Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 514, 16 February 1883, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Not without some bearing o: y the quotations we made last week from Lady Verney's article in the CmSempnrary Review on peasant proprietors in Atf&rgne is the report which we now find our contemporaries are reproc 1 ng from the anti-Catholic French press respecting the oonyer , . to Protestantism of a certain village in the Puy-de-Dome. For ie happens that it was of the very district in question Lady Verney wrote, and to the people she describes belong those who are said to have placed themselves under the ministry of a Protestant pastor, in order to spite the Bishop of CleimontFerrand, because of his refusal to remove a priest with whom they expressed themselves dissatisfied. We do not know whether the report is true or false, bnt, although we have not too much reliance on the truth of anything that comes from so suspicious a source, if any community of co-called Catholics could act in the manner spoken of, we should expect them to be of the very nature described by Lady Verney — a worldly and sordid people, whose whole life was given up to petty gain, and who had no other desire and no higher ideal. It will be remembered also that we quoted an authority who asserted that the only method by which the utilitarian morality arising from the condition of the peasant proprietors could be regulated and kept within bounds, was the predominance of religion ; and the state of things in the Puy-de-Dome, according to Lady Verney, evidently shows that religion there is not very fervently pursued. A quarrel with a priest and bishop, then, and a quarrel, no doubt, caused by the action of a priest zealous in trying to influence for their good an indifferent people, may have resulted as it is reported in their having invited a Protestant pastor to minister to them, but, if so, the pastor is hardly to be envied, and it is to be deplored that even the little power leligion has so far been able to exercise has been now entirely overthrown. Meantime, since we find that Lady Verney's article has been drawn upon, as indeed she intended it should be, to discountenance the formation or encouragement of peasant proprietorship in the United Kingdom,~-the Saturday Review, for example, makes such a use of it— we shall borrow another description of a contrary nature to those the lady in question has given from the Revue des Deux Mondes of November 1, in which a writer, treating of Alsace, gives us a picture or two worthy to be placed besides that we quoted last week from an account of the farm houses of every class in Picardy. It, at least, speaks as much in favour of peasant proprietorship as Lady Verney's descriptions speak against it,— and some of us may prefer the testimony of a French writer treating of French affairs to that of an English tourist treating of foreign matters she, perhaps, imperfectly understands. We are told, then, that the laborious and energetic population of Alsace have made their country one of the most prosperous in the world, yet their property is extremely divided, there being not less than two million different portions of land in the department, some of which are very small. All waste ground has disappeared, and, thanks to the labour of the inhabitants, the soil has been brought to the highest possible state of culture. Owing to the necessity for protection that has been felt in the country from of old, scattered houses are hardly to be met with, and the people live in villages. The writer takes as an illustration the canton of Kochersberg to the Northwest of Strasbourg, called the granary of Alsace, and owning a very thick population. The villages, he says, aie spacious, situated close together, and joined by roads bordered with fruit-trees. The houses are picturesque, and with their fresh paint and clean aspect, with their inhabitants, somewhat rough in manner, but of a vigorous constitution, they show every mark of prosperity, comfort, and domestic happiness. Various outer offices are to be seen at the end of a spacious yard, shaded with walnut-trees, and behind the house stretches a garden full of fruittrees, vegetables and flowers. The villages of the vine-growing' districts, on the other hand, are limited in space, but almost all the families who dwell in them enjoy a comfortable living from the culture of the vine. Lady Verney, then, has evidently not said all that

ICOBE ABOUT THE PEASANT?

may be said as to the condition of peasant proprietors on the continent, and it is a little wonderful that the Saturday Bevietv, for instance, should attribute so much importance to ber not uninteresting, but rather gossiping tourist's notes.

ACALVINISTON THK JESUITS AND THEIE WORK.

It is common to find the enemies of Catholicism point to South America as an evidence of what the Catholic religion has done towards debasing the world. Sometimes we find ;the condition of the Indians spoken of as testifying to this, and flomptimes the semi-barbarous state of the descendants of the European settlers; No cruelty committed by a Spanish or Portuguese adventurer, whose religion consisted only in the fact that he had been baptised when he was a baby, has been allowed to pass without being attributed to the Catholic principles he was supposed to possess, and his deeds have been over and over again advanced in calumniating the religion he had long outraged, and to which he belonged only in name, and, most probably, because nothing was to be gained by its express renunciation. No consideration, on fcb"e other hand has been given to the work among the victims of cruelty done by the true children of the Church; the ecclesiastics and members of the religious orders generally who were the defenders of the oppressed, and in whose lives should be read the spirit of the Catholic religion as it really exists, compelling reverence and admiration on the part of even the most unwilling. Of great importance then is the opinion lately delivered by a French savant who had returned from the country in question and whose long sojourn there had given him ample opportunities to study its condition, and to arrive at just conclusions as to the means of its amelioration. We allude to M. Sace, who is besides a Calvinist which gives additional weight to his deliberate judgment, asit shows he must have overcome no small degree of prejudice before he formed it, and that it was formed only because the evidence before his eyes was too convincing and clear to be withstood. The extiact we quote has been translated by the Indo'EwroiKati from Les Monies in which it was published by the famous Abbe Moigno. The writer says : — ', During my long pere grinations from one end of America to the other, the immense services rendered there by the Jesuits were made in some manner palpably visible to me. To them alone the civilisation of that immense continent is due, and what remains of their works attests both the might of their genius and the perseverance of their efforts to civilize those wonderful countries which their barbarous Spanish conquerers sought only to profit by. At present of all their admirable work nothing is left but ruins and fond remembrances which the poor Indians cherish and bless. They still weep at the thought of their lost Robes Noires, whilst the same remembrances are branded with ostracism by the present governments, who reject any bridle that may be used to rein in the course of brutal passions. There we have the true cause of the social disease which blights the very existence of all $he Hispano-American Republics, and which ceases only for a while when a new dictator arises. There also we have the true cause of the prosperity of Canada and Brazil, where a strong executive power sets due limits to the selfish struggles of unbridled private ambitions. It is my conviction that nothing short of the recall of the Jesuits can raise again the Republics of South America They are fallen so low, merely because they have become a prey to constant revolutions brought on by ambitious men who place the government of their country in jeopardy by the vilest devices. The Order of the Jesuits alone, with its military organisation, represents the interest of all, and can bring back order to those unhappy countries. They alone can save the Indian tribes which are threatened with complete extinction, although laborers are the only thing required to work out the incredible wealth of that soil, which contains all imaginable treasures either at the surface or in its bosom. When the civilisation of those tribes is brought about, colonization will be easy enough, because they know the country thoroughly ; without them it will be extremely difficult, chiefly on account of the obstacles they put in the way. Unfortunately it is to be feared that the recall of that Order so deservedly famous will meet with many difficulties, because it would stand in the way of all those personal ambitions to whose shameless and relentless rivalries those unfortunate states have become a prey." In commenting on this the paper whichhas translated it adds :

—" We merely subjoin one remark: the writer being a Protestant, every Catholic missioner is a Jesuit for him. Yet it must not be forgotten that the children of St. Francis and St. Dominic were not doir in evangelizing the New World. For the rest we register this letter as a remarkable one. The South American Republics are pointed out by our Protestant friends as being sunk low by their Catholicism; but since 1820, Freemasonry has taken the lead of everything there, and after sixty-two years of Masonic rule the result is misery and anarchy. The candid opinion of M. Sace that Catholic. ism alone can rebuild the edifice,'which it had built at first, and which the Masons have pulled down, recommends itself to the attention of all serious readers."

BECEPTION OF AX ANGLICAN SISTEB.

A contempoeaet, under the heading, " A Heathen Ceremony," gives us a long extract from the Hereford Times, describing the reception of a " sister" into the Anglican order of St. Benedict, which is under the directorship of that rather curious ecclesiastic who calls himself Father Ignatius,— and truly the ceremony was portentous in no light degree. The mischief of the thing is, however, that a good many people who witnessed the ceremony, or who read the description of it, will continue to labour under the impression, not that it was a Catholic ceremony, but that it waß a faint imitation of that which takes place in Catholic convents, and, consequently, their prejudices will naturally be strengthened against the Church. Into a church, then, partly adorned and partly shrouded—for, while lights and adornments were in abundance, there was also present a funeral bier, with a black pall and a white cross— the Sister Mary Brmenild entered, for the purpose of receiving the black veil. " Mary," says the somewhat irreverent reporter, "at the High Altar, vested in embroidered white silk vestments, was attended by acolytes ia crimson and white robes." This, nevertheless, seems to have been only introductory, for presently, she was led over to the bier, where she took up her place, and she was led there by some beings that seem to us new to the religious world. She was, in fact, " led out of the Choir by two elderly sisters — not nuns, but external sisters," and here she remained until the sermon, preached by Father Ignatius, had concluded. And the sermon, too, was rather remarkable. The preacher, for example, told the sister she was going to " bury herself alive in a living tomb," and he declared he " deserved our Gracious Queen should have him hung" if he was not going to perform a most meritorious action in assisting at the burial. The sermon concluded the ceremonies were re-commenced — and among them two boys having " spread a towel over Father Ignatius's lap" and given him a scissors, the elderly external sisters held back the novice's veil while her hair was cut off close to her head. Various other matters were also gone through with, and at length the sisters placed their charge, now fully veiled and crowned with a wreath, upon a- crimson-draped chair in front of the so-called altar, where " a stream of monks, nuns, sisters, acolytes, and lay-people from the congregation, prostrated themselves before her," and she placed her hands " very lovingly on their bowed heads" and gave them her blessing. After this the bier was brought into requisition, and " Mother Ennenild," as she was now called, was placed upon it by the elderly external sisters, and covered with a heavy pall, while Father Ignatius, suitably vested, incensed the bier, and threw earth upon it, saying at the same time ' Earth to earth, ashes to'ashes." Prayers for the dead were at the same time chanted, and " Mother Ermenild was borne into her living tomb," and out of sight of the congregation. But nothing can be more painfully ludicrous than this travesty of a religious reception ; nothing more widely difEerent from the Catholic ceremony, whose forms it exaggerates and distorts, and whose spirit is wholly wanting to it. We are not surprised to find it called a " heathen ceremony."

"BEHOLD THY GODS, O ISBAEL."

Accobding to the Monthly Letter of the Protestant Alliance, quoted by a contemporary, the cantrips that the Marquis of Bipon is playing in India are enough to make the angels shed whole floods of tears. — We do not, however, mention the particular class of angels in question, and there is more than one class. The Marquis, it seems, bids fair to be the means of converting all India to Catholicity, and that, we know, would be a most terrible thing, ishnu, Siva, Buddha, Mahommed, all their ways are far preferable in, the eyes of the Protestant Alliance to any of the tenets of the Catholic Church for which they should make room. Let every rite, howsoever abominable, be celebrated in India, so long as the holy sacrifice of the Mass is not performed there, and the Alliance will be perfectly satisfied. Their protest does them honour, and once more we obtain a proof as to the crowd among whom we must number our " Evangelical " friends. Meantime, we find that, whatever may be the intentions of the Marquis of Bipon, and however reprehensibly anxious he may be be to see the idolatry of the country make way for the Christian faith, and let us remark in passing, so great has been the popularity of the Marquis, a petition is now in the course of being signed for the prolongation of his Governor-ship

it is rumoured on good -authority that the condition of India, not only under its religious aspect — but so far as temporal matters are concerned, might with advantage suffer a considerable change. The conntry, in fact, could hardly be. worse governed than it is at present, even if the "Jesuitical emissaries of the Church of Borne" had accomplished the design with which the Protestant Alliance accredits them, and. gained the control of the State itself. — But have' we not the testimony of a learned Calvinist as to what Jesuits have done when they were permitted to influence the State 7 Who knows but that their influence in India might after all be as wholesome as M. Sace says it waß in South America. That some wholesome influence is needed there we have, nevertheless, good grounds to believe, and our authority is a British officer writing in an English periodical — that is Lieut.-Col. B. D. Osborn in the Contemporary Review for December. And it Bhould be acknowledged to the credit ef the English love of justice that there is no abuse of which the Government are guilty that does not find exposure at the hand of some indignant Englishman or other. Colonel Osborn, then, writes an exposure of the system that prevails in India and which he exhibits as most shameful. The despotic power, he says, of the one race over the other has led to contempt on the part of the Englishman and hatred on that of the Indian. The Umrita Bazaar JPatrika, tfcV most influential native newspaper, describes the attitude of the" governed and governing as follows :—": — " The magistrates, as a rule, do not like the people, and it is evident also that the people like them not . . If any one would leconcile these two hostile parties, he would solve the most difficult problem of the British administration in India. The mischief which the magistrate does in the internal administration of the country is only comparable to what' is done by the political agents in native states. It is not their open and legal doings, but their secret and confidential reports ; tLeir extra-judicial proceedings and underhand' pulling of wires that set the country ablaze .... They are workers in the dark, and do their best to shun the light of open criticism and fair argument. They are the most zealous supporters of gagging acts and summary trials. They are loudest in their denunciation of the educated classes, and would, if they could, expel all pleaders from their courts. According to them the highest trait in the character of a native is a proper curva. ture of the body in salaaming, and the best scheme of education is the one that would turn out their ideal of an office clerk. They look upon any sign of self-respect as despicable ill-breeding in natives, ambition as the worst of impieties, and servility as the chief of virtues." A statement in the Pioneer, moreover, that the natives regarded the morals of the English as " atrociously depraved all round," led to a brisk controversy in which some startling disclosures were made ; one correspondent especially giving instances of the dishonest dealings of the officials. " All Europeans of the country," he wrote, " have two characters to judge and show — the one in which the boasted high tone of their morality is shown to their superiors, and their fellow-countrymen and the Press ; the other — the black side — is shown and known to the natives only. The ill-treatment which the natives get from these corrupt officials when they cannot satisfy their demands, can better be imagined than described." «iThe fact is," comments the writer, " that the people of India have found us out. And our Indian pro-consuls know right well that they have been found out — that they rule in India by the sword, and hot, as they would like to persuade the world, by ' the divine right of good government.' " Hence arise, therefore, the constant fears for the safety of English rule, and the necessity of keeping a wide extent of barbarous country between the boundaries of British India and the advance of western civilisation. The extortions, again, practised upon the natives have been desciibed by Lord Macaulay, and Mr, Shore in his " Notes upon India," has given a description of the " crack collector," but although this was written forty years ago the character in question is still to the fore. "Ifc was only the other day — 1877-78— that, stimulated and spurred on by the Government of India, Sir George Cowper, the LieutenantGovernor of the North- Western Provinces, in the midst of a dearth which carried off more than a million of human beings, wrung the full amount of the land revenue from his dying, famine -stricken subjects. At the very same time Sir Richard Temple, on the Bombay side, emulated the achievements of his colleague of the North-West. The Native officials entered the huts ot the starving ryots, and sold up everything they and their families were posessed of — down even to their few cooking' utensils. And when this did not suffice, their land was put up to auction, and as there were and could be no purchasers, lots were knocked down to the Government for a few annas, averaging in English money from fourpence to sixpence." British rule in India, in fact, means a scramble for increased allowances by the officials who conduct it,, and who have all come here for the sole purpose of making money. The Government, consequently, is always in want of money to satisfy them, and he is accounted the beat-officer who can bring in the most. Of how they manage this, the following details are given. " Settlement officers," writes Mr. Connell in his admirable book on our ' Land Revenue Policy in Northern India ' , , , "in the height of their zeal, peer with prophetic vision into

the misty future, and they fix an assessment admittedly at the time above half-assets, on the assumption that aeter a certain period the rental of the. village will from sonjc undefined cause, increase to double the land-tax (the official theory being that the Government share is half the rental). They speculate that jungle land will be bought under cultivation ; that a canal will soon offer more abundant navigation ; that a railway or retailed road will give an easier and cheaper access to neighbouring markets ; that prices will rise ; that tenants will increase and multiply ; that the rents are abnormally and absurdly low ; that the land should pay much more; that the rents could easily be enhanced if the landowners would only properly exert themselves ; and in this pleasant belief they at once raise the government demand to a rate admittedly far above the existing rental, and this largely increased tax the landowners are at once politely admonished to pay." But the people so dealt with are excessively poor and the struggle in many instances is " not for comforts or competency, but for life." Whatever, then, may be Lord Ripon's intentions as to the " spread of Eomanism in India," it is clear that Christianity as at present represented there to .the natives v by government officials, must seem to them but a miserable creed, 'and we may even conclude without extravagance that were the |j" Jesuitical emissaries of Jhe Church of Rome " to obtain the control of the State, things could hardly be much worse than they now are —if the Jesuits, on the other hand, were not very different from those the French Calvinist savant, M. Sace has spoken of in connection with South America, they would be able to establish things on a very much better footing. But, for the Protestant Alliance, as we have already said, the creed of Hindu or Mahommedan is preferable to that of Rome, and any despotism is preferred before a rule admitting of Jesuit authority. And let us ever keep in mind the old French saying " Dis-?noi gui tv Mutes et je te dirai gui tu-es "—Let Vishnu be honoured in company with the "glorious, pious, and immortal memory " ; they will most fitly run together.

THOSE OTHEB BAPTISTS.

WhAtbveb may be the attitude of Baptists in New Zealand towards the godless schools, that of their brethren in America seems to grow adverse to them. And let us remark, again, that Baptists in New Zealand must not take their want of spirit very much to heart ; their brethren in America seem to make up for all they need. There, for instance, is that prize-fight described by the San Francisco correspondent of our contemporary, the Otago Daily Times, and which came off, by invitation of the Rev. Mr. Kalloch, sen., in the Metropolitan Temple, while the organist performed jigs and nigger melodies on his instrument. What other sect, we ask, can boast of a display of spirit like that? Let it bear due testimony. Our American Baptist friends, however, begin to suspect that the godless schools are hardly producing the crop of righteousness that many good people have expected from them, and their organ, the Baptist Weeltly, boldly questions the capabilities of the schools. " There still lingers, 1 ' says he, " with many people an idea that education is a preventive of crime ; but common schools are by no means certain to produce good citizens." Why, this is as bad as Mr. Herbert Spencer himself, and one might think that Baptist and Agnostic took one and the same view of matters. It is remarkable, at any rate, that they do so in New Zealand, where both of them are convinced that good citizens will be run out of these schools as fast and sure as flour from the mill. But if these schools do not produce good citizens, what are they maintained for 1 It has always been the contention of their advocates that such a production was their chief use, and failing that, their raison d'etre perishes. Our Baptist, nevertheless, although he disapproves of the godless schools, is still more bound to disapprove of the desire of Catholics to be permitted to do that which the Government has failed, and must fail, to do— that is, to give their children such an education as will ensure their being good citizens, because they will be good Christians, in which all the rest that is of any value is included. " We judge the Eoman Catholics in the wrong," he says, " in their opposition to the system, but that far more ought to be attempted to promote the moral training of the young must be conceded." Butwhat the " far more" must be it would probably puzzle this writer to explain,— unless, of course, he should explain, as many among ourselves would be anxious to do, if they judged it prudent, that religious Protestantism must be taught compulsorily to every child, irrespective of his parents' wishes. The religious advocates of secularism, in a word, are caught in their own snare, and having been induced, chiefly by their anti-Catholic bigetry, to follow the lead of the secularists, they are now in the quagmire from which they seem unable to withdraw, while what lies before them has at last caught their eyes and stricken them with terror. But let us listen to what our Baptist has to warn us of, in connection with the system he condemns, though he does not know how to propose a specific remedy for it, and can only propose that the remedy claimed by Catholics shall not be granted to them. "In this country," says he, " deeds of blood are generally the work of ignorant and besotted men, but the forgeries, great robberies and defalcations of the times, it is well

ANOTHER PBOOF.

known, only men of good education could commit. These have been appalling in their number and in the terrible evils they have worked. There is no safeguard from crime in the ability to read and write, or even in the culture which a college can give, if there is not arf education of the conscience in righteousness/ But how shall the conscience be educated in righteousness while all the sorroundings are godless ? Here, then, we have a striking instance of what is really going on all around us— of a sectary alarmed by godlessness, beholding its uselessness — its worse than uselessness, its preparation for wickedness and crime, and yet who is bound to the wheels of the chariot on which the idol is drawn, in common with a multitude, by the bond of anti-Catholic bigotry. Godless education is not popular, but isfearedj and would fall to pieces to-morrow were not bigotry enlisted in its support. But godlessness is consistently bound together by hatred, and its fruits will be consistent with the whole combination. • _^__ _ Another proof, if one were wanted, as to the attitude of the Catholic laity towards secularism has been furnished by the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, where an indignant protest has been made in a very effectual manner. At a plebiscite held on Nov. 26th, then, for the purpose of taking the vote of the people for the establishment of a ministry with the design of making the schools secular, the defeat of the movement was remarkable, and the most so in the CatholicCantons where the majorities against it were overwhelming. The figures are as follows, as we find them in the London Universe :—: — "In the canton of Uri, there were 3865 Noes, and only 187 Ayes ; in Schwytz, 9825 Noes against 610 Ayes ; and in Nidwalden, .2477 Noes against 139 Ayes. In the canton of Friburg 4146 Ayes were polled, but they were entirely crushed by 20,513 Catholic votes of ' No.' Tn Obwalden, the_most rural of all Swiss cantons, 3308 Noes stood against but 72 Ayes." In the face of the evidence, therefore, that exists to the contrary it is foolish for people to argue, as we occasionally find them doing, that the Catholic laity, if uninfluenced by their clergy, would accept the godless schools. Their conduct all over the world contradicts such a statement most emphatically, and gives it the lie as flatly as it can be given.

A COMING WAE.

Among the reports that obtain circulation and relate to coming disturbances, there is one to the effect that it ia the intention of Mr. Stanley, the African explorer, to engage 500 Swans at Zanzibar and take them to combat on the Congo against the French monopoly of that river. And the river is an important one, capable, as it is, of placing in the bands of the power that commands it the trade of an immense region, extending from the Soudan to the sources of the Nile, and carrying a population estimated at some eighty millions. The possession of the river would give to France the trade of the Soudan, and spare any further planning on the part of French engineers or merchants as to the almost impossible construction of a railroad to connect Algeria with the district alluded to. The report, nevertheless, which states that Mr. Stanley is determined to prevent the French from intruding on the territory he has purchased can be hardly corrects for he must know it is extremely unlikely that they would think of doing so since the country in question has been most injudiciously selected, and was chosen with the object of uniting the navigable portion of the Congo with the sea by means of a road to be formed over a mountainous district, through which the river flows in a series of rapids that can never be made navigable. Undoubtedly it must have been very provoking, and more especially so to a man of Mr, Stanley's fiery temperament to find that, while he had been engaged in climbing the precipitous route in question, and had been unsparing in the expenditure of money on buying tracts of country and founding stations, M. de Brazza, without expense and with but few companions, had actually planted the French flag, by special agreement with Makoko the sovereign of the country, upon a point of the very lake called in English Stanley- Pool, in compliment to the explorer, and into which the Congo expands before it* flows down among the rapids. M. de Brazza had obtained there the point commanding the true communication with the sea by means of an affluent ttiat falls into the Atlantic under the name of the Quilliou, and which point, in fact, must prove the key of the river Congo* With it in the possession of France, as it certainly is and almost as certainly will continue, Mr. Stanley's threats and ravings are all in vain. But had there never been a question of collision with' France upon the Congo, Mr. Stanley might still have hesitated to return to the navigable portion of the river without a Btrong force to protect him, for a vendetta awaits him there on the part of a tribe who form the boatmen of the river, on which they with their families continually live, and who remember against him a slaughter of their people made at a certain islet when he arrived among them in 1877, and, grown weary of treating with the natives, had resolved to make his way by force. The Oubandjis remember this event bitterly, and have made up their minds to take, on the first opportunity ? the yen-

geance they were then robbed of by the swift descent of the river made by their assailant. When, therefore, Mr. Stanley returns to the Congo, whatever may be his relations with France, it will be very necessary for him to be well guarded against the natives who threaten him, and with reference to this it is, perhaps, that he turns his mind to the engagement of forces in Zanzibar. France is undoubtedly under a cloud at present, but the atmosphere in which she lives must, we fancy, become a good deal darker before it will be possible for her to be checked, even in Africa, by an adventurer at the head of a band of savage mercenaries.--The idea .indeed, is a little absurd.