Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 8, 12 June 1885, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A USEFUL PAMPHLET

The London Tablet reviews a pamphlet which has been published under the title of "We Catholics," and which deals with the want of sympathy, mutual admiration, and esprit da carps, that exists among Catholics, and the manner in which they disclaim all distinctive connection with each other as members of the same creed. The Tablet believes that- the publication in question is calculated to do good, and reviews it at some length, but the comments and quotations made have occasionally but little bearing on the condition of things that obtains among Catholics in these Colonies, and, therefore, we forbear from borrowing our contemporary's review entire, as we should otherwise have done. The following quotation, however seems very much to the purpose, and deserving of the attention of Catholics in every part of the world. " Gaping with an often stupid admiration at the men, and the women, and the ways of Babylon, we are ever on our guard lest we should squander precious praises on onr ownl And if we are critical Catholics inasmuch as we are critical of each other — in another way is not our Catholicism critical too? Will the flower of Faith survive these cold blasts that are for ever blowing? The preacher with whose manner we are so eager to find fault— shall we not, in some moment of confusion, be irritable at his doctrine too ? we, who are so careful to dissociate ourselves from our fellow Catholics in Clubland and at Court — and who are quick to declare at the polls, and round the council-board, we have no common bond in our common Creed — shall we not in time discover that the sanctuary itself is a distasteful meeting ground ? and that the one link binding us to our brother-believers is less attaching than the ten chains which tie us to worldlings ? I put these questions to myself no lees than to my Fellows in the Faith, whom I love, and whose very foibles lam fain to share. But, as a chief offender, I say it is an inclined plane on which wo, who do not feel the full responsibility of a glorious spiritual kinship, have taken our stand ; and at the foot of it is the City of Destruction." Undoubtedly the over-critical spirit in which it is not uncommon to hear Catholics examine into, and discnss matters connected with their Church, is a very dangerous one, and many of ns perhaps, are acquainted with particular instances in which it has been productive of great evil. It is, moreover, frequently exercised in cases, such as those of which the reviewer had already told us, and in which Catholics can hardly be persuaded that " their swans are not geese," — a mistake most likely indeed to end in the City of Destruction. — ITor .need we be at much pains to point out the justice with which the pamphleteer asserts that the spirit which prompts Catholics to disown the influences of their common creed in the every-day matters of life is one that makes against the Faith itself. It is unfortunately, nevertheless, a prevailing spirit among no. We do not know whether we may make excuse for the unwillingness, where it exists, of colonial Catholics, as such, to draw upon themselves the attention of the public, and to shun the appearance of singularity with regaid to worldly affairs, by the following paragraph.— -Our fathers — fined and ostracised at every turn, shut out from public life, and condemned to pay double land-tax, within the memory of men still living — were naturally drawn back upon themselves. And if your typical Catholic peer became a nincompoop, whose only object in life was to save his own soul, and the soul of his aunts, he did not choose so utterly ill after all, and a tyrannous State was responsible for the narrowness of his vision. He thought it a great thing to be left alone. The descendant of men who had paid heavy forfeits in kind and in credit, for the sake of the Faith, he counted himself lucky to be forgotten, since to be remembered, might mean that his house was to be ransacked, his chaplain hanged, his goods distrained. A sentiment branded into a community by the common hangman is not so easily obliterated, after all. Obscurity, first courted as an ally of safety, ends by being prized for itself ; he who even in friendship lifts the veil, is regarded as a foe. Thus it was that the agitation for Catholic Emancipation was discountenanced by some of the Faithful, and thus it was that the publicity raising Re->establishment of the Hierarchy ■' offended; here and there, a later generation, so

that Lord Beaumont indicts a letter to the Earl of Zetland, to disown the Pope's act of usurpation, and- the Duke of Norfolk writes' to express entire agreement w : h T.ird Beaumont, and marches down in temporary high dudgeon crtSltrffoi August 31, 1851, to the Pro1 testant Church at Arundel.'fP Agvy^Trarselves, so far, we have hardly had any public question affrfSpSE&rbold step taken, that would call for the remonstrance of thie^/W^S heart begotten of persecution. The only truly Catholic qae^jgf^jfo&ted publicly in this hemisphere has been that of education, 6fft£&L Catholics who took the. antiCatholic side in that were .QCJUvfi, as we know, not by any timid love of their religion, and -psfc/jj^p injury, but by motives of selfinterest, and because, as the saying is, they had an axe to grind. The effects of persecution, however, on the Catholic body generally, in a greater or lesser degree, are^astly described by the pamphleteer. In conclusion we agree with the Tablet in believing that the writer will not have written in vain, if his pamphlet succeeds in promoting a closer and more lively union among Catholics. And, we will add for onr own part, a more just appreciation by them of the efforts that united they are capable of making. To know their own strength* and worth is a desideratum among Catholics, and, with such a knowledge, many mistakes into which they now fall, might be avoided, and their position would become ameliorated in many ways.

IRELAND'S AMBASSADOBS.

A very important pastoral issued to the priests and people of the Diocese of Meath by their Bishop, the Most Key. Dr. Nulty, sets forth strongly and in its true light the decisive step that has.been taken by the Holy Father in connection with Irish affairs, and points, oat to all Irishmen how certainly they may rely upon the Pope, and how Bare they may feel that he will deal wisely and justly witb^them and with their cause. Th'e^pastoral treats of a subject that has by many people been considered delicate in the extreme and which, those whose faith was weak in the resolate consistency of the Holy Father and his determination to show no favour, and hear no flatterers,.; in regulating his conduct towards his children, regarded with some feeling of doubt and fear. — Dr. Nulty- begins by recalling the sufferings that fidelity to Borne had entailed for over three hundied years on Ireland— beginning from the time when Dr. Walsh his own predeceesor, first as parish priest of Trim, and afterwards as Bishop of Meath, had endured for the faith an imprisonment of eighteen years,— so that the irons in which he was bound gnawed , their way into the very bones of his wrists and ankles, down to the present when much of the ill odour in which Ireland stands is undoubtedly due to the fact that she is before all things Catholic. — For let us not be deceived, this, in the eyes of the people of Great Britain, is her first and greatest fault, or let us not be blinded by the notion that the mind of that people has become more favourable towards Borne — at some suppose and would persuade us. — The matter was fully explained, for example, the other day by the London Times, when, in a leader on Cardinal Manning's address at the opening of the Oratory Church, it warned the preacher that England was tolerant only because she did not fear, but that at the first note of alarm she was ready to resume her former attitude towards Borne in all its bitterness. The Bishop drew a very powerful picture of the sufferings endured by Ireland because of her firm allegiance to Rome from the time of the Reformation, falsely so-called, down to the day when O'Connell, being required on taking his seat for Clare to swear that "the Pope hath not nor ought to have, any jurisdiction or authority in the realm of England," answered that he knew the one statement to be f alse, and as a Catholic believed the other to be so as well, — Dr. Nulty, then went on to describe the nature of the Irishman, proud and sensitive, resenting contempt and sarcasm, and looking for revenge ; a faulty nature indeed, but one painted by a true Irishman, a true patriot, and who, judging his fellow countrymen by himself, need not fear to hurt their sensibilities, or offend them by telling a necessary truth, and making known faults that should be carefully considered by others and guarded against by themselves. Such a nature, added the Bishop, had led Irishmen even to renounce the Faith and he gave as an instance that of a well-known family cf his diocese who, having endured all the penalties of the evil times and still remained faithful, had apostatised within the memory of men still living because a country priest had, probably in ignorance, affronted them.— And continued the Bishop, had not great nations

apostatised, had not England, Scotland, France ? "I do not believe. that the Irish nation will ever follow their fatal example," be added " bnt Ido believe it wonld be nothing short of criminal rashness to expose it to the danger or temptation of doing so. I can find no evidence of a Divine promise made to any nation any more than to our own guaranteeing to it the indefectibility of its faith in all circumstances. Neither can I see any solid grounds for believing in a special exceptional Providence which would save Irish multitudes any more than Irish individuals from renouncing their allegiance to the Church in a paroxysm of passion, either in retaliation for some imaginary interference with their political freedom or to avenge an insult or an affront which they had rashly assumed had been offered to them by the Holy See. — Yet we know, although Dr. Nulty does not recall it to us, that pressure of the closest nature has been brought npon the Pope to persuade him to subject the faith cf the. Irish people to such a trial. — Advantage has been taken of the Pope's helpless state to importune him in this matter and, apart from all considerations except those that are worldly, how could the Pope be better situated for the purpose in question ? — A feeble old man enduring imprisonment ; subject to endless anxieties ; weak in bis physical health ; and, as delicate old men are commonly, longing for rest and freedom from harassing cares ; troubled, moreover, with regard to those who are dependent upon Mm, and desirous, if possible, to make such terms for them as would ensure their welfare and safety— not to speak of the great interests of the Church which he has at heart, for in considering only the worldly aspect of the matter we can hardly make any mention of them. Such an old man and so situated is addressed by one of the greatest Powers of Europe or the world, and humbly asked to interfere in its internal policy, and on its behalf control a people whom it is unable to subdue to its will. And can we believe that the,, Pope would be asked to do this without the expectation of reward? England, we aie told, is so powerf al in the counsels of Italy that the bare will of the Prince of Wales made known at the Quirinal has sufficed to preserve intact, and in the very teeth of Italian laws, certain ecclesiastical establishments in the Eternal City, and what, therefore, might not a complaisant Pope expect from her good offices 1 Bat Leo XIII,, in spite of all his trials, in spite of the great temptations placed before him, and in the midst of his difficulties, has first of all considered the interests of his faithful Irish children, and done that which was necessary to make himself acquainted with what were their true wants, and how their cause might justly be decided. He rejected the ambassadois of England, and summoned to his side the bishops of the Irish Church, that from their lips he might learn the troth and, on the accurate information they of all men could the best supply him with, take steps for the guidance of the Irish people and instruct them how to act. "By citing," says Dj. Nulty, " ' the representatives of the various shades of opinion in the Irish episcopate he has shown his determination to ascertain with precision and certainty the intrinsic merits of the questions ou which they may be divided, and he has chosen the simplest, the easiest, and most infallible method possible for ascertaining the truth, not only on these questions, but on every disputed question of faith or of doctrine that can ever possibly arise. He has shown, too, that he has totally dis.carded the dubious, the suspicious, the prejudiced and misleading channels through which information on Irish public questions may hitherto have reached him. Henceforth he is determined to believe nothing of us except what we tell him ourselves through the bishops that will represent us. Of his own proper accord, and without a suggestion from any quarter, he has chosen the readiest and the most effective method possible, for ascertaining the whole truth on every Irish question with clearness, precision, and infallible cer? tainty." And Dr. Nulty adds that the Irish bishops go to Borne substantially united on every question, even on those that relate to politics — Br. Delaney, of Cork, for example, whose directions to honour the Prince of Wales were even resisted in so meek and unexpected a quarter as the convent of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd) substantially agreeing with Dr. Croke, of Cashel, whose name wa s cheered by the crowd in honourable position, between those of the Mahdi and the Czar. The end of the bishops is evidently the same, although they may differ as to the means of bringing about that end* Bnt all will be laid truly and clearly before the Pope by the bishops* the friends of the people and of the national cause, and he will decide without fear or favour — of which, indeed, we have received a sure earnest in the delegates he has chosen and those he has rejected. There is no room, then, for anxiety as to the attitude of Borne towards Ireland. There is no danger that a trial will arise to the faith of Ireland from the action of the Pope towards the national cause, and all these rumours that reach us as to the choice of bishops, and. the consultation of English authorities may be treated with contempt. The Pope has already publicly recognised the dignity and independence of the Irish people, and his whole line of action will be consistent with what he has done. The cause of Ireland is in good hands, and we may leave it there with confidence.

EUROPE AGAINST ENGLAND. ,

We may take some credit to ourselves because 1 early in the dispute between England and Russia we gave it as our settled conviction that not only was the boldness of the Russian, demands due in great part to the support of German y, but that the cause of offence which had set Berlin, or Yarzin perhaps more properly, in opposition to London, was to be found in the liberal policy, or advancing democracy, of the English Government, And by the arrival of the last English papers we find that we have been very remarkably borne out by both the English and the German Press.— The London Times, for example, declares that the attitude of Germany in the impending war would be little short of openly hostile. " Both at Berlin and St. Petersburg," it says, " the impression is that the attitude of the German power towards this country will be one of neutralijjy, and scarcely of benevolent neutrality. To attempt to localiseJn Asia a conflict between England and Russia would be to cripple us where we <.re naturally strongest— on the seas. To keep Turkey rigidly in the position of a neutral woulo- be, as is indeed avowed, with the object of excluding the British fleet from the Black Sea, and allowing the Russian Government to organise its forces for service* in Central A6ia from the base." According to the correspondent of the Times aX Paris, moreover, the task of preventing the Tut; kish Government from coming to England's assistance, if it were undertaken by Germany, as the Times suggests, need be no very difficult one. The correspondent narrates a conversation which he had held with a certain Turk, a personage, he says, " whose words have great weight as indications of the ideas of his Government," and who expressed a mistrust of England and a feeling of mortification and anger at the manner in which she had treated his country, infinitely preferring the methods of Russia, who had dismembered the Turkish Empire after an open war and defeat. England, on the contrary, bad invidiously offered to introduce the Turks into Egypt under her own protection, and to show them to a subject nation as ooeying a people that was not Mahomedan "It was done "he added, " and she knows it well— -to prevent us from going there while pretending to invite us. In the same way, she has asked us to go to the Soudan, bat has refused to allow us to enter Egypt. She has requested us to return home by the Hack-stairs. We have replied that we will only do so by the front door. She brings forward the question of the Suez Oanal, but she cannot pretend to protect it against all Europe. What we proposed was to protect it jor all Europe. That should deprive her of all pretext for remaining there." — The title of Perfide Albion then, has for the Turk an especial meaning and one that may al6o prove to have some significance for England herself. — This Turkish authority further referred to the position of the Afghans who he said, were already virtually assimilated to Russia. — "The English," he said, "do not know how to assimilate these countries, which are in their nature and in the manners and castoms of their' inhabitants so much like Russia. And everything leads to the supposition that war will not break out, because England has not with her the most indispensable element in the strife — that is to say, the Afghan element — and this will relieve us from the necessity of pronouncing for one or the other, or showing to what side we should lean were we compelled to indicate our opinions." — The decision, we need hardly say, was not one flattering to English pride. — But to return to Germany — as we said, we, from the first, believed that the part we understood her to be acting against English interests was provoked by the Liberalism of the Gladstone Cabinet and perhaps by the still more advanced Liberalism that must hereafter obtain — and we find so much stated in plain terms by an Austrian paper, the Neve Wiener Tagblatt, which is quoted by the Vienna correspondent of the Times, thus — " One cannot understand the sympathy felt for Russia in German Governmental circles, as the overgrowth of Russia would certainly put Germany in peril. Nevertheless, it has become evident that Germany is on the side of Russia. England's sin is doubtless that of her Liberal Cabinet, which has not allowed her to be carried along by the Reactionary currents of Continental policy." — But as to the opinion of the German Press, the following passage taken from the Berlin correspondence of the Times will suffice to illustrate it. — ''Here are a few straws showing which way the wind is at present blowing here. In an article entitled ' 1855 and 1885 ' the Kretiz Zeitung remarks : — ' Certainly we are on a very good and friendly footing with England. But then these relations must always be of a somewhat platonic character, seeing that England can neither injure nor benefit us very much. But Russia is our neighbour, with whom we have to reckon, for in every great crisis of our existence much must depend on her attitude. How, then, can it be doubted, how is it possible to weigh for a moment, what our place would have to be if, in the event of a collision between England and Russia, we were compelled to declare for one or the other 7 ' Another Conservative organ, the Reichsbote, writes :—: — 'We Germans have no interest at stake in the quarrel, and therefore we can maintain a purely observant attitude. But this much we may say, that if England's supremacy on the ocean and in the world's markets be not sooner or later broken Germans

can and will never be able to take the position to which she is entitled while England's predominance and her abase of it can meanwhile, only be successfully combated by the Power that has become her territorial neighbour, and is now in a position to back its reasons by big battalions.' "—Nor is it only by quotations bearing on the position to be occupied .by other Powers in the event of war that we may learn what were the feelings towards England of foreign countries and especially of Germany. The manner in which they allude to the terms of the peace to be made, and which, if we have been rightly informed in these colonies, are now nearly settled on, i B expressive of a contempt that mast seem to Englishmen far more bitter than even extreme detestation. The Allegemeine ZeUung of Munich for example, a newspaper generally more favourable to England than to Bussia as we are told, writes thus :— « Call it what you like^a game, a bet, a diplomatic steeplechase, or anything else —England has as good as lost. ... And what, then, is to become of England for having put up with Russian presumption on the banks of the Murghab and the Kushk? There can be no further limit to her yieldingness. The 'debateable ground' lies precisely between Merv and Herat, and if Bussia once gets into her power the northern slopes of the Paropamisus she wiU also manage to find mountain passes leading to the Heri Bud-i. e ., to Herat, and from Herat roads leads eastward to Oabul and southward to Candahar. Again, the Afghans, who must lose all respect for England through Mr. Gladstone's policy, will be swallowed np as Russia's vassals, and then can begin the great plundering war raid to India, whose loyalty meanwhile will likewise have received a rude shock. With every advance of the Russians, the situation becomes more serious for England, and it will be hopeless if Afghanistan chop round to Russia. Lord Dufferin has done his honest best ; but his adroitness can only be successful if deeds follow on words, and if England now, at the eleventh hour, act seriously. By pouncing on Penjdeh Russia has already delivered the necessary counter-stroke to the meeting at Rawul Pindi .... and with similar coolness she has answered the English demand for the disavowal of General Komaroff with a reqtiest for the withdrawal of General Lumsden for having misinformed his Government about the Russian onset. And poor Lumsden ! ... The Russians never so much as thought of Bending Frontier Commissioners ; and instead of them General Komaroff at last makes his appearance with even a larger escort than that of General Lumsden, which was so much complained of. Komaroff draws the frontier line as it pleases him, while Lumsden merely looks on and reports. And if England puts up with that, then she will have lost for the third time. . . . England's prestige in Asia, if not already lost, is endangered to a very perilous degree." That the acquisition of Penj-deh by Bussia, moreover, has all the importance attributed to it by this German paper, we learn from well-informed English sources. The limes correspondent for example, writes from Calcutta as follows :— " It is generally felt here that is will be a grave mistake to give up Penjdeh, as its possession will enable Russia to cut off Herat from Badakshan, and practically to stop all communication between Afghan Turkestan and Cabul during the winter months ; thereby giving Bussia an opportunity for secretly pushing on for a descent on Cabnl by the Bamian Pass, as well as for operating by the source of the Murghab, and through the Hazara conntry." General Hamley, again, a well-known and high authority, writes to the newspaper in question corroborating this statement and summing up all the advantages to be derived from the occupation of the position— namely, the possession of the principal road to Herat ;— the power of preventing the use of the Zulfikar Pass in defence' of that town ; the command of the high road tbrongh Herat and Balki to Cabul, and some others of much importance.— If the German Press were acquainted with these details, we need not wonder at their declaration, that for England to yield would be a humiliation almost beyond expression.— '• The weakness of modern England, " says the Berlin Post," lies at many points^-indeed, at only too many ; but the chief cause of it is the lack of one guiding and continuous spirit in the management of her affairs, which cannot be remedied at will." The Voutehe Zeitung writes :— " It is difficult to answer the question how Mr. Gladstone will manage to settle the difficulty in the just and honourable manner referred to yesterday. His yieldingness can scarcely go farther, and it appears to us that in the pending conflict England bas only the choice between an uncertain and a fateful war and a peaceful solution, which would be little honourable to her, inflicting as it would, an incurable wonnd on her prestige in the Christian and Mussulman world. Of a capitulation Mr. Gladstone cannot think, or his doom would be sealed." " What is the use," asks a Vienna correspondent, •• of alarming the world and disturbing the Bourses by parading your resources in four corners of the world if from the beginning yon have resolved 'courageously to retire* whenever the gauntlet is thrown down ?" " Bnssia bas already gained so much " says the Tagblatt" that she can now pose as a lover of peace, whilst England has; now proved her inabilty io defend either Afghanistan or India."

The Deutsche Zeicnng is quite as outspoken :— " Bnssia was right in the disdain she has shown over England's fanfaronnades. All the protests and thr<jats about Penjdeh were empty bluster. Earl Granville has secured peace for hia country, but at the same time has invited Russia soon to repeat her safe promenade towards Herat, the seizure of which will be as easily arranged as the present." An unkiad thrust was also that reported of the King of Sweden, who is said to have hastened back from Constantinople, which city, he was visiting, in order to provide if possible for the defence, of Gothland against the establishment there of an English Coaling station. The attitude of the continental nations generally, therefore,- seems to have been anything but favourable to England in her threatened straits and it may. possibly have inflnencei, in some degree, the acceptance by her of humiliating measures for peace. Germany especially appears to have adopted an adverse part towards her. as the boldness of Rußsia, we say again, suggested from the beginning.

ALBERT EDWABD TBOTTBDOUT. y

The Irish newspapers to hand by the San Francisco mail fully confirm the assertion made by us last week, and before we had received the papers, in question, that the nationalist demonstrations in the South were the necessary consequence of the manner in which the anti-Irish press had spoken concerning the reception given in Dublin to the Prince of Wales. Cold politeness or neutrality had been recommended to the Irish people by their leaders, and, when they put it in practice, the enthusiasm of the ascendant and interested classes was attributed to them, and. a light cheer, here and there absolutely irrepressible on the part of an excitable crowd met to witness an imposing pageant, was made use of to stigmatise them as false to their principles, and turbulent in their contentment merely out of perversity. The Prince of Wales himself, meantime, had at first sight fully recognised the truth, and could not avoid showing by bis manner how much struck he was by the preparations made to receive him at Kingstown in contrast with those be had witnessed on former occasions. United Ireland indeed remarks with naivetb that the times were very much changed since 1863 when on the occasion of His Royal Highness's marriage £1600 worth of plateglass was smashed in Cork alone— in testimony of the affection entertained by the populace for their Prince, for it would seem that there are occasions on which a kicking down stairs may be fully consistent with dissembled love. Their knowledge of the true state of the popular mind, moreover, was well testified to on the part of the authorities by the fact that every inch of 1 he roads over which the royal procession was to pass had been placed under the guard of soldiers armed to the teeth and prepared for all emergencies. And afterwards the Prince again showed his appreciation of his receptionby snubbing in a very marked way the Kingstown Commissioners who had been the first to present him with an address on landing. His reply was an official document issued from the Castle and which even the flunkeys to whom it was forwaided^ refused to receive. Th°. fact is that the reception accorded to the Prince by the people of Dublin waß, as we had already said, a triumph for the national leaders. In obedience to their advice no hostile demonstration was made and any signs of cordiality shown were inevitable on the part of a people to whose character sullenness is complete by foreign and whose natural gailey will make itself apparent on every possible opportunity. It was, never. theless, out of this attitude, of a very contrary significance to those who thoroughly understand the Irish people, that the anti-Irish press immediately proceeded to make capital, crowing over the leaders of the people and proclaiming a great political victory for the Prince. Al though it had previously been insisted upon, even in their own columns, that the Prince's visit would have no political bearing whatever. Is it to be wondered at, then, if all Ireland was provoked beyond endurance and the wrath of the people stirred up from its utmost depths ? For* all this, however, no hostile demonstration was still intended— a resolution only was come to that the ■ rue state of the case should be brought before the eyes of the Koyal Visitors and a contradiction publicly made of the false statements and deductions that ha d been so loudly and triumphantly trumpeted abroad. For this purpose, therefore, a multitude, accompanied by various bands of musicians had assembled at Mallow railway station, and ;were; prepared on the arrival of the trpin conveying the Prince and his suite to Cork to testify their devotion to the Irish cause rather ,than to the person of his l:oyal Highness, by the performance of various popular airs and the singing of national songs and choruses. Wheni while they were in perfect quietness and conducting themselvts with the utmost propriety, the police under the guidance of one Inspector Carr, a candidate for Castle favour, attacked them and, with bludgeons and bayonets, drove them to some distance from the line— lnspector -Carr grossly insulting Mr. O'Brien, M.P., who interfered on behalf of the people, and bullying even Mr. Butler, the Resident Magistrate, to whose moderation and good sense Mr. O'Brien afterwards attributed the fact that a very serious riot did not take place. It was in the midst of such an uproar that the Royal train arrived, and the Prince of Wales thus

obtained an admirable opportunity of seeing the methods of Castle rule in full play. Perhaps it was this experience that induced him subsequently to recommend the abolition of the Lord-lieutenancy, as we are told he did. The tidings of what had occurred at Mallow spread to Cork, and excited the wildest indignation there. The people, indeed, had already been prepared to take part with their Mallow friends by also making it manifest to the Royal Visitors that above all things they were Irish nationalists, and not to be cajoled by any condescending attentionsofthehigher powers. Their determination had been formed in spite of influential opposition, evea Dr. Delaney, their bishop, himself demanding their homage for the Royal Visitors, but with such ill success that in one of the convents, the Rev. Mother withstood his Lordship's directions to adorn her buildings with flags. The blame, then, rests with those who would have excited a great demonstration of popular affection among a people, whose feelings leant strongly in an opposite direction, by calumniating their real attitude, and misrepresenting their allegiance to the leaders who had deserved so well of them, if the neutrality advised by Mr. Parnell was departed from in the first instance. It rests with the hero of the baton and bayonet at Mallow, who by bludgeoning the people was fully and justly convinced that he was qualifying himself for high promotion by the Castle, and for whose conduct, on the part of the people, ever anxious if possible to forgive, the disgraceful excuse of 1 intoxication is offered — a condition, however, that, as it has been proved in the sight of all the world, if. only made nse of in the right direction, will form no barrier to the favour of Dublin Caßtle, whose favour has been openly and impudently bestowed on men indulging in much greater infamy, if the Prince of Wales arrived in Cork only to be greeted with rioting and every possible mark of popular dissatisfaction. Indeed, it is recorded that his Royal Highness narrowly escaped the indignity of being struck by an onion on the nose — but, let us recollect that the Duke of Edinburgh had the bullet with which he was wounded by O'Farrell, at Sydney, mounted in gold and attached as an ornament to his watch-chain, Would not that onion> duly pickled and enclosed in something suitable, most becomingly adorn the watch-guard of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales> or at least deserve some place in a royal museum ? The whole progress of the Prince, after the events at Mallow and Cork, was marked by manifestations of displeasure. . Silent crowds, black flags, national anthems and choruses, national mottoes, and the memory of Myles Joyce, every where'eaught his attention, and proved to him that a people cannot be made loyal by the bludgeon and the bayonet, and that it is but a foolish attempt to gain a political victory by the publication of glaring falsehoods that can be ami will be read by those against whom they have been issued, and strongly and boldly resented and disproved by them. Let us be convinced that the Prince of Wales has gone back to England feeling but little indebted to thoEe who imposed npon him such a royal progress, and made of him the representative of a cause detested by the people and visited with their scorn and reprobation. A royal progress prevented only by bludgeons and bayonets from becoming a royal retreat is but a scurvy matter to inscribe upon the page of history, and will form but a paltry addition to the records of the reign of King Edward VII. But as to the national cause it has naturally benefitted exceedingly by all this, and renewed its vigour. — Such is the inevitable consequence.

A GREAT OMISSION.

It seems that matters in connection with the Otago Bible Society are in a most flourishing and promising condition, affording much food for thankfulness in the present, and hope for the future. So much we learn from the report of the Society presented to their annual meeting the other day, and which we have read with much interest, and, let us confidently trust, with some slight edification. — Indeed, next to a study of the Bible itself, nothing should have a more ameliorating effect upon the heart of the sinner than just such reports as those alluded to. — It should, then, be consoling to us to hear that the number of Bibles distributed this year shows an advance on last year, for is it not recorded in the annals of Exeter Hall that on the number of Bibles issued depends the number of people converted, and, could a Bible in his own particular vernacular only be placed in the band of every man upon earth, the whole world would become at once one most excellent Evangelical congregation. — All the people who have ever opened a Bible are now, as we know, joined heart and soul in the service of the Lord, and united ia the bonds of salvation without a division. — So patent a fact requires neither proof nor comment. — It is further of interest to learn that copies of the Bible in fourteen different languages have been asked for and supplied during the year, and accordingly we receive the assurance that at least fourteen souls, more or less foreign, have been saved. And the foreign soul is of especial value in the eyes of the Bible distributor. As to the nature, of the translations, that, we may remark, is a mere trifle. Had not the English translation itself so far been defective and yet consider the great things accomplished by it. If the English nation has been raised to the eminence it occupies in the world by a defective translation, why may not Chinamen and Kaffirs, Italians

Spaniards, Japanese, and the outer world in general, profit also according to their degree. — Their translations, of course, being for the most part merely the translations of a bad translation, cannot be expected to raise them to the great height on which the English nation stands — but they must elevate them temporally in a high, degree— for are not earthly prosperity and happiness the reward of a true piety, according to our private interpreters 1 All the promises of Christ to those who are faithful to Him must be understood to have their temporal meaning also — and as to His warnings of persecution and sorrow to be suffered by His disciDles— well, whatever they mean, it is not that men of piety and Bible-readers are no fc fully to enjoy themselves and. wax fat upon the earth. The report tells us, then — and the report is infallible — as we have been told times without number in fact, that England— and Scotland of course — Scotland perhaps even more than England — owe all they possessr each as a nation, not to any peculiaiity of national character or civil constitution, but to Bible-reading alone. The infallible report at the same time refers for proof of this assertion' to the testimony of a certain eminent .French statesman who attributed the preservation of England from revolutions .like those that have disturbed the Continent to her free circulation of the Bible and its power over the national mind. — The French statesman, however, does not Beem to have mentioned the fact that Continental revolutions had in truth derived their origin from the land of the free Bible— for the father of Continental revolution, that is Voltaire, had been the pupil of the English Bolingbrooke. — But such facts as these are mere trifles that must not be permitted to disturb the great tradition, and, although the men who have worked out the greatness of England have been many of them anything rather than students of the Bible, it must be admitted that in their pnblic character at least they rested upon the Bible, and upon that only. The year just ended, as we learn again with interest from the report, has been a year of commemorations. There was that, for example, of the fortunate epoch at which Jonn Wycliffe first gave the Bible in their vernacular to his nation. But* strange to cay, though 500 years have since elapsed, less than half mankind are now as happy as the English people then were, and 600 different translations have yet to be made. And is it not also a fact a little remarkable, according to thiß reasoning, that, although the New Testament when it was written appeared in a vernacular of the age, translations of it into the vernaculars of the nations remained to be made even in Wycliffe's times, and are still to be undertaken in many instances ? The want of such translations, in fact, seems to have been from the very first the rule rather than the exception. Again, we are told that this year commemoration was made of the translation of the Bible into Icelandic, and that a house in Iceland wanting a Bible is scarcely to be found. But, then, we naturally ask, why has rot fidelity to the translated Word produced in Iceland the same effects that it has produced in England and Scotland ? Why is not Iceland also great and prosperous, if England and Scotland be so through faithfulness to the Word ? Or have the natural characteristics of the people or the disadvantages of their country prevented this ? Or, if natural characteristics and climatic or territorial disadvantages can mar the effects of the Word, why, on the other hand, may not natural characteristics of a favourable sort, a civil constitution, and territorial and climatic advantages influence the fruits of the Word and improve them — that is in the temporal way in which such fruits are manifested by the greatness of Great Britain ? It is a fact that several Bible-reading peoples fall far short of the advantages enjoyed by Great Britain, and how, then, shall we allow that those advantages have arisen fronT Bible-reading only ? A nd far be it from us to question the report, much less to seek to amend it, still it may be permitted us humbly to inquire, why, in mentioning the great events of the year, the greatest of all in a Biblical way has been wholly passed over. We allude to the correct translation of the Bible into English, now for the first time— soo years after Wycliffe — issued. Surely such an event was worthy of remark ; surely it is the source of increased hope and many joyful anticipations. If England .has thriven and waxed great and become a mistress of nations on the bad translation of a corrupt text — as high Scriptural authorities and learned scholars give us to understand the Authorised Version hitherto prevalent has been — what may not be expected from her study of the correct translation of an amended text ? As to those other uations that can only have a translation of a translation, if evsn that, and which hitherto, have had only a translation of the condemned version — or an attempt at one — they must always continue in. a position lower than that of England, but England herself should go forward now with giant strides, and become indeed the mistress of the world . Meantime, it will be an interesting task for the Bible societies generally to undertake the translation into every known language, of the Revised Version, but, unless they will continue willingly, and knowingly, to do that which hitherto they have done in good faith, but ignorantly — that is to deceive the nations — it remains for them to set about the work immediately. Those 600 tribes into whose language no translation has yet, 500 years sfter Wyeliffe, been made,— as this report informs us— have perhaps after all not suffered such an extreme loss.

When they get the Word at length, it will be; at least, a version of the correct edition. But the report has certainly omitted the greatest Biblical event of the year, and consequently failed to edify ns as much as it might otherwise have done. Still some edification we have decidedly obtained.