Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 12, 11 July 1884, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Ik France the party of irreligion gains strength daily, an advance islmade every day towards an undisguised and virulent persecution of religion.— The recent municipal elections in Paris have resulted in a victory for the intransigeants, and thus the body that Has driven the Sisters of Charity out of the hospitals, and dismissed thence the chaplains who ministered to the sick and dying has received an increase of intolerance and anti-Catholic hatred. All through the. country the expulsion of the religious Orders is being followed up by various harassing measures. An attempt has been commenced and commenced with good effect to etarve out the bishops and parish priests, — and chnrchss, and sanctuaries are placed in the care of profane guardians whose delight it is to insult the feelings of religious visitors, or else they are being converted to needless secular uses as an outrage on the popular belief, and in defiance of the popular dissatisfaction. — The chief object of attack, however, is that wherein the most vulnerable point of the nation's religion lies,— the education of the children of the people. The schools are no longer merely the negative hot-beds of atheism ; positive atheism is taught there vigorously, and the children of the people are forced to learn the leßson*. Fine and imprisonment await, the father or mother •who would rescue a child from the pernicious influence, To describe the manuals of so-called moraj instruction that are actually used in these schools, — or that have been prepared for use in them at an early aeafon must be a painful task to any Catholic writer. Thete is nothing more tiresome at any time than to review the works of pedants and shallow ill-instrncted professors of a false philosophy but when to do so involves as well the perusal of blasphemy, of insults offered to the most sacred truths and the most holy saints of the Christian religion. — Yes, even to the Saint of Saints himself, to the eternal Father, to Jesus Christ, to the Immaculate Mother of God, the task is not one to be undertaken without the gravest reasons. Suffice it then, to say that all this is to be found put forth by the writers of the manuals in question with the utmost coarseness, illustrated in sotn e instances moreover, by engravings designed to make the truths of religion and the sacred ones in whose lives they were best made known to the Christian Church, the objects of contempt,, and ridicule and dislike to the children using these books. — But it may be asked how can these things be since the great body of the French people still continue to believe and profess the. Catholic faith 1 since it is in their power at any moment to overthrow the Government that so abuses the authority committed to it, and to send back into a wellearned obscurity, the evil men who have done all this and who are Tapidly preparing to do much that is still worse— and even a good deal worse? Is it not the people's own fault— and do they not deserve to reap the harvest of which they themselves have sown the seeds? It is hard, indeed, to absolve them, and, for our own part, we do not see what excuse can be made for them or how they shall, even in a slight degree, be held guiltless of the great and terrible crime of national apostasy that, without some stupendous f miracle worked by Almighty God, must certainly ensue. An excuse, nevertheless, that we have seen urged is that the people have no leaders. The doctrine which w e saw so finely condemned the other day in a passage quoted from a speech made by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy some years ago at Wexford — that the priests should not take a part in politics prevails among the French clergy, and, in consequence, it is said, the people have no leaders. We are, however, unwilling to believe that a clergy so wise, so learned, so charitable, so devoted to the cause of God, and to the salvation of the flocks entrusted to them, abstain from interfering in politics without having duly wt ighed the matter and come to the reasonable conclusion that their interference would do more harm than good. We dismiss as idle and wholly .incredible the argument ftometimei brought forward— that they aie influenced by the pittance, sow diminished, they receive as a salary from Government ; and we also refuse to believe thajt among such a clergy jthere would not be found the martyr spirit r ,t^.t u wguld bravely meet the persecution and even the bloodshed that would" undoubtedly be encountered at their

DISASTBOTJS POLICY.

entrance upon a political struggle as the leaders of their people. Bat the doctrine that the priest should not interfere in politics — even when politics are so interwoven, with religion as to form one and the same question, prevails— for some sufficient reason no doubt— among the clergy of Prance, and as a consequence the people are without leaders. On the other hand the people have temporal interests— and, as the case is with every other people in the world, their interests appeal to them and influence them strongly. It is in these the atheist and the enemy of religion find the weak point where they can make their mark. The infidel candidate is lavish in promises— all the wants of the district shall be carefully attended to, every savinffshall be made, especially all the money needed for local works and undertakings shall be forthcoming — and where the people are very ignorant he can with advantage play on their fears by alluding to some hard■hip of the past— such, for example, as the corvSes, or enforced labours on the lands of the lord-of-the-manor that prevailed in days before the Revolution and which are still remembered with horror by the people. These, he insists or some such thing, it would be the object of the Catholic candidate and his friends to introduce once more. But as for the Catholic candidate he can make no fine promises ; he can honestly pledge himself only to do his best for the welfare of the constituents who elect him, and he is "beaten in the* contest. Temporal interests win the day, and thus a Catholic people become the dupes of atheists, and themselves co mbine to wreck the faith of the nation, and raise up generations of atheists — to prove the curse of France — the curse of Europe, of which France is the heart — and the curse of the world — that answers to the throbbing of Europe's pulse. So, then, France goes on from bad to worse. Her priests take no part in politics— no doubt for sufficient reasons, as we have already said — although we cannot see what those reasons are, or why a different course of action from that long taken with good effect by the clergy of Ireland — and the other day, as we may conclude, taken with success by the clergy of Belgium— should be condemned by the French clergy ; the people look to their petty temporal interests, and elect the men who promise or seem able to forward them. The clever, or cunning atheist is successful, and religion perishes.

BETTEB LATE THAN NEVEB.

Thf speakers at the meeting held in Old Knox Church, Dunedin, on Monday evening, for the purpose of advocating the introduction of the Bible into the schools, are on. the whole to be congratulated on the more liberal tone tbat characterised their speeches. It is at least something gained since it is acknowledged that even a return to denominaticnalism would be preferable to the total exclusion of religion from the education of children. Experience teaches — but it is not always that its teachings are acted upon, and it is a proof of wisdom that, before things have reached their last extreme, men come forward and even in. a modifie degree acknowledged that they had been mistaken. They had accepted the secular system as the alternative offered to them, co that they might avoid doing justice to Catholics, but they have already found out that their, power of inflicting injustice has been purchased too dear, and they are inclined in a greater or less degree, to relax the terms of their bargain — if it bs possible for them. But is it any longer possible for them— for there is the rub ? The powers at whose bidding, in truth, the secular system arose, the secret societies of Continental Europe who planned the whole thing, did so with the intention of overthrowing Christianity in all its branches, and of destroying all its roots. They began their attack upon the Catholic Church, and were most violent and most determined in the undertaking they entered into against her* because, not being misled by the silly views and small spiritual conceitSjOf any Protestant sect — they are confident that with the fall of the Church all Protestant Christianity must also topple down. They knew, moreover, tbat they were sure of the aid of the Protestant sects in their war upon the Church, and that these, bliuded by their hatred of Catholicism, would eagerly set their hands to the work by which their own destruction mußt eventually be carried out. Nor \iere their calculations in any degree falsified— that ia so far as to the ease with which the Protestant sects would be induced to play into their hands by their anti- Catholic prejudices— their plans so far succeeded quite as well as they could have expected, and godless education became popular among people who, nevertheless, themselves passed for being exceedingly godly. Into all the corners of the world the behests of

the secret societies went abroad and no where were they more faithfully obeyed than among ourselves in New Zealand.. The very ignorance, in fact, that prevailed here among Protestants as to the nature of Catholicism, and the hopelessness of inflicting a vital injury on the Church, as well as the over-confi dence of ill-informed sec* tarians in the stability of their own various creeds, gave an additional strength to the aid they afforded to the movement against Christianity. We have no doubt but that the progress of un-Christianising the the Colony which has been made within the last few years has been duly reported among the lodges of Europe and given there a] propor. tionate degree of satisfaction. When a movement, then, is mooted for a retrogressive step in the direction of teaching even Protestant Christianity it should be remembered that there is concerned with it not the mere population of these colonies, but, also, the great organisation whose headquarters are to be found in the masonic lodges of Europe, whence their influence extends throughout every English speaking country by means, for the most part, of the more innocuous and [Icfi3 deeply initiated English masons. It is, then, but what might reasonably be looked for that a tyranny should ba exercised, as Mr, E. B. Cargill, for example, declares, in the exclusion of Bible-reading from the schools. It is; with the chief tyrants of the day, the men, who, under a false pretence of liberalism are everywhere oppressing the people that stand in the way of their ambition and rage against Christianity, that the friends of Christianity in any shape or form have got to do, and the haad that is set against them is one of greater strength than many of them have any idea of. In their foolish anger against the Catholic Church, moreover, Protestants here were duped into giving the evil power an advantage which it would not otherwise have obtained, and on themselves has, first and most weightily, fallen the blow that has been struck. The Catholic Church will last to the end ; she may gain here, she may lose there, but by local changes alone will she bs affected. \B\it as fur all those fragile bodies who strike against the rock on which she stands they will go to pieces, and of this New Zealand Protestants, in the decay of religion they now confess as having resulted already from the Godless system they so thoughtlessly adopted, have had a warning. It will be to their ad vantage, if they have the good sense to perceive (this and to act upon it. And it is, at least, a slight token that they have in some degree received the warning given, that amongst their leaders are to be found some who acknowledge that worse things than even denominationalism may come upon them. f

FBEEMAJ3ONRY.

Wk publish this week the first part of the latest and one of the most important Encyclicals that Pope Leo XIII. has issued. It is an unmitigated condemnation of Freemasonry, and the last word has thus been spoken in branding it as an unspeakable evil, and one to be avoided by all Christians — by all Catholics especially, among whom not one can now persuade himself, by any sophistry, that he may belong to the secret society and yet remain a Catholic. The condemnation is open - and unmeasured, and it makes no exception, as had been reported before its issue, in favour of English Masons. As, indeed, hove could they be excused who had made themselves the means of more easily spreading abroad the poison of atheism, and who, even if in ignorance of various degrees, had lent their influence to work the overthrow of religion and society ? The Encyclical has produced a marked effect all over Europe— the Masonic Press has abused and ridiculed it excessively, but, at the same time, with' the uneasy tone of those who feel that a truth dangerous to them has been fearlessly uttered, and in such a manner as to affect their existence and derange their plans most seriously. By other non-Catholic newspapers the warnings and condemnations have been acknowledged as well founded and fully deserved, und some, that have not ventured to go bo far, have at least agreed that there was room to suspect the truth of the Pope's utterances. One of the most important articles published on the subject is that in which the Paris Figaro has followed up with specific charges all that the Pope has stated generally, and shown in particular how, out of the lodges of France, has come the bitter war made upon religion during the Presidency of M. Grevy. The Times told us a little time ago that it was vain to suppose that Freemasonry was merely a system, of benevolence. The Figaro tells us that, formerly, it had been obliged to shelter itself under such a pretence, but that of late years it has thrown off the disguise and openly taken a part in politics. It rules France— the President is a Mason. Jo, the Masonic municipality of Paris, the secularisation of the .schools) was 'declared necessary, long j before the Mason M. Jules Ferry, now President of the Council, had brought in and carried the secular Bill, on clause 7 of which — the antiCatholic clause, par excellence— -he received an ovation at Marseilles, and was congratulated by the Grand Master as having accomplished a " work eminently Masonic." And in this undisguised predetermination of the Masons of Paris to secularise the schools we receive an additional and undeniable proof that secularism generally emanated from the lodges, as we have always with reason maintained. But the expulsion of the religious from the hospitals, the banishment of the Orders, the secularisation of Echools, has bean but the beginning, the faint

beginning, of what is yet to come, for the motto of the Society i» that proclaimed by Brother Caston, of the Grand Orient of Paris, " The enemy is Gcd," and it therefore wages war against all that belongs to God, or owns Him as God— against Catholicism first and principally, but afterwards against Protestantism in all its religions aspects. So much, we derive from the confirmation, strong and par." ticular, made of the Pope's general statements by the non-Catholic, and sometimes anti-Catholic, Figaro. But of closer bearing upon English Masonry may be thought the admissions of the Saturday Review. "It is hardly wonderful," be says, " that an Association avowedly based upon an ideal of unity, which at least ignores all distinctions of creed, and pays, e.g., equal honour to the Bible in a Christian-, and the Koran in a Mahometan country, should be looked upon with suspici on by many Christian believers who are not Ultramontanes, or even Roman Catholics." And again he says, " It is probably true, as has been asserted, that ' Masonry takes its colouring in each country from the state of thought and feeling by which it is surrounded,' and this may help to acconnt for the alleged diversity of English and foreign Masonry ; but it seems to be also true that its general tendency is in a democratic and non-Christian direction, though very many of its members may be both loyal subjects and orthodox Christians , . Between the fierceneES of its Jesuit assailants . . . and the enthusiasm of attached panegyrists, it is difficult for outsiders, who are neither Jesuits nor Freemasons, to attain to any exact knowledge of the true state of the case. And until some further information is forthcoming, they may be pardoned if they incline to the alternative suggested by Balaam, and neither bless altogether nor curse altogether a sect which comes before them in so questionable a shape that it absolutely refuses to be questioned. But the presumption must always lie against any secret association that its secrets are either too trivial or too criminal for exposure," There is surely contained in these passages a warning that should weigh strongly with those ministers and other fervent members of Christian sects who are etill Freemasons. As to Catholics, they will need no more than the Holy Father's encyclical not only to keep them. from all connection with the secret societies, but to make them vigilant against the dangers that threaten them from such sources.

THE MEMBER FOB CAUDLEDOM.

We have politics all over us just at present. We are, in fact, crawling alive with them—metaphorically speaking of course. Take up the morning paper, it is crowded with politics, and to prevent itself from being crowded oat entirely, it has a notice to the effect that it cannot, except on the most advantageous terms', report another sentence from the lips of any politician — an accident-, we may remark ia passing, which we regard as a dispensation of a most kind Providence. Take up the evening paper and you will find ditto and ditto repeated, until an oath — of a very mild nature at least — may be looked upon as pardonable if it escapes you. —Venture out into the streets and almost every man you meet will want to know what are your opinions as to the situation — but another dispensation of Providence, in nine cases out of ten, comes to your relief iv the anxiety he displays to answer all bis own questions himself and te pronounce very decided opinions instead of keeping silence to listen to yours — a special mercy to a man who has no particular opinions to speak of and does not care much one way or another — being perfectly content for the nonce that every man should "go to the devil his own way " — that is, we need hardly explain, from a political point of view, and so far as the path of politics may lead to such quarters. Wherever you may happen to be, there are people in and out all day reporting progress, repeating reports, inviting confidence, and Heaven only knows how much more of it, for the non-political head speedily becomes bothered, and can summon up only recollection enough to wish to goodness it was all over once for all, and the whole squad packed off to wrangle and knock one another about in the appointed arena at Wellington. Still, however bothered a man may be, however confused, aggravated, and overset generally, so long as he is a man at all or has a spark of human warmth left in his heart be must feel for some who are credibly reported to be in still a worse plight than be is himself. — After all it is not absolutely necessary to read the newspapers, and, at any rate, a very slight glance, after so much experience, must show any man with an eye in his head what it is that any particular candidate has had to say on any given occasion, and perhaps he may even have known* it all beforehand.— You can, with a rush, escape the man at the corner, and cut the man in the street, and a visit of your intimate friend may be thwarted by a little adroitness—but Heaven help that man beside whose pillow politics lay wait for him, and where a minute exposition of a particular can* didate's views, and a fervent advocacy of his claims are taken up with the marital night-cap. With the progress of the times. Mrs. Caudle has become a politician, and how more heavily shall Benedict be accursed ? The tabernacle this time has stolen a inarch on the scientific platform, and in the emancipation of woman— or of her tongue— has advanced many feet at • bound. But, on second

thoughts, why should not woman be trained for the privileges that are before her ? She is about to become a voter, if some of our legislators can bring the matter to pass, and what more fitting than that her intellect should be put in training, so that she may acquit herself with credit, and sustain the honour of whatsoever family she may happen to be be an ornament to ? The husband that could object to lie awake at night arguing the subject uni il the rojsters hailed the dawn — and he was hardly allowed to bear them crowing— ehould, after all be but a paltry fellow. It may even be that by-and-bye bis wife herself will have to mount the platform or deliver an address on the hustings, for who can tell what will follow when lovely woman influences the poll ? And what reasonable husband would regret the midnight hours spent in training the female idea how to shoot? — The female idea, as we know, is ever young and nlastic, and ready to ran in the right groove if only that be pointed ~^ ito it. Nay, in most instances, or in all for what we can tell, itself happens on the right groove, and what, then, could be more delightful than for Jones, or Brown, or Robinson, as the case might be, to let the small hours pa6s without being counted, while he listened to the lessons of wisdom unfolded to him 1 And would it not be of advantage untold to Jones, or Robinson, or Brown, to be taught bow to prefer the man of God, and make due provision for the future spiritual needs of the innocents snoring around his bed, rather than be beguiled by the deceiver — charm he never so wisely 1 On reflection, then, we are forced to admit the prudence of Mr. M. W. Green, for it is he io whose favour the tongue of the fair sex wags all night long in Dunedin East ; he it is who has foreseen the need of lovely woman to practise in advance the privileges he means to con* fer upon her in the franchise, by cauvasing her husband, — which she will do, of course, in her own most approved style, and at her favourite opportunity.— But who would have thought that Mr. Green had been a student of profane literature, and not above taking a hint even from the lighter writing of the age 1—"1 — " Whoever," says Sam Slick, " has the women is sure of the men, you may depend, Squire ; openly or secretly, directly or indirectly, they do contrive, somehow or another, to have their own way in the eend, and tho' the men have the reins, the women tell 'em which way to drive. Now, if ever you go for to canvass for votes, always canvass the wives, and you are sure of the husbands. "—There is the whole thing in a nutshell,— and we must admit it was fortunate for Mr. Green that he had posted himself up in Sam Plick, even although for the moment he had lost tight of the Bible.— "Was it, by the way, while travelling by rail, as he has done a good deal of late we understand, he so diverted his mind, to his temporal profit as it turns out ? But, with Sam Slick or without him, if Mr. Green goes up to Parliament as the Member for Caudledom, who shall say that the position is nob most suitable to him, and that he does not fill it to perfection — having earned it very appropriately and in exact accordance with the character we have so long admired in him ?

AX IMPROVEMENT.

Time was when the little maid would weep over the story of poor Bed Riding-bood ; time was when the sad fate of the Babes in the Wood caused her bitter pangs, and the robins that had buried them in loaves had all her sympathy. In those days she hemmed her kerchief, and played gently with her doll, and was a quiet little maid giving promise of walking contentedly in the virtuous steps of a quiet mother. None of us then suspected the little maid was an eyesore on the face of the carth — we did not see in her a monument of enslavement, and a barrier in the way of progress. "We were not aware that in her the "dark ages " had left to us a plague-spot, and a source of corruption. We thought, on the contrary, that God through Christianity, had thus given us a blessing, and 6hown us what was most precious, pure, and beautiful in His creation. But, says Brother de Heredia, of the Grand Orient, " The most desired conquest of Freemasonry is woman ; for she is the last stronghold which the spirit of the dark ages opposes to human progress." And Freemasonry, by means of secularism, has begun the task that is to end in the conquest referred to. With what promise of success, let following picture testify, which we find translated from the of M. Comely, in Le Matin, by our contemporary the Nem York Freeman's Journal :— " She was ten years old. Every morning she came to the atheistical school with a little basket containing her lunch. Lately the basket emitted the odor of petroleum, and the 6chool-mißtress asked for an explanation. She answered that her mother had cleaned the basket with petroleum. ' And that little box of matches under the pieces of bread II 11I 1 • She did not know anything about them.' The other day a t-udden fire burst out in the bedroom of the teacher. It was as suddenly extinguished. It was found that the little pupil had thrown petroleum on some rags and set them a fire. She quietly acknowledged it to the inspector of godless schools: I wanted to burn the teacher because she gave me bad marks.' — The nspector said that he bad several cases of the same kind on his bands* He was at his wit's end." Here then, is the improvement shown already by the little maid. The wolf, now, and the wicked uncle and he hardened robber, eeem in a fair way to claim her sympathies instead

of the Bed Biding-hood and the poor babies. ■ Thus the memory of the •« dark ages " and the impediment they have left bid fair to ba overcome, and Masonry baa a promise of that conquest that it seeks, and has wisely planned in secularism the certain means of securing.