Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 20, 11 September 1885, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

<4 ' -<**... season for the distribution of degrees and "diplomas gained in connection with the University fof New Zealand has just passed by and during its course we heard much that was interesting if not instructive. The very cream of our accomplished gentlemen and learned professors came forward and spoke in their very best manner and surely none but the dullest of intellect could fail to be edified. Indeed, we may doubt as to whether the dullest themselves could prove an exception, for did not even inanimate things dance to the ■trains of Orpheus' lyre and the veriest stick, therefore, might be expected to hearken with delight when our weightiest pundits ocon* pied the intellectual platform. In Dunedin among the chief features of the eloquence displayed was Dr. Brown 's dissertation upon the advantages of a University course to women, and antiquity as well as the middle ages were called upon by the speaker to afford suitable examples. The doctor did not name any of the ladies who during medieval times had so distinguished themselves although he spoke of them generally, but as he directed his hearers to the late Canon Kingsley's romance of " Hypatia " as h valuable historical record concerning that gentle philosopher, we may, perh ips gather that in bis allusions to the ladies of the middle ages he had in his mind's eye the far-famed Romola. She was at least as real a character as that delineated by Kingsley ; nay, probably more so, since George Eliot was certainly the incomparably greater erenius of the two writers, aDd could make the creatures of her imagination live with a life unknown to those of the lesser author. Absit omen, however, and may none of the fair graduates of our University who walk in the steps, so far as learning is concerned, of these learned ladies, arrive at the dismal fate of the one, or meet with the wretched fortune as to a husband of the other. But, then, Dr. Brown's graduates are not to think of anything in the way of a husband. It is as a refugium peccatoruw, since the conventual life is no longer available, that he proposes the learned professions to the sex, and under their shelter the old maid's condition may become respectable, perhaps also independent of its traditional cat. Let us hope, at least, that puss may become a mere object «f zoological inquiry to the single lady of the future for her introduction into the sick-room might not in every case be agreeable to the patient, and in the law-court she might draw down the rebuke of an irritable magistrate on the fair advocate introducing her. Medieval learning, nevertheless, did not necessarily make the lady who possessed it in. dependent of the sheltering consent, and it was in such a retirement that Victoria Colonna, for example, who, however, was a widow and not a spinster, pursued her studies, and wrote the poems that have made her celebrated. We would, moreover, have our gentle graduates prove more effectual in their particular callings than did Hypatia in hers, a conclusive token of whose success as well as of the witness borne against the Church by St. Cyril's heretical enemies, is afforded by the fact that her chief disciple was afterwards converted to Christianity, and died as a Catholic bishop. The truth of this lady's history, in fact, can never be known, for it is related only by those who, either pronounced heretics themselves, or sympathisers wi*h heretics, were anxious for nothing so much as to convict St. Cyril, directly or indirectly, of her murder. The gallantry that distinguit-hed the conferring of degrees in Dunedin was absent from the proceedings at Christchurch, and there all that was notable was Professor Von Haast's glorification of physical science and apotheosis of nature. When Professor Von Haast, however, dubs Francis Bacon as the " immortal father of modern science," he contradicts, for example, such authorities as Jevons and Draper, who refuse to concede to him any such place. Jevonß says that " discovery was achieved by the very opposite method to that advocated by Bacon." And Draper gives the glory f the scientific reformer to Leonardo da Vinci. Professor Von Haast utterly despises the schoolmen, but the scholastic Albertus Magnus understood and followed the inductive method some three hundred years before Francis Bacon waß born. We may, besides, claim for our present Pope, Leo XIII., ifufficient understanding to discern the needi and circum.

MUCH LEABNINO.

stances of the times, and it is to the study of the scholastic philosophy that be directs the attention of Catholic students so that they may be prepared to take their part in the science of the day. The scholastics, in abort, are despised only by those who know nothing about them. But how admirable is the devotion of the learned to ■cience 1 Was not that doctor to be envied of whom the apothesary in "M. dtt Pourceaugnac " declared that he would not for all the world cure anyone except with the remedies allowed by the Faculty. What is life in comparison with the interests of science, or what is the whole human race comparatively speaking ? Comparatively or absolutely, indeed, we have reason to believe that the human race is a mere nothing. The proper study of mankind, says Professor Von Haast, is not man, but Nature, of which he is only " a minute and unimportant atom." The true man of science will view the human race in comparison with nature as that good doctor of whom Moliere tells ua viewed his patients with regard to the Faculty. But why should a " minute and unimportant atom " have any object of stu iy 1 Let him trifle away his little foolish time, and perish as he is destined. — Contemptible, truly, is the history of mankind in the past ; contemptible, as Pr >fe6sor Von Haast implies, are all the savings of the ancient writers, and the whole study and experience of the human mind. But are not the happiness and comfort of the race, for which the Professor looks in the future, quite as contemptible 7 and why should not our motto be that well-known one : Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die ? Verily we need another Moliere to slay with ridicle the egregious folly of our pedants. Meantime, we heard notning of the " minute and unimportant atom " in Dunedin. Here the leading place in the day's performance was accorded to the fair sex, and who, under such circumstances, would dare to mention the '•atom"? Whatever man may be — and who dare contradict the " Faculty " ? — the " sweet girl graduate," not to speak of the professional spinster, must by no means be confounded with that. Every rule has its exception.

A CRYINO NEGLECT.

Why is there no one to speak a word in favour of the refugees from New Caledonia who con'inue to arrive in Ihe Australian colonies? Surely there is here added to our population an element belonging to the advanced progies* of the times. These men are the outcome of a century of Freethougbt, and hail from the very centre of Freethought with all iiß honours thick upon them. Is it desired to establish the secular system so firmly among us that it cannot be moved ? Nutbing, then, can pr mise more hopefully for its future than the advent of multitudes of those whom the refugees so well represent. They are godless to tne back-bone, and no baser term of reproach, according to their ideas, can issue from their mouths than that applied by them in contempt to one who acknowledges himself to be a Christian. Is it desired that the lyceum should replace the church among us, and that appreciative audiences should increase there daily ? Who so fit to swell the enlightened congregations as those in whose very cafes and places of amusement the lofty sentiments of the lyceum have been habitually expressed even in the bacchanalian choruses ? What Freethinkers among ourselves still repeat with some degree of hesitation and as not quite familiar has entered into the inner places of these people's life, and become part of their mental constitution. Why, then, do not our Freethinking friends welcome these refugees as the very santons of their sect, and the sterling hope of their system ? For our own part, we confess that were a continual stream to set in towards our shores composed of people who had made as much progress in the practice of the Catholic religioa as these refugees h*ve made in those of Freethought, we should hail their arrival with delight, and all our powers would be put forth to give them a welcome and advance their interests in any way open to ua. but the police alone seem to have a knowledge of these advanced members of the Freethinking sect, and in lycean circles absolutely nothing ia done to give them a helping hand. Our Freethinking friends, nevertheless, are neglectful of their true interests. Th« int lhgence of even the ill-instructed Parisian is considerable and contact with the world, for which he his been so well situated, has taught him many things and brought much undei bis comprehending notice that people without his surrounding advantages might hardly acquire by attentive study from books. Our Freethinking friends have an unexplored treasure at their Bide, and the richneu

which it may yield to their platforms is as yet untold— nay, perhaps, it is infinite. Does not Paris alone, as M. Jules Simon informs us possess 34,000 actual burglars and would-be assassins ? And of how great a crowd of less extreme unbelievers are these the saints ? The supply is absolutely boundless/ Who knows, then, what opportunities our lyceans are allowing to slip by. Some mute, inglorious Louise Michel, for instance, may lurk in the slums of an Australian city, ovly awaiting the call to lectureship. Ears that itch for the abuse of clericalism are needlessly pained, and those who can best and most appropriately satisfy all their longings are within reach. It should be the determination of every right-minded person, however little he should want, like Sairey Gamp, to want that little of the best. The mere namby-pamby of our colonial lecturers, caught up here and there from various stale and threadbare sources, and for the most part marred in the borrowing, is nothing to what the recidivists could give if they were only brought forward, and iv pure disinterested friendship we recommend these more advanced members of their sect to our friends, the lyceans. Let them bridge over the seas between these colonies and New Caledonia. The work should be as congenial to them and as much in their interests as was to] its constructors the building of that great bridge described by Milton when Satan had prepared the way for the smooth course of Freethought upon this earth.

A controversy has taken place in the Melbourne MOBE ABOUT THE Argus between the Anglican Bishop Moorehouse "unaided and Archdeacon Slattery, of Geelong. The matter WORD." in dispute was certain ptssages in one of St. Paul's Epistles, and the particular use of the Greek article was the especial point on which the argument seemed to turn. We have no intention of following the course of the learned discusBion, which to be understood must be followed in its entire course, and is peihaps rather above the interest of the ordinary reader. We however, find in the last letter which we have seen written by Dr Moorehouse a sentence or two calling for comment. Dr. Moorehouse then, says that it was 26 years ago that he adopted the views objected to by Archdeacon Slattery, and that he did so on reading certain notes on the Epistle to the Romans published by Dr. Vaughan— then Head-master of Harrow— who, being an excellent Greek scholar, had studied the subject for 18 years. From the time, therefore, tbat St. Paul wrote until twenty-six years ago, a chief argument in the Epistle to the Romans had been involved in a state of Cimmerian darkness— that is, at least, so far as the English-speaking or privateinterpreting world had been concerned. The true meaning of the Apostle had been hid by an ignorance of the language in which he wrote, and passages on which doctrines had been built and sects founded had been completely misunderstood. Dr. Moorehous-e disdains for his Church any pietensions to infallibility, but since the Scriptures also failed, ho.v many of those needing a guide may have fallen, all unguiled, into the ditch ? The guide was there, indeed,— the " unaided Word "—but locked up out of reach, and powerless to instruct any of those wanting the key who applied to it for instruction. The fact is significant, and strongly tends to show the worth of that theoiy of private interpretation. Dr. Moorehouse promises, moreover, that if Archdeacon Slattery will give him " soripturil pro)fs " of the infallibility of the Pope he will turn Roman Catholic. But who shall judge as to the sufficiency of these proofs ? Dr. Moorehouse will himself sit in judgment on the evidence to be produced, and, with a prejudiced mind and a decision arrived at in advance, will pronounce his sentence. What, indeed, can be proved by a book the true meaning of some of whose most important passages lies in abeyance for many ceDtunes? And yet we can fancy that a man even exercising his right of private interpretation should easily find the inallibility of the Pope declared in Holy Writ. Can the rock, indeed, fall, whereon the Church, against which the powers of hell shall not prevail, is built ? Or can he, commissioned by God to feed His sheep and lambs, give them poison instead of wholesome food ? Had there been an infallible judge to pronounce the sentence tbat would bind him, then, Bishop Moorehouse would have made a rash promise but since the interpretation is in his own hands, and the authority is one over which he exercises unrestricted control, his promise is a safe one. We see, however, the value of a vitally authoritative book whose age i 8 eighteen hundred years, while the true interpretation of any principal passage in it may date from to-day or yesterday, and whose plain words may be boldly challenged, since the right of explaining them in any convenient way has been seized upon. Dr. Moorehouse well repudiates infallible authority for his Church. She has taken as her guide a book— ipso facto stripped of its authority, and failure and division must necessarily be her principal notes.

The eighth centenary of a great Pope and a great POPE ST. saint occunedthis year on May 25th, and was duly GREGORY VII. celebrated on June Ist by the Church. Pope St.

Gregory VII. died at Salerno on May 25, 1085— for t is to him that we allude. There has been, perhaps no other

character on the page of history to which so much injustice has been done as to that of St. Gregory, and his whole career has been the subject of fierce and continual misrepresentation. The contempt and hatred of the Protestant world has been poured out on Hildtbrand, as he is commonly called, and the resistance shown to him during his life by the evil powers aad people whom he condemned and against whom he struggled was renewed towards his memory in after ages when the lasting effects of his warfare, seen in the condition of the Church, had again become detestable to those who bad rebelled.— St. Gregory was a martyr in his life and death, and like many of the saints his triumph on earth only became apparent when he himself had gone to join the Church triumphant >"n Heaven. "In his life time ' says Montalembert, " Gregory knew little success, except of a purely spiritual kiud ; and this he bought at the cost of trials and disappointments the hardest and most bitter, and which were constantly repeated till the end of his days. He foresaw this and accepted it before hand. 'If I had been willing,' he often said, 'to let the princes and great ones of the world reign by the guidance of their passions ; if I had been silent when I saw them trample under foot God's justice, if at the peril of their souls and of mine, I had concealed their crimes ; if I had not righteousness and the honour of the holy Church at heart ah ! ... I might better have counted on submission, wealth, repose, and homage more surely than could any of my predecessors. But knowing that a bishop is never more a bishop than when he is persecuted for right's sake, I resolved to brave the hatred of the wicked by obeying God rather than provoke his anger by guilty complaisance towards them. As to their threats and their cruelty, I pay no regard to them, being always ready to die rather than consent to pirtake of their iniquity and betray the good cause."— But eveu the Protestant world itself has attained of late years to a more just appreciation of the character of St. Gregory if as yet they have not at rived at the full understanding of his work. The Saturday lieviem for example at the conclusion of an article on this centenary and which is on the whole fair and moderate if in some instances rather over-drawn and iucorrect, speaks as follows : " Hildebrand bas paid the accustomed penalty of greatness. An extravagant homage has been followed by a far more extravagant defamation. From the ßeformation onwards it became the fashion among Protestants to load his memory with every term of obloquy and reproach, in which the compilers of the English Hoinili.es set a somewhat conspicuous example, while even Roman Catholic, seemed halfashamed to speak of him ; he was represented as a cruel and narrowminded higot, the typical ' Giant Pope,' of the Pilgrim's Progress, whose teeth bad not jet been drawn. A juster estimate has succeeded, and sceptical or Protestant writers in Germany and France are the first to make reparation for a very great literary wrong. Guizot hailed him as the champion and pioneer of modern civilisation. Sir James Stephen, who loved him little, could not refrain from testifying tbat his despotism, with whatever inconsistency, sought to guide minkind by mor.il impulses to a more than human sanctity, while the feudal despotism with which he waged war sought, with a stern consistency, to degrade them into boasts of prey, or beasts of burden. It was tho conflict,' he adds, 'of mental with physical power, of literature with ignorance, of religion with debauchery, and Hildebrand, who is celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of the age, is yet more justly entitled to the praise of having, left the imDress of his own gigantic character on the history of all the ages which have succeeded him.' Milner, who had less than no sympathy with ecclesiastical pretensions of any kind, names him ' the Ctßsar of spiritual conquest,' before who«eeyes floated in outline the beautifnl vision of St. Augustine's ' City of God,' which he aspired, however imperfectly, to make a reality on earth.— lt is but a shallow libel on hiß m mory to call him the founder of Ultramontanism But Hildebrand who expired at Salerno in exile on May 25, 1085, may fully be styled the Founder of the Mediceval Papacy, and it must be allowed on all hinds that the architect of so stately an edifice has well parned the honours of his eighth centenary." — Coming from the sources whence it proceeds this is high testimony, and it is to be desired that on every point on which the Protestant world has been wont to calumniate the Church, a study of the truth, may be followed by a similar reparation. — Research coupled with honesty is all that is necessary to produce such an effect.— But let us acknowledge this tribute to justice as another victory won by Pope St. Gregory VII.

The efforts that the people of the West Coast, Nelson, the EAST and and Canterbury are making, and the determined west coast front shown by them in this matter of the railway, RAILWAY do honour to their resolution, and their knowledge that those who desire others to help them must first help themselves. We say the people advisedly and not the men, for it was remarked by one or more of the speakers at the great meeting the other day in Chrlstchurch that the enthusiasm shown by the women in this cause was one of its most hopeful features. And it may be granted that the rights of woman fully extend to the promo*

ion by enthusiasm of any project that is of great public interest, and that bids fair to result in immense benefit to society at large. The lamentable feature in the whole matter is the opposition which is being selfishly offered to the undertaking, and the surprisingly narrow state of mind that is thus revealed. Surely the interests of these three important provinces should not be a matter of indifference to the other parts of the colony. Were there nothing to be gained by the country generally, it would still be inexcusable for the inhabitants of other places to offer resistance to that which must benefit their neighbours and fellow-colonists wnhout injuring themselves. Bat when it is a manifest impossibility that three great and central districts of the Colony can undergo a vast improvement without beneficially affecting all the other districts, the blindness that leads to opposition seems something portentous. We do not know that anyone questions the great advantages to be conferred upon the provinces immediately interested by the construction of the railway. It is acknowledged that already the certainty of a paying traffic exists even alone in the products awaiting on the West Coast the means of conveyance to become the objects of a busy trade, There is already an unlimited supply of coal and wood sufficient almost of itself to justify the construction of the line. There is besides the certainty of a vast development of mineral resources that are known to exist, and tha strong probabilities are well nigh boundless. The district, in short, is a mine of wealth now impossible to work because of the want of all that the line will afford, but which possessing the line will go far towards establishing the prosperity of New Zealand once for all. A method of access to difficult portions of the country in Westland, not to speak of advantages arising from the line to Canterbury or Nelson, a supply of provisions at cheap rates, and which cannot now be obtained, and the means of conveyance and and carriage are all that are needed to bring about all that is most desirable. That the opposition given to the project should occasion extreme irritation among tie people who see their just wishes and demands so opposed is very natural. Viewing the matter as they do in its true light, and having all the advantages to be obtained full within their sight, the resistance shown to them must be more than galling, and such as may well provoke not only discontent but anger. They may claim to be as well qualified to judge of the project geoer ally as those who oppose it and they have besides exception il ad»an-' tages of understanding it that thos others do not possess. They know what would result from that which they desire so ardently to see carried out,and every sensible man must see that the success attending on so great an undertaking carried to its completion in one part of the Colony must necessarily benefit the whole in no slight measure. Those of us, therefore, who have the true welfare of the Colony at heart and are not blinded by party considerations or influenced by petty selfish interests must sympathise thoroughly with thf! advocates of the East and West Coast Railway, and apulau 1 the earnestness and energy with which they are pursuing their object.

POOR CHILD !

Here is another interesting little event connected with secularism : — Miss Hattie Bjdient was a quiet and amiable young lady belonging to a country town or village named Hornby, in the State of New York. Miss Hattie Bedient, besides, had no taste for household work, and notwithstanding her quietness and amiability, was possessed of some ambition, bo that she longed for one or more of those prizes which, according to the Rev. Dr. Stuart, are to be found so abundantly in the fields white for the harvest where intellectual labourers shall receive a fervent welcome. Having, therefore, studied for some time at her village school Miss Haltie Bedient was sent by her parents to the city and became a student at the Coming-Union School, so that she might be fitted for the eminent career that somewhere or another out, of sight, in white harvest fields or elsewhere, lies spread before the feet of those young ladies who attain to academic distinctions. — Unfortunately, however, Miss Hattie Bedient met with some slight disappointment on the threshold of her distinguished course, and, finding that other young ladies were capable of outstripping her in the classes she fell into a desponding state of mind. — What, then, was she to do? — return to her Tillage home, and stoop to help her mother in the making of beds and cookiDg of victuals, — Perish the thought I It was not for this that Bhe bad tasted the sweets of elementary learning or snuffed from afar the mild breezes of Academus.— Still less was it for this that she had drunk in the ethics of the periol, and steepsd her youthful mind in the morality of secularism. Miss Hattie Bedient therefore, with all the quietness and amiability that characterised her, and with all the morality she had gained in her secular studies, put an end to her existence, and b.T disappointed ambition both together, —and with her own fair hand nipped all her aspirations in the bud. — Man we are told, is a " minute and unimportant atom," but no professor as yet, howsoever learned or grave, has had the hardihood to enounce so much concerning woman. — Still the only thing to make the suicide of a young girl of little consequence would be the knowledge that she also belonged to that condition of being that was wholly unimportant and worthy of no consideration what-

soever. The belief that apart from the successful ambition for distinction or whatever other graiification may be desired and obtained, life is a matter of little moment, — and that the individual is free from all responsibility, may well lead to suicide. And in fact, we see, that in proportion as religion dies out, the practice of selfmurder increases. The case of Miss Hattie Bedient is one that may sadden, but need by no means surprise us. We may expect to witne* more of the same kind.

BIBD3 OF A FEATHER.

It is interesting to trace those points in which atheism agrees with Evangelicalism. We all know the time-honoured system of kidnapping Catholic children that has prevailed among our Evangelical friends, and bow, on one pretence or another, they have constantly endeavoured to gain possession of these little ones so that they might shut them up in " Birds' Nests," and other nefarious abodes, where they should be taught to abhor and detest the faith of their fathers, Our Evangelical friends, nevertheless, have failed signally in emulating the cunning: of the atheistical party. What they have aimed at doing on a comparatively small scale, the others have undertaken ia a gigantic measure, and by adopting secularism have attained to methods of whose vastness and promise of success the less daring Evangelical never dreamed. Secularism finally persevered in must inevitably make the world atheistic, with the exception of that remnant that may be s^ved in Catholic schools. Atheists, however, in some cases are prepared to follow the example that their Evangelical forerunners have set them, and we find a notable instance of this repoited by the French correspondent of a contemporary. It r latea to the case of a coachman in Paris who sent hia sou to bo educated by tbe Franciscans at Toulouse — the boy being seized on by a Freethinker who met with him on his journey, and who took possession of him with a view of poisoning bis mind against the Catholic faith. "As soon as the father was informed of the trick,'' • iys the correspondent of the Catholic Review, " he used every effort to withdraw his son from the hands of his singular protector. Notwithstanding telegrams, the intervention of a monk duly armed with the power of the law, appeals to the tribunals, nothing could be done. Tbe poor workman had to abandon hit work and sick wife, and go himself to Cette, where his son was kept in contempt of the paternal authority. Then only was his son restored to him, and the next day, when the pair returned to Paris, they found the mother dying in an hospital. Lenoir, so the poor man was named, by the advice of a lawyer took an action for damages against the Freethinker, and, to the amazement of the whole country, lost it. The case was tried before one of tnose judges who were ipuri by the administration, a man of utterly base character. But Lenoir was not discouraged. He appealed, and was supported by Lacointe, one of the most illustiious ornaments of the French bar. He was formerly Advocate-General of the Court of Cassation, and, like so many other distinguished judges, resigned sooner than concur in the persecution of the n ligious orders. Lenoir won his case and the Freethinker has suffered in person and pocket. But, mark the inconsistency. In an individual instance the State punishes an attempt on the authority of the parent, while >t withdraws in a mass the whole school population of the country from a legitimate paternal authority. Certainly the Freethinker has ju»t ground of complaint. He is punished for doing what the State itselt has no compunction in doing, and for resisting the doing of which it has punished parents with five and imprisonment." For ourselves, as we have said, however, a principal interest in this case is that it so exactly reproduces many circumstances of cases in which the abductiug parties were members of the Evangelical sects — more especially of that amiable, pious, and truly honest society, the Irish Church Missions — and even the prejudiced and unjust magistrate is a character with which we are not unfamiliar.