BE NOT ASHAMED OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, OR OF IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 8, 18 June 1886, Page 19

BE NOT ASHAMED OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, OR OF IRELAND.

(Sydney Freeman's Journal, Hay 1.)

Ills Eminence Cardinal Moran, in reply to an address presented to him as Archbishop of Sydney, on Sunday last, by the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society, delivered a speech remarkable for power, pathos, and patriotism. The Cardinal evidently attached more than ordinary importance to tbe ceremony, and in his reply his Eminence Bpoke at unusnal length, and with an eloquence and force which moved the large assemblage to intense enthusiasm. It is generally admitted that no finer or abler speech of tbe kind has ever been delivered in Sydney, and by many his Eminence's deliverance on this occasion is regarded as unquestionably his best and most popular effort. Nothing could be more hearty or more enthusiastically demonstrative than the reception of the speech on Sunday. The applause commenced after the very first sentence, and by degrees it increased in warmth and vigour till the hall rang and echoed with cheers and plaudits. Tbe concluding'portionß of tbe •address, in which his Eminence spoke so btsutifully and so touchingly of Ireland, elicited loud and thrilling cheers, which were again and again repeated. His Eminence, after acknowledging the enthusiastic applauee with which his rising to address the assemblage was greeted, said :—: — -Gentlemen of the Hibernian Society, — I rejoice to be amongst you this afternoon, devoted as you are to works of beneficence ana religion, and it affords me sincerest pleasure to receive from you this beautiful address expressive of filial affection and replete with sentiments <very way worthy of your society. (Applause.) At the present day *n immense energy is displayed throughout the world in working out schemes of pleasure or industry or commerce by thousands of associations and societies and syndicates, with every variety of means and every variety of purpose. The Church rejoices when she, too, sees her sons linked together in hallowed associations, not wasting their energies in mere trifles of the passing hour, nor restricting them to purposes which cannot rise above this earth, but in a spirit of Christian philanthropy directing them to the highest aims, purified, elevated, ennobled and sanctified by leligion. (Applause.) Such ia your Catholic Hibernian Society, and by continuing loyal to the spirit of its rules you will very soon find by experience that it will have contributed not a little to bring manifold blessings to your families and to make younelf such as the Chnrch wishes you to be, thoroughly religious, honest, intelligent, earnest and practical Christian men. (Applause.) Your society is Catholic. Be not ashamed of the Catholic Church. (Applause.) She is the depository of Christian truth. She it is who for 18 centuries has enlightened the world's darkness and purified tne world's corruption. She alone has preserved to man the blessings and consolations and strengthening graces of the Cnristian religion, and she has covered the earth with the fruits of civilisation, learning, and holiness. (Applause.) Be not ashamed of the Catholic Churcn. She is tbe watchful guardian of the inspired writings. Every inquiring mind to-day must repeat what St. Augustine said of old, " If 1 receive the Gospel of Christ it is through the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church." (Great applause.) She a i .one fulfils the prophet's words : " From the rising of the sun to the going down, my name is great among the nations, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation, for my name is great among the nations saith the Lord of Hosts." (Applause.) Amid the shifting scenes of Empires and nations which the history of tbis world presents, she b tan Is resplendent by her faiih and works. (Applause.) Her devoted sons have never ceased to rank among the foremost in every ennobling punuit of charity or science. In her pure atmosphere the truths of philosophy and the discoveries of the human mind have been preserved incorruptible and unshaken. (Applause,) If science and letters and the fine arts adorn the world to-d»y, the world is indebted for it to the Catholic Church. All the great languages of civilised nations have been matured under her fostering care ; the French with its grace and delicacy, the Italian with its softness aud sweetness, the Spanish with its stern dignity, the English and German with their strength and richness. (Applause.) Th«' Catholic Church is " the city of the great King." (Psalms 47.) Arotmd ber di-rii^ly strengthened bulwarks the powers and the pasiions of tbis world have ever surged in vain. Wicked men with words of blasphemy upon their lips, and with tbe hatred begotten of apostacy in their hearts, have never censed to devise vain things against her, but He who sitteth in the heavens hath mocked them, the Lord hath derided them, and the promise made by God has been fulfilled in her. (Great applause.) "No weapon forged against Thee shall prosper ; and every tongue that resisteth Thee in judgment Thou shalt condemn." (Isaiah 54.) It was of old that nothing greater, nothing wiser, nothing more glorious than Imperial Borne bad ever arisen upon earth, and yet, like all other human things, Rome with the accumulated glories of ancient civilisation was swept away ; &nd so complete was its destructou that for a time the very ruins of the capital of the Pagan world wore absolutely deserted :—

" Quenched is the golden'itatne's ray ; Tbe breath of Heaven hath swept away What toiling earth had piled ; Scattering wise heart and crafty band As breezes strew on ocean's strand The fabrics of a child," Amid the universal shipwreck the Catholic Church remained unliarmed. She continued to be an ark of salvation, not for the conquered only, but also for the conquerors. (Enthusiastic applause.) Every human society contains within itself the seed of corruption and tbe germ of ultimate decay. The Catholic Church alone has the seal of immorality upon her brow. (Cheers). A epecial Providence ■ever guides her in her course. She has come from God, and it is her destiny to lead men to God. She is not identified with any form -of human government. She witnessess the growth and decay of empires and kingdoms and republics, aad amid all their changes

and vicissitudes she remains unchanged. With all the boasted progress of science in modern times and the advancement of learning and the deifying of material power, is the Church broken down or weakened, or decaying ? No I Never did she stand before the world arrayed in greater moral dignity than at the present timftr^cheersX —and never was it more manifest that every discovery in the parsugfc of truth can only serve to add radiance to her earthly crown, vigoir to her strength, beauty to her comeliness. (Renewed cheering.) Be not ashamed of the Catholic Church. (Cheers.; She alone displays to the world that peerless unity with which Christ endowed His Church. Her children are not tossed about by every wind of false doctrine. They hold the same doctrines of Divine faith, and obey the same spiritual authority on the Rocky Mountains and in Vienna, in London and in Rome, in the depths of China and in Sydney. (Applause.) Like the sun in the firmament, she diffuses thbugbout the world the same rays of Diviqe truth, and Impart* the blessings of heaven to all who are gathered within her saving" fold. She alone has been clothed with holiness, as with the golden garment of her betrothal by her Divine spouse. All the saints have been her children. Within her wide domain the heavenly watere of charity and mercy have never ceased to flow. (Applause.) Those who are outside her fold dig for themselves cisterns, but they are broken cisterns that cannot contain the life-Riving waters of redemption. She alone leads us back to the apostolic age, and unites the faithful of to-day with the Rock of Peter, upon which our Blessed Lord built His Church. (Applause.) For more that 1800 years her Pontiffs, have succeeded to Pontiffs, teaching with an authority derived not from earth but from heaven, fearlessly rebuking a sinful world and inheriting the spiritual power and privileges of (he first Vicar of Christ. (Cheers.) Bhe saw the commence* ment of all the governments and sects that now exist in the world. She shall see the end of them all. (cheers.) She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot in Britain. She will be found flourishing in undiminished vigour when the sun shall have set on this greatest of the world's empires. (Renewed cheers.) She alone is truly Catholic. Armed with a divine commission, she teaches all nations. She goes forth " into the whole world and teaches the Gospel " to every tribe and every tongue. The sun never sets on her widespread spiritual dominion. She is literally everywhere. (Applause.) At the present day she numbers more than 200,000,000, who receive tbe lessons of divine truth from her lips. (Cheers.) You will meet with her, not only in every civilized laud, but at the remotest sources of the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the St. Laurence, among the most savage tribes of South America, on the borders of the Caspian Bea, in the forests of India on the burning sands of Africa, in Siberia and China and Japan, everywhere you will meet with her, everywhere you will find her leaching the truths of eternal life, everywhere leading souls to God, everywhere bearing, imprinted upon her hallowed brow, the seal of neaven as the bride of the Lamb. (Prolonged cheering.) Your society is Catholic, and I have told you not to be ashamed of the Catholic Church. (Applause.) But again, your society is Hibernian, and I must add, be not ashamed of Ireland. (Great cheering.) That land of the West is fair indeed among the uationß. Nature, spreading out her richest gifts with no stinted hand, has given to her noble harbours, majestic rivers, a genial soil. Erin's hills are green, her fields luxuriant, her climate mild. Her people are wise, her daughters are her pride, her sons are brave. Her music, so sad and yet so sweet, breathes a melody peculiarly its own. Love of country is the birthright of her children, a patriotism which time cannot chill and which seems only to gain strength by distance from the land which they love. (Enthusiastic cheering,) Be not ashamed of Ireland. (Cheers.) In the history of the Church there is perhaps no picture more beautiful than that which Ireland's early ages present. Her schools, her sanctuaries, her monasteries were the pride of Europe, the joy of Christendom. Pure as the refreshing waters of her holy wells was toe faith and tbe Christian life of her children. (Applause.) The prophetic words of Isaias were fulfilled in her—" The land that was desolate and impassable was glad, and the wilderness rejoiced and flourished like the lily ; then did it bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy and praise." (Cheers.) Her sons went forth with a heroism which has never been surpassed to renew in the fairest countries of Europe that Christian civilisation which had been swept away by the barbarian invasions as by the tempests of a raging sea. (Applause.) If the ruthless barbarian was cnanged into a Christian man, if the foundations were laid of that grand civilisation which for centuries diffused over the fairest regions of Europe the blessings of peace and piety, of true charity and religion, it was mainly the work of Irishmen. (Applauße.) Their names are to this day cherished in Germany and France, throughout Belgium and Switzerland. (Applause,) Churches enshrined then relics on. the banks of the Danube and the Rhine. Pilgrims flocked to theii sanctuaries in the depths of the Black I ore6t and in the silent recesses of the Alps. Even the Blopes of the Apennines and the ojive groves of Toronto, and the vine-clad hills of Florence resound to t&e praises of the sainted missionaries from Brin. (Cheers.) Nor was the sister island less indebted to her heroic sons. When the natives of Caledonia were as yet unenlightened by the rays of divine faith it was St. Oolumba and his brother missionaries that gave them the rudiments of Christian civilisation and religion. (Hear, hear.) When the Saxons fell away from the teaching of Bt, Augustine of Canterbury, it was AFdan and his associates from the island of saints that renewed amongst them the light and life of the Divine truth and grace. (Applause.) Centuries rolled on. Lawless bands of seafaring mailclad marauders overran England and a great part of Northern Europe. They failed to conquer Ireland, for her sons have ever proved themselves as brave in the battle-field as they were heroic in their piety. (Great applause.) Again, for three centuries heresy left nothing undone to crush out the religious belief of her people. This was indeed a season of dreary winter, a blighting and. withering witter, a winter of ruins, a winter of tempesto, a winter of tears. And yet the Faith did not die out. Other nations move favoured" with tae wealth and power of this world bent before the Storm. But 10 Ireland it was not so. (Applause.) The mne heroism

that guarded her shores against the Danes guarded the hearts of her children against the assaults of heresy. The more violently the nmpestsraged.the deeper did the sacre-Uree of d?vineS strike xto .roots m the affections of her sons, and Erin won from Christendom a peerless aureola as the martyr nation of holy Church. (ApplaW? fl^f fh ham^ °l Ire aad< (Cbeers -) Tbe wi^r OTready passed, the springtime is come-Cimmense cheering) -the sunsMne and the smile of summer -s already upon the green fields of Erin (Renewed cheering.) Ad Iressing you on this freat Easter festival" may I not recall to mind that out- Divine Lord lay three S nSih'V? 6 WSf aad aroßea^ iQ Slorlous aYdimmortaY So does the Church of Christ, after being hidden in the recesses of the bogs and mountains of Ireland for three centurieVcome forth °n our days renewed in life and vigour and arrayed in the comeliness 3 J^rT/clTf o^* 0 * th «g^^ triumph of ShTSSSeS thP fiH ( r? f"2 Thl9 FlonoaßF lonoaß victor * is g iveQ t0 to reward You tm 7 finH " Pc^ pc - L °° k throu e h the annalß ° f ber Church. OathnS a T ° ther pe °P le more tlnl ? Christian, more traly Catholic. Amid every trial their fidelity to religion has been inviolate and unseamed. Her inheritance of sorrow only serves to enhance the merit of her spiritual triumphs. But if brizht and ESS!. 1 ? thlS aU - re ° la ° f Irßland ' 8 to^day we must never SSfr. 6 - ai l x ? debted for [t to the heroism with which our S!sn * ÜBtaiDed the sorrows and sufferings of a FntfiTh?? 111 ' .(Oneen.) But it is not the Church .ton? in Ireland that has arisen from the tomb. Her national sDirit ton add another to thl TJ ! £ ran , tio g tniß legislative independence. wr«Mo^e^S r T7IL <%*!*, -S-3« and peace ; its rays shall soon bathe with glory the emerald «t^& (^ nell > <^ talated hU «^rymen on their first nn^ h r ? Ivu emaaci P,ation : "The men of Erin know that the ™L fK Of l } he FtyißF tyiß reli S iOQ - Th ey have triumphed because the Sver to^G^ion 0 ; °/ C ° UDtry had raised itsel£^ fhfS » ° gS of llbert y ma y now mak e themselves heard throughout our country, whose sounds will travel through hill and JvSrJ \ Volce of tb r der ' and be wafted aloa e the «'^ss of a h? free™ faS^l P roclai , min g and wide that Ireland at length is co™p Sh cheerin g-) Go od, then, gentlemen ; pursue wifa nn I \ d P erseveraQC «- and earnestness the course of beneficence ?AnnUn^° U £ aTeentere J > L6t T^ iOa WrtUe Uide Steps (Applause.) Fear not rhose enemies who, here as in the Home countries persistently heap obloquy on everything that is just and honourable and good. Combat them only by the weapons of forbeara Ilceand cha,uy_(appl ll vu 3 e)-fortheVoiaen words of St. John thro y »7rr° m^ h dabVer P be fo^ ottea - "Ums.ians are not to overthrow err.r by the use of v.olence or cmra.vnt, bat by petsuasian cheerTngT* * *** CEnthus.asUc 'and