QUESTIONABLE PATRONAGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 37, 8 January 1886, Page 21

QUESTIONABLE PATRONAGE.

(Wairarapa Star, December 18.) o»Ai.LT we have no objection to Miss O'Garman or her mode of armng a living, though we are unable to admire the man or woman, who having quarrelled with her old associations, spend the remainder of their lives in reviling them and endeavouring to bring them into idicule. Miss O'Gorman has a perfect right to prosecute the profession of lecturing as a means of earning her livelihood, but the uestion arises whether clergymen and others whose conduct is supposed to be exemplary, are acting judiciously in extending to her entertainment the patronage n* merely of their prejencef but of their commendation. r • The question to be considered in judging of the merits of a lecture is the aim and object of the lecturer. The man or woman who lectures on science affords induction. The siine with the lecturer on temperance. The evangelical lecturer affords a pleasing kind of entertainment, but the lecturer whose sole object is to hoH up a certain phase of religion to public reprobation, and who panders to the worst or most bigoted side of sectarianism, is hardly consulting the advantage of the community. The professional apostate is never a very amiable being. Rating in religion, as in politics, cannot be regarded as the product of a high standard of morals united with lofty intellectual qualities. And g when denomin Tonal ratting is combined with unmitigated ranting, the exhibition is generally neither very amusing nor sou! elevating In the capacity of » The Escaped Nun " Miss OGorman, though new to Masterton, appears to be an old stager. She has wri ten her own history and adventures, and she has had her history written for her. We do not know how the accounts tally, but we should imagine there must be a decided difference between Miss ©'Gorman's biography and autobiography otherwise she would hardly flaunt her flae in public as a persecuted devotee who « escaped " from the cloister. It is alleged, for instance, that prior to her commencing her lecturing S*lff , Bhe W , M .. in a ,T Vent at Pa terson, New Jersey, « where her disedifying life "nearly led to her expulsion ; that she was removed to an orphan asylum, where she was frequently reprimanded ; and that after pleading somnambulism in explanation of certain suspicious circumstances, she fled the convent to avoid expulsion In a letter dated May 9th, 1868, she writes to the Mother SupeS in the SnowC l^ ftE! f kiDg ~ d » taI «». and fa er letter Contains the following :-« I will try my best to make restitution." " I hope and pray you will take me again into my only home wherein I cln be E at Vi *o * hav^ weU P* id the P 61141^ of my madness." The New York Sun on the occasion of her first appearance as a lecturess remarked :_'• After leaving the convent ThT obtained money, in the name of the Superioress, from Sadlier and Co., the Catholic publishers of New York, under false pretences This cer! tainly sustains her character as an honest woman." In her letter to the Superioress, from which we have already quoted, Miss O'Gorman minYwh^ 'tlBt 18 8^ 6 '" life :-« I have tried to recall torn? Mothe? S^ll T™ • S I QB M yy ° U tM ' J Cannot it, Mother. Still I might have gone to him, for I was desperate and crazy. I remember nothing until I asked the poor girl I picked up to show me where Turgis lived. If I remembered going ther? Mother, I would certainly tell you, because I am truly^Tncere and would publicly confess my sins before the whole community '• We are not aware that Miss OGorman has denied the accuracy of the contents of he pamphlet that has been printed and S lated, and from which we have quoted, but we presume shVia acquainted with it. We do not like recrimination inTny shape o? form, but the man or woman who ventures to assail a social o gious edifice ought surely to see that their hands are clean In Wellington, we notice, Miss O'Gorman has been the Gloved of a large section of the Protestant clergy, and we should like to know what there is in her antecedents so truly loveable ? Are the a l le^ tions concerning her true, or are they as foundation less as B ome K o the statements she is in the habit of making respecting the church to which she originally belonged? Some of he^r statements wi'l certainly not bear investigation. She declares herself toTTve bTen perse«uted by Roman Catholics as no man or woman has been during this present generation Her appearance resembling far more thf "Friar of orders gray " of the song, than a nun, proves tnaHhe has thrrven remarkably well on persecution, and that it wouW be a good thing for the constitutions of the fair sex generally if its roembVrfl could make certain of the same kind of persecution. H™r^re" objection to the cloister is that i,s occupants have to sacrifice the lusts of the flesh and lead an ascetic existence, whereas she beeves in every kind of gratification with no self-sacrifice. Yet th? s the idol of a portion of our Protestant clergy 1 are they iSSn^o'SfS?!? *"* *? f 1 Vi " g thdr ° wn cauße ' neither are tney seeking to edify the people by countenancing shows of thp with her declaration that Romanists would exterminate Prote tan ts if they had the power. Equally unfounded and slanderous is her representation of the character of the nuns whose sympathies and feehmrs are stated to be paralysed by the nnnatarafnXde .3 exUtence to which they are self-doomed. There is not a Protestant in SKS? f P i IC f i& ln sf ly t0 effect for ftotestSSSf The only tendency of lectures such as these which Miss O'Gorman is deliver ing appears to us to be to excite evil passions and create bad blood between peaceful colonists, and for this reason we S it is to be

regretted that the religious teachers of the people and their adherents do not treat them with the same disdainfufapathy with which they are accustomed to treat purely secular discourses