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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 29, 13 November 1885, Page 15

A CONCERT will be given ia Naumana's Hall, South Dunedin on Wednesday evening in aid of certain improvements about to be made in tit. Patrick's Church. An interesting programme has been drawn up, and a very pleasant entertainment may be looked for. The object is one also that commends itself to the members of the Catholic community and a crowded house is confidently expected. In our notice of the examination of pupil-feachprs at the Dominican Convent, Dunedin, last week the name of Miss Harming was mentioned. The youug lady in question, however, does not occupy, and never has occupied sucb a position in the schools. As an advanced pupil she was examined among her former class-fellows for the purpose of testing the progress made by her. A CiUTIC attached to the Lyttelton Times having remarked that Mr Boucicault playod the part of the Shaughraun " not, perhaps, with the fire and energy tbat would have marked it a quarter of a century ago," the famous actor, in reply, addressed the following letter to the editor :—": — " Sir, — 1 am not surprised to read that my delineation of the Irish peasant proved Bomewbat disappointing to

the Christchurch public — that it was found wanting in the ' fire and energy 'to which they have been accustomed. The fire and energy that consist of dancing around the stage in an expletive manner, and indulging in ridiculous capers and extravagancies of language and gesture, form the materials of a clowning character, known as ' the stage Irishman,' which it has been my vocation, as an artist and a a dramatist, to abolish. I took the Melbourne public by surprise a first, which caused the Argus to remark that they had been so accus tomed to the brandied wine that they could not at once appreciate the quality of the pure and finer wine. Bnt before I left Victoria I had knocked the stuffing out of that old libel, ' Ragged Pat.' If 1 cannot succeed in doing likewise here, I shall still remember Christ - church as a zoological garden, where the last specimen of that extinct creature is preserved. In Barnum'a Museum in New York I saw ' a mermaid ' and ' a woolly horse,' in which the simple-minded were courted to believe ; but that Prince of Showmen never ventured to practise on the credulity of the public so far as to manufacture a stage Irishman. He draws the line there. — I am, etc., Dion BouciCAT7LT." There are at least fire and energy enough here to suit any taste, however spirited, and, as an eye-witness of twenty-five year standing, we can testify that in other respects also where Mr. Bouci j cault is concerned, they are as fresh as ever

At the congress held in Dunedin by the members of the Church of England on Tuesday, a very remarkable paper indeed on infi • delity was read by the Rev. F. G. M. Powell. The author of the paper took an extremely broad view of the matter under discussion > and expressed an opinion that, in many instances, men accused o unbelief might perhaps be advanced believers arrived, on the road of progress, in sight of pinnacles of the New Jerusalem not beheld by the multitude. He further looked to theology as necessarily, if properly dealt with, yielding something new, and triumphantly made a quotation concerning whose novelty there cannot be the slightest doubt. Indeed one of bis hearers, at least, seemed to take this quotation as bearing very evident marks of originality — which, in a certain sense, it undoubtedly did — and inquired, amid the wild state of excitement into which he had been thrown, as to whether it was really a quotation. The passage and its interpretation was, in effect, that, since the spirit of God at the beginning brooded over the face of the waters, Nature and the Holy Ghost must be identical, and that therefore the unpardonable sin consisted ia the contradiction of Nature. To blaspheme the God of Nature was a matter of indifference, but to contradict Nature itself was to sin beyond forgiveness, and to suffer inevitably and deservedly. Verily, who shall deny that weather-cocks upon the steeples of the New are visible to advanced eyesf Their crowing, pernaps, is even audible to advanced ears. The paper seemed rather too much for the understanding of the assembled theologians, but, as they belonged to a Church whose boast is that there is room within her boundaries for all manner of men and all manner of opinions, the disposition shown to browbeat the rev. author was rather out of place. Surely he also has a right to interpret aud to teach according to the liberty of his Church, and that is simply unlimited.

The severe sentence of three years imprisonment pa9sel on the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette cannot unfortunately be taken as a proof that the system exposed by him did not exist. In some way, its existence was proved by the facts attendant on the abduction for which be has been punished. The excess, however, to which Mr. Stead carried his revelations, and the superabundance of filth published, and in several instances certainly invented by him, deprive him of the sympathy of right-feeling people and show that |his motives were not those of a man desiring only to correct a frightful abuse. The Dublin papers had already condemned some scandalous publications made by him and pointed out Mr. Bradlaugh as a worthy successor to bis place.

Contradictory telegrams reach us as to Mr. Gladstone's reference at Edinburgh to the Irish question, la one instance we are told that he called upon the Liberals to he firm in opposing Home Rule as endangering the unity of the E npire, and in another that he professed himself ready to grant such a form of local Government as might be found consistent with the unity in question. We take the second report as the true one for Mr. Gladstone must ucder. stand clearly that the concession of their demanl to the Irish people would have no single element of danger in it, but that, on the contrary, it would be the certain pledge of saf<'t\ , of true unity, and increased strength.

The daily papers are full of paragraphs re'a ing to the arrival of the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney in Australia, with details of his reception, or rejection as the case may be, ami various interesting reports or inventions of the interviewer. We do not quote any of these paragraphs as we await our Catholic exchanges, where we shall find particulars that may be relied on.