Current Topics. AT SOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 13, 18 July 1884, Page 1

Current Topics. AT SOME AND ABROAD.

We do not know whether other Protestant peoples will be content to grant to England the gloryclaimed for her of having given rise to the " Morning Star of the Keformatioa." We do not believe that any student of ecclesiastical history, even the most superficial, can admit that. Wycliffe, for whom the title in* question was claimed, in a hymn sung the other day at the Quincentenary Celebration in London, was by any means the first rebel against the authority of the Holy See, or the first teacher of heresy. He was not, even in England, the first translator of Holy Scripture into the vulgar tongue, for before him many portions of it had been badly translated, and many false doctrines founded on their private interpretation. Before his day, moreover, the Scriptures had been translated into the vernacular of Southern Franco, and on them so translated were based the tenets of those various and multitudinous sects~with their wild, strange, or grossly immoral creeds— that we know nnder the general name of Albigenses. True, it may be claimed for Wycliffe that he had marched in the van of the Reformation, as such a distinction may be claimed for heretics from the begiuning. And, if British Protestants must celebrate the memory of all the " reformers " who were born within the boundaries of their island, why should they, for example, pass over that of one who centuries before the time of Wycliffe, had produced an effect in the Church' that Wycliffe's efforts never reached ?— that is, Pelagius, who was a native of Wales, and who exercised the right of private judgment very remarkably— who was. moreover, as Wycliffe seems principally admired for being believed to have been, an enemy of the Holy See— for all who teach false doctrine are the enemies of the source whence true doctrine proceeds. But Wycliffe was rejected by Lnther, and condemned by Melancthon as having taught doctrines wholly opposed to those of the lieformation that he, his chief, and his companions championed. Wycliffe's doctrine, indeed, alone, that sin committed by a Prince stripped him of his authority and absolved his subjects from their duty of obedience, was one that, of all people in the world, the so-called •' Reformers " durst not receive as their own. For ihe veiy essence of their movement, its very life-blood, and the power that quickened, upheld, and made it successful was that princes should 6in to the top of their beat with all impunity, both tempo* ral and spiritual. The Reformation whose results obtain to-day in England, in Germauy, everywhere it took root and grew, was the creature of princes whose vices were not only pardoned, but enuouraged, and pandered to by tho leaders among the reformers. What Cianmer, for instance, was in England Luther was in Germany. So far aa it is possible to make them out, for his writings are very confused and contradictory, Wycliffe'd chief distinctive doctrines Bsem to be that the clergy should live in absolute poverty, and, as we have already said, that authority depends on the sinlessness of him in whom it is vested,— neither of them doctrines of the Beformation, for, if the princes who supported that movement were notoriously of evil life, the clergy who inaugurated and promoted it were fully convinced, and their successors have always remained so, that wealth and comfortable living were not only allowable, but very desirable for the teachers of religion—and that asceticism of any kind was to be avoided as a Romish superstition. As to tho attitude of Wycliffe towards the Papacy, it is exceedingly difficult to ascertain with certainty, from his writings so far published, what in truth it was. but he does not appear at all to question the spiritual supremacy of the Apostolic See as derived from St. Peter, and the Protestant position has but little to gain, even in so far as he is an authority, from anything he has said. There is, however, ao particular reason why we should contradict the assertion that Wycliffe was the " Mornidg Btar of the Reformation " iC our Protestant friends desire to claim him as such. One star in that particular firmament must be pretty much the same as another to all Catholics. But; since our Protestant friends seem determined on obtaining as high an antiquity for their various creeds as possible it seems, as we said, quite as open io them to go back to some- more ancient heretic as to Wycliffe— aod by doing so they: williprove quite as much in favour of their various Beets.

A PBETTT " MOBNINO STAB."

ABLE TACTICS

The advance of the Busssians in Central Asia lia been the cause of much interest of late in Europe In England it has occasioned a good deal of alarm and its Importance has been in particular explained by General Sir E. Hamley, in a lecture delivered by him the other day in London, and at which many military men of high rank, and Indian diplomatists attended. The lecturer explained the routes that had been followed, and the means of transport that had been prepared until the way was now ready for the 'easy conveyance of the army of the Caucasus, whose war strength is 160,000 men, to Kizii Arvar, whence there is nothing to prevent the railway's being carried on to Herat. Persia, the General added, could not check the Russian advance in any way ; — and this opinion has also been pub" lished by a well known German editor who declares that the Shall is now dependent upon St. Petersburg, and that the English advance to Quettah on which so much reliance has been placed can make but little difference in the state of the matter,* General Hamley, never" theless, recommends that Candahar shall be occupied by the English, which step he considers would be an effectual barrier against the Bussian designs, and which he says, is necessary, if Afghanistan is to be prevented from likewise coming under the sway of the Czar. Meantime an official paper published at Tiflis repudiates the idea that Russia has any intention to conquer Afghanistan, a country, it aays that in its independent condition is so situated as to play towards Russia at need the part played by Roumania during the late war with Turkey — Russia having at the same time no intention- of conquering India and charging herself with the burden of governing it but remaining, content with the power of dealing England a heavy blow at any time by liberating the Indians from the British yoke. The indiscreet utterance indeed made by this newspaper has caused confusion in Russian diplomatic circles, and an effort has been* undertaken to remove the impression produced it, and give it a contradiction. Contradictions, however, come easily from official lips in Russia, and in nothing hare they been more easily or more- frequently made, or with a greater breach of the truth, than in everything connected with the advance in Central Asia. Over and over again, as General Hamley also pointed out, mis-statements and denials have been made in connection with it, and almost every step taken in carrying it out has been disowned in advance or misrepresented. The certainty almost, is that tbe Caucasian newspaper has spoken the truthi and allowed the policy of the Government to appear. In fact, there is too great an agreement between the p.obabihties of things and the statement thus made to admit of much doubt in the matter. To take the place of England in India would, first of all, need a struggle in which the issue would be uncertain. There is no reason in the world to suppose that the native race? would side with Russia rather than with England in a contest that would merely result in a change of masters, and there are grounds to believe that, at least, the Mohammedan, element in the population would prefer the English rule to that of Russia. If the conquest were gained, again, there would be the strain of sustaining it, and keeping the native races in subjection. The gain to Russia would be very doubtful, and would, most probably, as the newspaper in question says, result in halfruining her. On the other hand, to excite the native races at any moment to rebel by promises of effectual assistance, and to aid their rebellion so as to ensure its success would appear most feasible. And it is for this that England must now prepare herself. As to the advantage of the situation to Russia it is obvious — its effect on the Eastern question, as ib is called, is enormous, and we shall sec that it is so whenever another opportunity offers of a Russian advance towards Constantinople. The movement haa been one as ably planned as it has been executed, and it now reniaiua to be proved whether its complete success can be prevented by the ocenpation General Hamley proposes of Candahar — a matter that, perhaps admits of some doubt.

THE/GOOD OLD TIMES.

We have at various times beard various speculations as to the caosea'of the English Reformation and what it was that prepared the people so willingly to receive the new religion. English Catholic writers anxious for the reputation of their county, and v desirous to save from the disgrace of the great apostasy the

memory of their forerunners, have explained the event with much plausibility, and in particular we once read a very excellent essay showing how the people, w>re robbed of their religion by the various changes in, the Sovereigns— from Henry to Mary and from Mary to Elizabeth, with the hope of a Catholic successor— while without any intention of renouncing the Catholic, faith, they accommodated themBelvei for a time, as they believed, to circumstances. If, however, the measure of the English character taken by a French ecclesiastic who visited England in the reign of Queen Mary was a true one, in that character we find quite a sufficient explanation of how the change was made, and it becomes most clear to us that the ground had been ready to receive the seed of the evil crop that was sown in it. — " That the common people are proud and seditious," says this writer, " of an evil conscience and unfaithful to their promises, is apparent by experience. These villains bate all sorts of strangers, and although they are placed in a good soil and a good country, . . . they are wicked and extremely fickle ; for at one moment they will adore a prince, and the next moment they would kill and crucify him.' 1 (Spectator, May 10.)— It would evidently be easy for a people like this to accommodate themselves to such circumstances as required a change on. their part, but we should find it difficult to believe that in their change, or the pretence of it, they remained sound at hearf, and resolved, on the possibility's presenting itself, to return to the better path. — Let us, however, hear our traveller once more. — " They are likewise great drunkards, for if an Englishman would treat you he will say . . . . « Will you diink a quart of Gascoigne wine' another of Spanish, and another of Malmsey ? ' . . . When they are drunk, they will swear blood and death that you shall drink all that is .in your cup, and will thus say to you, Bigod, sol drind iou agoud oin. . , . It is to; be noted that in this excellent kingdom there is, as I have said, no kind of order. The people are reprobateSj and thorough enemies to good manners and letters, for they don't know whether they belong to God or the Devi],-— which St. Paul has reprehended in many people, saying, 'Be not transported with divers sorts of winds, but be constant and steady to your belief.' "—" — Here, then, was a people most fit to join themselves to an apostasy and little requiring to be robbed of their faith all unawares.— Can we wonder that, being such, they readily fell away ? As to Queen Mary, for whom it has been sometimes claimed that she was a very holy woman, and by no means to blame for the bloodshed which disgraced her reign, the French Priest in question seems to have had no very high opinion of her. He certainly did not approve of her cruelties as done for the sake of religion. " The Queen," he says, " made use of such horrible punishments, and by the effusion Of human blood so established her authority, that, everybody was as. tonished and terrified at remaining in the kingdom. . . . All the English preachers left England. . . . Tben the canons of St« Pauls' might be seen saying their vespers and mattins as in France.

AN INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE.

Now that the topic of the Bible-in-schools is so much under discussion, it is of peculiar interest to us to find a striking example of the manner of religious man which a deep study of the " unaided Word " is capable of producing. — The particular man is General Gordon, who has framed for himself a religion of a somewhat mixed and extraordinary character. His deep and constant study has been the Bible, and the result can hardly be regarded as satisfactory, at least to the evangelical mind. What to this mind, however, would perhaps be the most alarming feature in the whole matter is that the BiU!e, according to the private interpretation of General Gordon, reveals a sacramental system, in some respects like that of the Catholic Church. He finds there baptismal regeneration, and asserts that " man comes forth from baptism a new creature, and he can then feed on the tree of life in the Holy Communion ." The, or rather a Real.Presence he has also discovered to be revealed in Holy Writ, and his rebuke to the ministers who explain it awayin their far-fetched and wholly groundless, inconcusive arguments is very note-worthy. " These words to our first parents," he says, " You had the full warning of the effects of disobeying My command, not to eat, continually during your life before you — should bo changed for us into this saying of the Lord :— I said to you in words solemn, enough to call your attention, ' Verily, verily, except ye cab the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood '—that I would raise him up who aje My, flesh and blood at the last day ; that I would dwell in him andj|># in Me ; and I showed you how to eat My body and to drink My blood. ... I gave you the charge of My mysteries ; I appointed yon as overseers of My flock ; I honoured you to administer these mysteries to that flock. My words were clear as to what was to he dove ; equally clear was what I said would result from obeying My commands, and what would result from disobeying them. Your parents had My words. ' In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die. Were not these words true ? Did I explain how eating wonld bring death ? Have I ordered you to explain how My -words, to ■* take, eat,' will enable Me to live in a man and he in Me. I told you that if you ate in the beginning you would die. Did I not speak truth ? And now that I tell you that

whoever eateth My body and^drinketh My blood dwelleth in'Me? "do I speak a thing not to bo credited, and require you to qualify My words with your explanations ? My words to your father Adam were clear and distinct. 'In the day tbou eatest thou shalt die ? My words to My flock through you, My, shepherds, are, ' Take, eat ; this is My body ; do this in remembrance of Me ? You say you fear that evil will come to your flock unless you explain. You hereby imply .that I have given a command which needs your explanation to render obedience to it beneficial ; that, unless you explain, My command may, by being obeyed, be an evil thing. I have anticipated this view by My words, that those who disobey My command have no Ufa. Do you reason that they who obey My command will be worse for doing so ? " Bach, then, is the doctrine that a man teaching himself s religion by the unaided use of the Bible may attain to — how would it suit our evangelical friends to find the children in the public schools interpreting their Bcripture-reading in a similar manner ? It is not, however, all Catholic sdoctrine, or rather, doctrine in some degree approaching that of the Catholic Church that General Gordon has discovered in Holy Writ by means of his private interpretation. Many strange tenets he has also fonnd there and fervently adopted such, for example, as the good and the A evil principle of the Manicboean system, and a fatalism controlling all things great and small. His sUasions to this latter doctrine are frequent and sometimes very amusing. He consoles himself for the loss of a collection of arms by recollecting that " these things were settled years, a million million years ago," and on relating how his stupid German servant let his favourite rifle drop into the Nile, his reflection is " However, as it was ordained to be lost, I soon got over it." A graver instance of the belief in question occurs in his narration of the death of a comrade in the Crimea. " The shell burst above him, and, by what is called chance, struck ' him in the back, killing him instantly."— A fuller explanation of his theory is the following. •' It is a delightful thing to be a fatalist, not as that word is generally employed, but to accept that when things happen, and not before* God has for some wise reason ordained them to happen."— General Gordon, then, — who has studied the Bible deeply to find a religion there, and, not, as it has always been the habit of the sects, taken it up with the resolutiou of forcing it to prove some point or theory previously conceived and determined on— has drawn from it a Btrange jumble of beliefs including as well the transmigration of souls, and what is there to prevent any one who makes a like unauthorised use of the Word of God from faring in a like strange and unfortunate manner ? " Looking at his sayings as a whole," says a writer in the Month, we find in General Gordon a good instance, and a very good instance, of the sort of religion which a high handed man, nnrsed in Protestantism, a man with a strong individualism, has elaborated for himself. The basis upon which he builds is the theory of personal, individual, inspiration. A man whose natural vigour and ability are of such a high order, under the influence of this theory t would not unnaturally be exposed to the danger of sometimes mistaking the flashes of his own genius for light from on high. Believing that all things are immoveably ordained by the sole will of God, he must naturally reject with horror the Calvinist hell, and his sincere nature would find much to shock him in what he strongly denounces as Protestant 'Phariseeism.' Onecannothelp feeling that General Gordon is what be is religiously in spite of the Protestantism in the midst of which he has lived ; it is the only form of conventional Christianity with which he is acquainted, and he calls it a ' vapid, tasteless thing, of no use to anyone.' If he had only known from within, that Christianity which is Catholic, universal 1 As it is, it is quite possible to admire General Gordon as a brilliant leader, a man of exceptional greatness of character, sincere, single-minded, generous and upright in all his dealings, without shutting our eyes to theological vagaries which are neither to be admired nor imitated. Christianity knows nothing of the pre-existence of our individual souls, it rejects fatalism, whether taught nakedly by Calvin or by Mahomet, or in the mitigated form adopted by Gordon. It believes that Christ taught one very definite system of religion which is the whole truth, truth which demands the asseDt of our intellect as well as practical obedience to its ordinances. Obedience to the dictates of our individual conscience is pleasing in the sight of God, even though such obedience may be at times materially erroneous ; but such obedience, however complete, is not yet all sufficient, though quite indispensable, in the formation of a character according to the high type of Christian perfection."

A word on LOVERS.

The London Spectator writes, apropos of certain Irish songs, an article in wonderment over the Irish cbaiacter, which, according to his showing, is one particularly framed to cause perplexity. " How," he asks, " are Englishmen, indeed, with their fixed ideas, to understand a people who, while always looking back to tbe past, are always Utopians in idea ; who are among the most humorous and the most gloomy of mankind ; who are sb reckless as boys and as ruses as old men ; who never in their wildest moments lose sight of ' interests,' and neverin their sobeiMt aoodi axe quite bee from be*.

devilment ; who positively enjoy self-pity, yet are keenly sensitive to 1 any remark which trenches on their dignity ; who have, as a people, no care for beauty or grace of surrounding*, and will live in voluntary squalor rather than take trouble on behalf of external refinement, yet who exhibit perpetually in their lives, their literature, and their likings, an inborn susceptibility to grace and fancy, like that of a race of aitists I Verily, here is a goodly list of contradictions, and houest Pat may well scratch his head in bewilderment at finding himself identical with a kind of unfathomable spbinx.-But were not Egypt and Phoenicia neighbouring countries, nay, did not the remote ancestors of the Irish people encounter Mones and his Israelites in their exodus 1 What wonder, then, if a nation that has preserved so much of the excellence of the distant past has also maintained profound depths of nature, derived from a mysterious and magnificent origin ? It is bnt a paltry conceit of the Anglo-Saxon to pretend that he should be able to fathom this nature, or;to make deep researches requiring an eagle-glance not to be conferred by any quantity whatsoever of roast-beef and plumpadding. But there is more to come-" How is an Englishman to understand, for example, the kind of emotion which prompts so many Irish love-songs-tbe half-adonng, half-quizzing, half-devoted, half-aelf-ridiculing emotion which shines out in so many of them ? " And then, referring to certain of the songs in question, lie continues, "Without an exception, they are pervaded by a spirit, which, so far as we know, we could not find in any English love-songs whatever— a spirit of graceful, and, to our minds, charming playfulness, co expressed that you never doubt for a moment that the light, sometimes even derisive, words cover an affectionateness-not a passion, mind-so deep, that but for the laugh, it might give way in tears. English poets have many moods n their love-songs, hut nor, we think, exactly this one, and not this union of sincere feeling, sometimes even of worshipping feeling, with an inner sense of a certain comedy in the situation as if the poet would not suffer himself to be quite serious. We could produce from English collections specimens burning with passion, alive with worship, saturated with affectionateness, full of longing "" of rapture, or of that melancholy < want,' that sense of something missmgandnevertobe replaced, which is the distinctive note of the English poetry of love. But for the special tone of these Irish songs, this love-making by a man who is dancing the while, yet in dancing is full of the wish to wia his love and fearful lest in his highest jumps he should ever cease to seem as admiring as he feels we should, we fear, in English poetry look in vain." For our own part we do not pretend to be an authority on love affairs, and far be it from us to enter upon the task of deciding as to the shades of difference that distinguish the- love-sick heart of the Englishman from the love-alive heart of the Irishman. Still, we can understand how no blithe Irish girl would care to have a long-faced fellow " fooling around " her, as Yankees say, as lackadaisical as if he were contemplating the possibility of damages. It is the taste of the colleens, most likely, that determines the conduct of the boys. As to an Irish lover's kicking up his heels and jumping sky-high, and yet continually keeping an admiring eye on the* beloved object, it is a phenomenon that we protest wj have never yet seen, and w* should say that the sooner such a born omadhcmn were reduced to a lasting state of quiescence and sobriety by the natural effects of matrimony the better. We should, in fact feel inclined to send for the priest on the spot, and have the knot tied at once. If anything would stop his prancing and take the twist of admiration out of his eyes-that would. There is something more grave, however, to come, and the writer thus concludes his article : « How is it that the men who by preference wish love to be expressed with this note in it, with this tone of sweet graceful humour bursting now and again . . . into open laughter, not unconscious of positive absurdity, are in malice so sullen and black, and, as Englishmen feel, so unreasonable 1 It is all the stranger, that laugh, because, though Trish prose is often witty, the laugh is seldom heard in it, any more than it is in Irish oratory, which, though far more poetical, is usually quite as grave in meaning as English ' eloquence. We never read the lighter poetry of Ireland, however slight, without fancying that somehow an elf and a peasant have been bound up in *ne form ; and, perhaps, after all that is true, and it is through a certain doubleness of nature produced by centuries of a double life— the true life passed at home, the other life lived before the stranger— that an Irishman eludes the Englishman's comprehen. Bion. The latter, conscious]y%' -unconsciously, thinks all men not only are, but should be, single na(u red— whence part of his rather Philistine admiration for con sis- co.*— and when he discovers a man who is not so, recoils, half in fear and half in a kind of contempt, beth of them feelings fatal to mutual intelligence." But the black and sullen malice and unreasonableness of the Irish people may be attributed to the evil imagination of those men, who, being masters of the country now for many centuries, continue, as this writer Bays still strangers there. To their door, moreover, be laid any fault in the double nature of the Irishman, if such there be, and to their Bhame be it recorded if they blame, as the hypocrites do, the evils their own infamoug tyranny" has created. There are in this article both fun and fancy, bfit there is also some bitterness.