a better civilisation and a purer religion are constantly endeavouring to flow abroad for the benefit of the world at large, has still a fair share of the delusion in question, and after so many centuries of Gospel truth, and the regenerating blaze of the Reformation can still exhibit a state of things that can hardly be equalled, and certainly not surpassed anywhere. The Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in the Nineteenth Century for Kovember» makes this very clear, and supplies us with some interesting and suggestive information. The belief in visions, then, he tells us is still common among the sects — of which, however, the Primitive Methodists are far the most numerous in that part of the country he

writes about. " Three times I've felt it ; twice I've Been it, said'one speaker, bis voice dropping low in awe and amazement, the pupils of his eves dilated as though some dread vision were present before him ; « I can't tell wbat it was, I can't tell how it was. There was a light as blazed, and I tell you t saw it, as sore as I'm a living man ; and I know'd it was the Lord, and I've felt it since, I have, I know I have. Talk to me of not believing as I'm saved— you might as well try and prove, to me as this ain't a cart, and I ain't a standing in it ! '" The sects have also a firm belief in the ministry of the angels and lean, it would seem, towards an over-confidence in it. Against this the writer heard a preacher warn his flock as follows :—": — " • Don't you go a leanio' on the Angels ; they've got quite enough to dv to fight the devil for ye, and they dv it. But if ye want grace, they ain't the ones to gi' it ye ; they want it theyselves, or they'll fall again same as the biggest on 'em did long afore we was born 1 ' There was a geneial cry of approval — ' Hallelujah 1 That's so I Bless the Lord ! ' " It is not always, however, that a faith in God and-* •. confidence in the aid of blessed spirits are to be found, but where 4 these are wanting there invariably exists a belief in the devil and his angels. In illustration of this Dr. Jessopp gives a case in which the vicar of a certain parish went to visit an afflicted parishioner* " The good vicar spake such comfort as he could, and more than once insisted on the obvious truth that the ordering of ' Divine Providence ' must not be murmured at, and that ' Providence' must needs be submitted to with resignation. The sorrowing farmer listened patiently and silently for some minutes. At last he could refrain no longer, but he opened his mouth and spoke, saying, ' That's right enef, that es ! ' There ain't no use a gainsayin' on it ; but semhow that there Old Providence hey been agin me all along, hehev ! Whoi, last year he mos' spailt my taters, and the year afore that he kinder did for my tunnips, and now he's been and got hold c' my missus ! But,' he added, with a burst of heroic faith, ' I reckon as there's On* abev as '11 put a stopper on ha if ago too far 1 ' Ahriman had had his way too long, but Ormuzd would triumph in the end 1 " — And all this, let us remark, in the strong-hold of Evangelical truth, the very flower of the Reformation — in the England of the Bible, and under the noses of a thousand Evangelical preachers ! But so general is the fear of the devil, that witchcraft of one kind or another is still much in vogue, and there are few places where some one is not to be found who has consulted the " wise woman " or the "cunning man." Mb John Mobley has an article, also in the ON ibish Nineteenth Century for November, on " Irish RevoAfpaibs. lution and English Liberalism," and which contains a good deal that is both interesting and important. He begins by foretelling that whatever may have been the value of the Land Act, the first success of the organisation which extorted it will not be the last. " The Laud League is dead," he adds, " but the Irish peasantry have found out the secret both of combination and passive resistance." The anxiety shown by English statesmen and journalists for the occurrence of dissensions in the Dublin Conference was puerile, as if there lay the only hope of deliverance. It has been shown that the Imperial legislature is at the mercy of Ireland, resistless not merely because of obstruction in the House of Commons, but by pressure from the country itself, including 'the province of Ulster. The anxiety, therefore, of public men to find a little breathing-space in the discord of Irish leaders is not wonderful, but such is not the attitude of intrepid statesmanship. Nor will events allow it to last long, " as the general election draws nearer, the Irish constituencies and some thirty or more English constituencies where the Irish rote is strong enough to turn the scale, will again be the centre of political attention. The Irish perturbation will be stronger than ever." Another perplexity is to be found in the county franchise, in connection with which it will be difficult for Mr> Trevelyan to advocate his Billf'showing at the same time that his arguments are not applicable to Ireland. But extended franchise in Ireland would not tend to a more easy government there on the present system. There are also the Irish in the United States to' be taken into consideration ; they are thoroughly devoted to the cause of their kindred at home." They are eager to help Mr. Parnell, or anybody else who will show them the way." "Let us quote the testimony of an unwilling witness, a writer who visited the United States with the express object of studying the American Irish, and/fi who evinces a very hearty antipathy to the League and all its works. J ' I never,' says this writer, ' completely realised the true feeling of the Irish in America until I had myself moved among them ; and in the cities and States of the Union appreciated to the full the existence, three thousand miles away, of a people, numerous, comfortable, and influential, animated by a feeling of nationality beyond belief.' Mr. Parnell succeeded in attracting not only ' the dynamite-loving ex-Fenian soldier,' but • the respectable lawyer and the affluent merchant.' He was welcomed by the most respectable and thriving Irishmen in every large city.' ' From the skirmishers of O'Donovan Rossa's stamp, up to the President of the Land League in America, Mr. Collins, a thoughtful, intelligent lawyer in Boston city — from the miner to the merchant — all contribute their money to the com*

mon idea ; namely, tbat of obtaining, at the very least, for their native country the same privileges whiuh each Sta f o in the Union possesses in relation to the central American Government.' " In these men the Irish at Home bave substantial backers, such as the Italian Nationalists found when English and French statesmen took up their cause. "The Irish have g>t allies an<l they know it." Moderate politicians, then, will perceive that Irish affairs are taking a more momentous turn than has hitherto been known, anl the question is how England is to continue to live with the Irian revolution, now that circumstances have enabled Irishmen to develope new aims, and press them with a force so far nnheaid of. But the more an Englishman sees of Ireland the more he will wonder, not at the success of the League, but that the people so long endured the condition of the country. The landlords would not be suffered by an English man of busines -tor a week, "They talk about the rights of property— as if they were not living on the confiscated improvements of the cultivators of the soil. They denounce the incorrigible indolence of a population— whose toil it is that supports luxurious palaces of indolence for their masters. They rail at the inveterate squalor of cabins, — where each trace of improved comfort would have been a fresh signal to screw up the rent. Themselves the neediest aristocracy in Europe, they have no language too strong for the improvidence of their inferiors." One of the greatest evils of the country is the absence of the sense of legality, and strict general principle, but it is as glaring on the one aide as on the other. A peasant, for example, justifies a murder by the fact tbat the man murdered must have done something wrongs but a grave official hints that jury-packing may be justly resorted to if a man accused of murder cannot otherwise be hanged. — " Hynes is guilty ; therefore, you must hang him somehow :by a good jury if possible ;if not, by one discreetly selected ad lioc" Clever and trained lawyers argued that though Mr. Gray's article might be justifiable in a legal sense, he deserved imprisonment because it 41 might tend to frighten a future jury. ... To punish Mr. Grey was a sort of invitation to juries to convict ; conviction is the great object ; argal, let as say as little about it as possible." There can, meantime, be little doubt but that people in England are familiarising themselves with the notion that some sort of self-government is necessary for Ireland ; but the land question still stands in the way of Home rule, and if apprehensions as to the treatment to be dealt out by it to landlords be well founded, some form of equitable expropriation must precede it. As to the religious question, and the chance of disturbances between the Orange and Catholic parties 11 where animosities of this degree of severity prevail, it would seem as if united action for legislative purposes would be difficult." But such animosities prevail in the French Chamber, where the minority has no alternative except to submit to the majority, and in Canada Orangemen and Catholics do not wage internecine war. "An Irish legislature, on the colonial model, would probably work better than many expect, but the risk is visible." Again, it has been urged that the peasantry care only for land and rents, and have always been indifferent to the cry for Home Rule, but in most countries the bulk of the population are too deeply engrossed by other interests to have time left in which to attend to public affairs. "In Ireland it is a mere assumption that there is not at least as large a proportion of shrewd and active-minded men among the farmers, as there are among the classes to whom we are about to entrust local self-govern-ment in the English counties. Apart from the farmers, there are even in little towns in the remotest parts of Ireland, plenty of men of practical and independent character. There is human nature even in Ireland ; and it is the way of human nature to produce such types all over the world. It is idle to say that Ireland has not her share of the material of good citizenship. Some of the best citizens in Canada and the United States come from Irelan,d and from Catholic Ireland. Men of this energetic stamp, not the village ruffian and, the dissolute miscreant, took the lead in many districts in the recent agitation. It was with such men tbat Kilmainhain, Naas, and the

rest were filled under the Coercion Act. The English traveller in Ireland is astonished to find, even if he guessed something of it before, that some of the most independent and vigorous characters with whom he comes into contact had been in prison as suspects. It is ./Ssactly these independent and vigorous characters that the landlord or the agent is always bent upon suppressing in a locality. Some hundreds of men were locked up under the Coercion Act, but 1 am pretty sure that those hundreds would have been thousands if Mr. Forster had followed all the proscription lists that came up to Dublin Castle from landlords and agents who saw their chance. One of the curses of the land system has been the power, which it has placed in the hands of arbitrary men, of putting down every exhibition of independent spirit. We do not realise the agent's peculiar and absolute exemption from public opinion on a great .estate. Life is short, time is precious, and village doings in Kerry, and Cork, and Mayo are very remote. It ought not to be impossible for statesmen to devise institutions that shall give the manhood of Ireland a chance, and public spirit an outlet, and public opinion its fair measure of power and responsibility "—so far Mr. Morley, who, however, seems

to fear over-much for the interests of landholders in the event of the establishment oE Home Eule, and who, also, sees a risk of religious disturbances that would hardly take place. — The Freemasons and Orangemen might, indeed, combine to make trouble, but the united people, both Protestant and Catholic, would speedily show them how vain was the attempt. Meantime a view of the true nature of Freemasonry may once more be obtained by Mr. Morley's statement that it has of late increased in Ireland where it is a Tory organisation— thas betraying the insincerity of its professions and the fact that it is everywhere opposed to the interests of a Catholic people, because it is the foe of the Church and of air Christianity, in order to destroy which it is ready to assume any disguise whatsoever. Ouh Anglican friends, it would seem, find grounds the teub way to hope that the reunion of Christendom is apof reunion, proaching because, among other things, " a cordial reception was given to Bishops Bheikens and Heizog at the universities and at various meetings." But that the Church of England should receive into fellowship with her another petty sect, — and one, by the way, dwindling every day in such numbers and importance as it possessed, which, indeed, were never much to boast of— can hardly be taken as a link in the chain that shall reunite Christendom, The Anglican Church already consists of a heterogeneous collection of sects, and that one or two more should be joined to them can make little difference to it. The portion of Christendom that Bheinkens and Herzog represent is of very little account, and if wholly incorporated with the Church of our Anglican brethren would, in fact, form but another party, and an insignificant one within its communion. The junction, moreover, could probably be effected without much difficulty, so far, at least, as the " Bishops " in question are concerned, were these worthies' interests properly provided for. But as to the hopes that really obtain for a reunion of Christendom, we fear they do not amount to much. The opinion, on this subject, of the Bussian Church, towards which Anglican Churchmen have well-known aspirations, has, for example, recently been made known in England by the publication of the late Mr. William Palmer's notes of a visit there undertaken by him to press his claim as an Anglican to communion with that Church, '* not as a favour but as a right." The work in question has been pub* lished with a preface by Cardinal Newman, and it is very decisive as to how the Bussian Church stands affected towards her would-be sister of England. Mr. Palmer was told in the first place that the Church made no claim to be Catholic. The highest Bussian prelates and officials said, in effect, " Our Church is not Catholic, it is Holy and Orthodox ; also, (because it came from the East, whence Divine truth has ever issued,) it is Oriental. We know of no true Church besides our own. We are the only Church in the world. The Latins are heretics, or all but heretics ; you are worse ; we do not even know your name. There is no true Christianity in the world except in Bussia, Greece, and the Levant ; and, as to the Greeks, many as they are, after all they are a bad lot." Beunion with the Bussian Church, then, is hardly open to Anglicans— even though Bheinkens and Herzog should consent to this also, as perhaps they might be persuaded to do. But the Russian religious authorities went further still in rejecting the Anglican connection ; they gave a plain warning to the English Church, — that, after all that could bs said for her had been said, she still stood confessed a rebel against legitimate authority, — the only authority who could pretend to mediate on her behalf with them. •' Such j)ia desidei'ia" writes Cardinal Newman, referring to the union desired by fervent Anglicans, " are not bad things though nothing comes of them— at least, though nothing comes of them at once ; however, as to the future, lam bound to ask all ' men of good will,' who pray for peace and unity, \rhether here or in the North, to ponder the words of a leading Bussian authority introduced into this volame, to the effect that, ' if England would approach the Bussian Church with a view to an ecclesiastical union, she must do so through the medium of her legitimate Patriarch the Bishop of Borne.' " If our Anglican friends, then, really desire to come within the unity of the Catholic world, the way lies open to them. It is not by adding another paltry and already decaying sect to the number of those included within their motley enclosure, but by submitting themselves to the authority of their Patriarch, a revolt against whom can be excused on no plea that will hold good in the mind of any man who fully and sincerely believes in the existence of one visible Church of God, but which of itself alone would be sufficient to invalidate all their claims— even were there grounds upon which those claims might otherwise be reasonably maintained.

The Registrar's Irish statistics disclose that the extent of land in crops has decreased by 114,300 acres, while the land in grass has increased by 34,600 acres ; and the land returned as bog marsh and barren mountain land has increased by 80,000 acres. It is remarkable also that of the total decrease of 75,000 acres of tillage Ulster is responsible for 40,500, the acreage of flax alone having decreased by 34,600 acres during the year.