Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 14, 24 July 1885, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

PEINCB BIBMABCK P A ETI ALLY SHOWS ■' HIS TEETH.

A NEW

«►_ Ebasmus, who had borrowed ahorse from arefoimed friend, put the belief of this evangelical person to the proof by telling him to believe that his horse had been returned to him, and he would at once find it in his stable. There is now a body of people partly religious and partly scientific in the United States who hold that all which ia required to free them from illness of any kind is the belief that it has no existence. Their system is called the mind-cure, and it furnishes us with another and a very curious instance of the advantages of private interpretation, and of being at liberty to form a creed of your own. One prominent minister of Boston describes the religious aspect of the system in question as a mixture of Pantheism and Buddhism, but as those who profess it show an intimate acquaintance with Holy Scripture— which is quoted volumniously by 'their preachers, it is difficult to see how this minister can account for such an issue. Are Pantheism and Buddhism, indeed, to be found in the Bible, or, if so, how shall private interpreters generally be protected from becoming affected by them ? Here is one more difficulty in our way with regard to the " unaided word."' If not aided, in fact, it would appear in danger of landing its devotees in some very queer quagmires. But to return to the adherents to the creed of the "mind-cure." The chief apostle of the sect is one Mrs. Eddy, who professes to have received initiation into the mystery by divine revelation. It appears that some years ago she fell on the side-walk, and receiving injuries to her spine that resulted in paralysis, she was declared within a few hours of her end. Under these circumstances the minister of the sect to which she then belonged called to see her, and was requested by her to repeat his visit some little time later in the day, no one believing, however, that she would be then alive. And it was between the two visits of this worthy man that the revelation was made which enabled Mrs. Eddy not only to live until his return but to meet him in sound health and at her halldoor. It was, in fact, revealed to her, meantime, that illness or hurt of any corporal kind was but an error, and that it must immediately disappear from the body of the believer who should realise this truth. There seem to be divisions, nevertheless, among the persoDS who believe in the mind-cure, some of them professing Christianity and others denying it, and we cannot quite make out whether the fact that illness is an error is based upon the philosophic definition that " matter is nothing," and consequently cannot suffer illness or hurt ; or on the statement that as God made only what is good he could not have made illness which is not good, which therefore was never created, and has no existence. The philosophical teaching, however, of Mrs. Eddy is deep and delightful, and were it not for the fact that she calls herself a " Christian scientist," it might even obtain for her j a hearing on those exclusively scientific platforms erected amon^ ourselves. The following definition, for example, the outcome of htr revelation, would form a gem in any of the discourses we have seen or of the pamphlets published, i.e., " Personality ia the embodiment of mind." There, indeed, is profundity itself, and if it be unfathomable, why, that only shows its depth. We defy any of our philosophers to beat it. It is not, however, necessary that to obtain the benefit of the "mind-cure " the sufferer should himself be able to attain to the nece c sary belief, that he may do vicariously, and in this way several people, in Boston especially where are the head quarters of the sect, aie making snug little sums of money. But not only can the mind cure the suffering body of a neighbour ; it can also harm it grievously, and this is mvery serious consideration.) Mrs Eddy, for example, declares that her late husband met his death some - years ago by reason of a mind which " thought arsenic into him." — An enviable mind, indeed, it must have been, and blessed was its possessor and all belonging to him. Or could it have been the mind of a member of the fair sex? But that we leave to the judgment of the sex themselves. Dear Madam, do you know any Bister whose mind you con. aider capable of thinking arsenic — or gall, or wormwood, or even j vinegar? Your well-known charity, and sisteily loving-kindness, 1 will not peimit of your replying. This idea alone of Mrs. Eddy's] is sufficient to prove her genius, particularly if it relate to another

AN IMPORTANT PROJECT.

woman. Does not somebody tell v lat ib is the province of genius to seize upon the idea that, as it w» is in the atmosphere, and to give it a fitting expression ? Such la is the latest movement in the matter of belief of which we h? i received any report, and that promises to be of any consequence. c are, indeed, likely to witness some development of it among ourse'' is, for does not all that calls itself scientific find a welcome here. The mind-euro is emineotly suitable to the calibre of our philosophers, and we look for its immedi ate introduction among them. Ix has often been said that were it not for St. George's Channel there would never have been any Irish question. Perhaps not. — But, then, had it not been for the grace of God, the Irish question would have been altogether different from what it proved.— There never would have been any resistance of the Irish people to the Protestantism of their invaders, and matters would, have been altogether different, although as to whether English merchants and tradesmen would have been one bit better pleased to suffer injurious competition from the trade of a Protestant country than from that of one inhabited by Catholics, may well be doubted. With the aid of God's grace, moreover, even had the Archbishop of Canterbury been able to send the Thirty-nine Articles to Dublin in his carriage, or had the elders of the Kirk carried over their Confession or their Sabbath to the country dry-shod, the Irish people would still have remained Catholic and all the difference would have been in their favour, for tbey could have made a more powerful resistance. The time, however, is gone by at which any one could think that communication by land with Great Britain would make any difference as to the political or religious condition of Ireland, and the prospect of a possible road to join the two islands has now no such significance. —Indeed if any influence has of late years spread from one country to any of the others, it has proceeded out of Ireland. — The land question in Scotland has been evidently influenced by that in Ireland, and the farmers and crofters have been aroused to action and eacouraged to continue in it by the example of Irish agitation. In this respect Ireland has led the people of Great Britain, and marched in the van of what will prove the greatest reform of the century. It is proposed, then, to construct a tunnel under the Channel from Portpatrick to Donaghadee, by which a great saving of time and trouble might be made in the carriage of goods, and passengers even would be spared the passage by sea. There might, nevertheless, be, at least, some nervous people who would prefer the delays aud inconveniences of the passage to the journey through a tunnel twenty-one and a half miles in length, and whose roof would, in the deepest parts, be some 930 feet below the surface of the water. The cost of the undertaking is estimated at aboit six millions, and a company has been formed to promote it. That the work is practicable no-body can doubt. The experiment made with the tunnel under the ttraits of Dover, and concerning the possibility of whose completion all authorities appeared agreed, would seem to prove so much. That work would almost certainly have been completed had not the ahirm of the nation been aroused, very needlessly as we think, concerning the danger of invasion. The Irish tunnel, however, which besides would be much shorter than the Frencn one, would offer no fears of that kind and would greatly shorten the route, but much more as to time than distance, between the Scotch and English towns and some of the principal ports in Ireland. In some respects very important changes would result, and possibly, as is generally the case when any notable alteration is made, certain interests would suffer. The tradc,for example, between Liverpool and America must evidently be affected by any arrangement which would permit of goods' being carried with out transhipment and directly by rail from Irish ports to the English cities, and American vessels would also find it to their advantage to exchange Queenstown harbour for Lough Foyle. Resistance, therefore, to the project may be looked for, and will probably succeed in delaying its execution, but the benefits to arise from it are too apparent to allow of its eventual failure.

Kf PKNTANT ?

The death is announced of a man who has figured prominently in the later and more deplorable history of Ireland. We allude to Mr. John George Adair,known to all the world a? the evicter of Glenveigh and concern-

ing whom very few of us know anything more, unless indeed it be that be possessed a taste for beautiful scenery, This taste it was that caused the ruin of a country-side, and spread desolation and mourning where happiness and peace had been. Mr. Adair who unfortunately happened to travel in that part of Ireland about thirty years ago was delighted with the scenery of Derryveigh and in consequence became the purchaser of a large tract .of the surrounding country. But no where in the world except among tbe negro slaves of the Southern States, then approaching their emancipation, could such results have followed as befell the tenants of the lands purchased. The late Mr. A. M. Sullivan in his " New Ireland," has given a touching description of what followed. He tells us hew tbe unsuspecting people, whom he likens to the Macdonalds of Glencoe, were surrounded suddenly one April morning in 1861 by soldiers and policemen, and driven from their houses which were levelled to the ground before their eyes. « Dearly did they cling to their homes till the last moment," wrote the correspondent of the Berry Standard, "and while the male population bestirred themselves in clearing the houses of what scanty furniture they contained, the women and children remained within till the sheriff's bailiff warned them out, and even then it was with difficulty they could tear themSl?*!.**!! 7.*7 .* fro ™ the scene s of happier days. In many cases they bade an affectionate adieu to their former peaceable but now desolate homes. One old- man, near the fourscore years andten, on leaving his house for tlus last time reverently hissed, tJte doorposts, with all tlie impassioned tenderness of an emigrant leaning his ■native land. His wife and children followed his example, and in agonised silence the afflicted family stood by and watched the des ruction of their dwelling. In another case an old man, aged ninety, who was lying ill in bed, was brought out of the hoose in order that formal possession might be taken, but readmitted for a week to permit of his removal. In nearly every house there was some one far advanced in age— man vof them tottering to the grave— while the sobs of helpless children took hold of every heart. When dispossessed, the families grouped themselves on the ground, beside the ruins of their late homos, laving no refuge near. The dumb animals refused to leave the wallsteads, and in some cases were with difficulty rescued from the falling timbers. As night set in the scene became fearfully sad. Passing along the base of the mountain the spectator might have observed near to each house its former inmates crouching round i a turf fire, close by a hedge ; and as a drizzling rain poured upon them they found no cover, and were entirely exposed to it— but only sought to warm their famished bodies. Many of them were but miserably clad, and on all sides the greatest desolation was apparent. I learned afterwards that the great majority of them lay out all night, either behind the hedges or in a little wood which skirts the lake ; they had no other alternative. I believe many of them intend resorting to the poorhouse. There these poor starving people remain on the cold bleak mountains, no one caring for them, whether they live or die. 'Tis horrible to think of, but more horrible to behold." Mr. Sullivan ! goes on to tell of how an effort was made to help thrse poor people, and how the Australian Donegal Celtic Relief Committee chiefly, at the instigation of the late Hon. Michael O'Grady, provided funds and enabled their survivors to emigrate— their survivors only however—" Tin poor people were sought out and collected. Some by this time had sunk beneath their sufferings. One man named Bradley had lost his reason under the shock. Other cases were nearly as heartrending. There were old men wbo would keep wandering over the hills in view of their ruined homes, full of the idea that some day Mr. Adair might let them return, but who at last had to be borne to the distant work- house hospital to die." Mr. Sullivan concludes as follows:— "In the Autumn of last year I revisited Donegal, I sat upon the shore of that lonely lake, and looked down the shadowed valley. On a jutting point, boneath the lofty slope of the wooded mountain, Mr. Adair has built a castle. It may be that ,the charms which Selkirk could not discover in solitude delight him in * this desolate place.' No doubt « the enchanting beauty ' which he said first drew him to the sp^t is unimpaired to view— Glenveigh is and ever will be beautiful. But for my part, as I gazed upon tbe scene, my sense of enjoyment was mingled with memories full of pain. My thoughts wandered back to that terrible April morning on Gartan side. In fancy I heard rolling across those hills the widow's wail, the women's parting cry, I thought of the farewell at the graves j of the crowd upon the fore-deck of that steamer. Again I markeel their tears, their sobs. Once more, above the paddle's plash and jthe seamen's bustling shout, I thought I heard Ihe wafted prayer' of « God be with Glenveigh I ' "—But how would the echoes of those cries and of that prayer of the exile sound *£ tbe t dy ! ng ears of the man who had caused their utterance, or do these hard hearts remain callous and unmoved to the end ? In any case well may the Derry Journal write :— " There h dead to-day on the Atlantic wave a man the mention of whose name will stir the blood in the hearts of Donegal men. An American packet is bearing to a grave in Irish soil the remains of one who in life swept ruthlessly hundreds of families from the land where for generations their fore-fathers had dwelt. John George Adair, the scourge of Glenveieh, as he was called, is no more, Wbo speaks but good of the dead need

A CONTRAST

never name John George Adair. Though obelisk as high as London's monument should record his praise, Glenveigh in its desolate grandeur will overshadow it, and with the dead despot's memory for ever associate a ruthless will and ruined homes." — But even yet there are some who survive of like mind with John George Adair — and the scenes of Glenveigh are still in too many instances repeated. The negro slave has been fully emancipated, but the hour of the Irish tenant's complete safety is not yet arrived. Another and a very important testimony to the efficiency of the schools conducted by members of the religious Orders reaches us. It comes this time from the commissioners appointed by the British Government, to inquire into technical education, and relates to Irish schools. — It runs as follows :—": — " There is a conviction, and it is one which our visits have fully confirmed in our minds, that the children and the young people of Ireland of the labouring class possess great manual dexterity and aptitude which only requires to be developed in order to be useful to themselves and to those amongst whom they live. As evidence of this, we need only refer to the remarkable success of the Ohristain Brothers and to that of the ladies of religious Orders in training children and young persons for handicrafts in industrial schools and other institutions of a like nature." On the other hand we find some testimony of an opposite kind borne towards those models of all godless schools, the public schools of the United States. —First, Mr. Edward Lauterbac'i presen's his report on education to the annual meeting at New York of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum ' Society. " The children under their charge.'' he said, " ought to leave those walls, fully qualified to engage in industrial pursuits and no* be pointed at as barterers and traffickers/ He did not wish to cast any aspersion on their public schools, but the system of education, was one which rather tended to unfit the graduates for applying tJiemselves to trades. Much more might be taught in them, and much' more left unlearned. Therefore, the necessity of giving their charges a technical education, and keeping them as much as possible in the institution for that purpose." The second witness is Congressman Hewitt who spoke as follows in an interview with a reporter of the Tribvm& referring to an examination for appointments as cadets at West Point and Annapolis of thirty-four candidates. — ' " I was surprised to see how few of the boys were up to the required physical standard. It don't speak well for our young men of to-day if this is ail average showing.' 1 How did the twelve who met the physical test stand the menta 1 examination?' 'Not first rate. They were bright enough and seemed well-informed, but there was a want of the practical ability ' to apply their information. There was a lack of method-, not of ability. lam inclined to think that it comes from our public scliaol training of to-day. Nearly all the boys were graduates of the ' public schools. I was graduated from a public school, but it appears to me that the present system has separated itself from the practical training which the scholars received when the three ' Us* were the basis of a public school education.' "" — On all sides, then, the excellence of the system of the religious schools is testified to, and in many quarters tes'imony is borne adverse to the teaching given, at a heavy cast, in godless schools. But still because some men hate Christianity and others are desirous of raising up disciples for their infidel conventicles, and, above all, of securing supporters for their public career, rendered docile by the halflearning that makes those who possess it eager to swallow every new and empty theory in favour of which a show of false science may be made, the people are to be taxed beyond their reasonable powers, and some of them, in addition to that, are to be fined, so that godlessness may be the educational order of the day. It is a condition of things to which it is hard to submit with patience. Peinck Bismabok is really not acting nicely at all by England at the present juncture of affairs. England has all along sympathised in a great degree with him. — TheTe can be no doubt but that her good wishes, on the whole, were with him' l in the war against France, and subsequently when he entered upon the Kulturiwnpf she applauded him highly, and most ardently wished him success. In her heart as well as openly, she was his most sincere allay when he made war against the Pope. But, in return, this Bismarck is proving sadly ungrateful. Whether he has some ends of his own to gain or not we are unable to say, but that he is capable of a long course of intrigue . to bring about the fulfilment] of an object that he has in view, his late confession respecting the part he acted preparatory to the Schleswig-Holstein war gives ample proof. He plotted a long time to attain by war the ends he then desired, and when the will of all Europe —even that of the people he was determined on annexing to Germany was opposed to him, or at best indifferent. It is not likely that he is now pursuing a perverse course without some ulterior object, but what that is who, except some one of as inscrutable a nature as his own, can pretend to discover ? All that seems certain is that into his plans there enters the desirableness or the necessity of involving England in war, or of submitting her to such humilia-

tiona as will make her name a by-word in Enrope, and cause her voice to be despised in all the questions of the times. — Prince Bismarck, as competent authorities tell us— the Paris correspondent of the Times, for instance — has been disappointed at the prospects of peace, and, failing the promised wax with Kussia, has attempted to embroil England with France concerning Egypt.— He had previously used his influence in an endeavour to neutralise the Baltic so that English war-ship 3 might be excluded and prevented from attacking the Russian ports or ships, and he made a like attempt to close the and shut the English fleet out of the Black Sea. His determination, in short, was that Russia should baye all the advantages which her superior land forces would give her against England, deprived of the full power of her fleet.— Nor has Prince Bismarck tried to disguise his attitude in this matter— and, above all, Mb declaration to Lord Bosebery who visited him in Berlin the other day, was most bare-faced and insulting. It was simply the declaration of an enemy of England resolved to see her humbled. — Egypt, said the Chancellor, must be neutralised under the strong rule of a popular Khedive, and that meant the deposition of England's proteg6 the weak Tewfik Pasha, and England's own retirement from the control of the country. He declined, moreover, to interfere with the Bussian designs on Afghanistan, and would only recommend the Czar to content himself with the position he now holds in that country until England had fortified her frontier beyond the Indus. That is, he would support Russia in whatever designs she might have upon the territory of the Ameer, and would leave England to defend her Indian empire as best she might. We do not know whether this attitude of Prince Bismarck's has influenced Lord Salisbury- in his negotiations with the Bussian Government, but it is accepted as having been the true cause of Mr. Gladstone' 3 altered tone, and of the concessions he was ready to make. — If, moreover, the reports be true that Maruchak is to be ceded to the Russians as the price of their relinquishing the Zulflkar pass, we may believe that the Conservative Cabinet also feels obliged to yield to the malign influence. According to Sir Lepel Griffen, the power that holds Penj-deh can always command the Zulfikar Pass, and the acquisition of Maruchak, a well fortified place— would give to the Russians another important position on the Murghab river, to whose source, as well as that of the Heri-rud in the same direction, they must necessarily seek to go. Prince Krapotkine, in an article in the Nineteenth Century, has explained that for the safety of their position in Central Asia it is absolutely necessary for the Russians to command the sources of the rivers, and that nothing can stop their attempting an onward march with such an end. — Lord Bosebery, then, who is generally believed in his ostensible visit of civility to Count Herbert Bismarck, to have had the real object of inquiring into the intentions of the Chancellor with respect to English affairs generally, received hut little comfort, and was snubbed on all the points he submitted to the Prince's consideration. He was told plainly that the sympathies of Germany went with Russia, that Germany had no fear of the competition in trade with England, but was considered capable of even beating her from the field, and was resolved on having equality and liberty in the commerce of the world so that she might do so ; that Egypt must, be abandoned, and that if all the behests of the Chancellor were not complied with, England must expect to remain isolated in Europe, and in a position of constant danger. Lord Rosebery's mission was a humiliating one from the beginning. He must have left London to pursue it in an humble frame of mmd — but who can picture the state of humility in which he returned to explain his message to hia chief. — Behold, then, how the champion of the Knlturiimvpf rewards his sympathetic friends, and how the victory of Sedan make the echoes of its jubilation resound through England to-day. May we hear them no nearer to our own shores, and may Prince Bismarck : s ulterior object be something other than a flesh annexation of an unwilling people, to be brought about by meaiiS of war. But who can tell ? He is a daring man, and one by no means scrupulous.

* PAGANISM BAM PANT.

Victob Hugo in one of his books likened Paris to a pendulum swinging between. Thermopylae and Gomorrba. Towards -which extreme did the pendulum incline the other day when that great heathen spectacle of the poet's funeral took place ? His death was a sad one, without religion and without comfort. The Archbishop of Palis had written offering, although himself suffering from illness, to visit the dying man if he should desire it, but his offer, as, indeed, be mast have feared, for he evidently made the trial only as a forlorn hope, was refused, and Hugo died clinging to the earthly affections that were being torn from his failing heart, clasping the band of his grandson and bidding hie grand-daughter farewell, with no mention of that meeting in another world that dulls the sting of death* All that vanity could do was done to honour bis remains. 1 boee cold worthless things, out of which all the fire of genius had gone, that had lost their love and kindness and human feeling, that must now pass through putrefaction into dust and be no more for ever and ever, for so the people reasoned who honoured them. Could vanity find a moip fitting work, and did not the pendulum incline rather towards

Gomorrha with its wickedness and death and desolation than toward. Thermopylae, glowing with a noble life ? What a difference there was between this funeral, and that of one whom they bury in the Christian's hope of a glorious resurrection— the hope that no one bat God Himself, knowing the needs of the human heart and pitying themi could have given to vs — and of which no one but the devil, delighting in cruelty, and revelling even in making death more deadly and bitter, could take away. The Christian who lays his dead in an honoured grave has reason in what he does, but the Atheist makes a mockery of the miserable corpse over which he displays his vain parade. And Victor Hugo's burial was a mockery. Grand as was the ceremonial, and imposing as were all the circumstances of the parade a heartless mockery was the essence of the whole thing. That caustic workman well expressed the meaning of ib all, who was heard to parody the title of the poet's play in explaining what was in truth taking place, " Le JUt. 8 f Amuse" the people, who are now the king, were amusing themselves. But that such a display should be made in the heart of the once Catholic France is a lamentable thing. That such a procession should climb up the hill of StGenevi&ve, and deposit their awful burden thus sacrilegiously in her church, waa an outrage that added another terrible crime to the account entered before God against the city in which it all took place, and by which one day sooner or later a reckoning must be made. It cannot be but that the people who have so flagrantly offended and so often in the face of the world will at last, in the face of the world also, receive their punishment. The presence of ten just men, indeed, would have saved Gomorrha from its fiery end, but Gomorrha bad not corrupted the whole earth, and sent out blasphemy into all .the corners of the universe. And by a special act of the legislature religion was outraged in a particular manner on thisoccasion. It was not enough that the pageant should be conducted apart from all mention of the name of God, and that the chanting of the priests, imploring mercy on a sinful soul gone before the judgment seat, should be replaced by bands playing the " Marseillaise " and other patriotic tunes, but, in order to prepare it to receive the body so led up there,;the church of St. Genevieve waa secularised, once more suffering one of those blasphemous transformations that have so strangely overtaken' it. Indeed we may borrow Victor Hugo's own simile, and say that this church also swings between the glorious and the infamous. Now the temple of God, and now the monument of some man who defied God. It has been the tomb of Marat whosti remains were afterwards flung out by the mob and trampled in the gutter of the streets, and of Voltaire and Rousseau and Lepelletier It has also been used for other purposes besides those of religion or of sacrilegious burial. It again became a pantheon under Louis Philippe ; it was the head-quar-ters of the insurgents in 1848'; during the German siege of Paris it was used as a magazine and store-house, and the communards barricaded themselves there against the troops. But the act'of sacrilege now performed is not excused by those that have preceded it, and Ihe scandal is no less than it would bg were the sanctuary for the first time violated. The Archbishop of Paris protested against the act, and denounced it as displeasing even to the soul of the dead man himself. "He could not have wished his funeral to degenerate into an act of public impiety. He knew, and comprehended the majesty of our temples, the sanctity of our worship." But though Victor Hngo may have believed in the immortality of the soul and in God, his teaching had gone to encourage and harden tbose who believe , in neither. Still, let us be warned by the charity of the Archbishop. Let us admit that he honestly wished by his teaching to incline the hearts of those who heard him towards Thermopylae instead of towards Gomorrha, that he tried to teach patriotism and nobility, but, mis. taking the manner of bringing about his ends, succeeded only in increasing the sum of selfishness, impiety, and wickedness. The effect of his teaching, and that of such as he, were were well revealed in this pagan spectacle, wherein the city that honoured him pursued its Gomorrha-like course.

MOEB BIBLE-IN-SOHOOLS.

There has been another debate in Parliament on Bible reading in the Government schools. The motion was defeated by a large majority and, therefore, the naturally easy consciences of those good people satisfied to claim only a false appearance must remain, for some time longer at least, disturbed. The " unaided Word " shall no as yet be cast upon the waters of the childish understanding, and embryo theologians must still remain unencouraged. We do not know, however, thab the embr> o theologian must needs develope into an adult fearing God and regarding man, as ' Mr. Macandrew seems to certainly expect, and, if all we have to look forward to for the future prosperity of the colony is a scrap of promiscuous unexplained Bible-reading eot through with hurriedly every morning, it is but too probable that very unpleasant times indeed are ahead of us. Besides the budding theologian should have sound data to found his opinions on, and if the choice between the Douay and the Protestant Bible, mentioned as a difficulty by Mr. Montgomery, be after all no difficult one, as every enlightened Protestant legislator, or, for the matter of that, every eincera

Catholic also, must believe, who is to pronounce between the merits of the Authorised Version and that which has been revised ? Surely the young theologian should, for example, know that it is open to him to me the word"sheol" when he would name "hell," if ever he should feel inclined to make use in any way of words not suited to ears polite, and that there are several other alternat ives tha tit would be within his province to consider. To with-hold the " unaided Word," from the youthful mind is one thing, but to submit" to it the Word not only unaided but positively impeded by a false translation is quite another, and until the youthful mind is fitted to distinguish the evil from the good, it might te as well not to impose upon it the necessity of making the choice, Meantime we fear that it is but too true, as Mr. Turnbull suggests, that the youthful theologian is a character which grows scarcer and yet more scarce in Protestant households. — Protestant children, he said, were growing up in ignorance of religion, while Catholics wer c being diligently taught. And herein— let us remark in passing — we may discern the nature of the faith that is in Protestant parents, who certainly do not consider it worth while to make those sacrifices for the preservation of their children's religion that are made by Catholic parents. And who Bhall reprove them if they do not consider the religion they profess worth preserving for their children? Perhaps they understand its nature better than we do. But, at least, any form of Christianity appears to us infinitely preferable to a blank atheism or to any of those systems which at bottom are pretty much the same thing.— And even if the Catholics of Auckland, as Mr. Thomson says, have availed themselves largely of the godless echoolß, that is no reasoa that they are to be held up as an example to all the Catholic world. Their case is not an example of any rule, in fact, but an exception that proves a rule, for no other Catholic community can be brought forward in any such connection, and we are not inclined to forsake the custom of the Catholic world generally to follow the vagaries of one exceptional community. According to the testimony of their Bishop, moreover, as given before a Parliamentary Committee, the Catholics of Auckland have seen one generation of their young men lost to the Catholic Church, and the Catholics who, with such a terrible fact before their eyes, risk the faith of a second generation, occcupy neither an enviable nor a praiseworthy position — much less an exemplary one. It is, on the contrary, because Catholics are determined to keep their children Catholic that they support the Catholic schools absolutely necessary for the purpose. — We Catholics elsewhere, then, are rather warned than tempted by what we are so repeatedly told of Auckland.— We have little moTe to say on this subject, at least for the present, for we may return to it on receiving Hansard with the full report of the speeches, some of which appear to have been lively, if not brilliant or amusing. — But we may add- that a motion for the imposition of an additional injustice has been well defeated.