Current Topies.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 35, 24 December 1886, Page 1

Current Topics.

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The Rev. Theodore Oswald Keatinge was still the A rascal's centre of attraction in Dublin when the San Franstobt cisco mail of November left that city. The rev. gentlemen was then on his trial for obtaining money under false pretences, an occupation in which his reverence appears to have been engaged with more or lees success and more or less imprisonnment for some thirty years. But what of tbat ? As an Evangelical publication produced in Dunedin told us on a recent occasion, the character of the individual who panders for the muck-markets of the sect is of no consequence. — All that is necessary is that he or she should be able to purvey in sufficient quantity the pabulum required. The Rev. Theodore Oswald Keatinge, we need hardly say, was a master in the required art. His experience was strange and eventful and he knew admirably how to deal with the people among whom he found himself. We need, however, hardly quote the wild farrago of invention which this adventurous evangelist put forth. It is identical with that to be found in those publications abundantly issued by other foul-mouthed thieves of both sexes who follow the infamous calling which the ticket-of -leave man, their worthy fellow, adopted for the benefit of the pious opponents of Rome, and which, by the way, it would seem he had followed at one time for a short period in Melbourne, which, moreover, he may still follow at a future period among ourselves in New Zealand. For, as we said, we have it in black and white, and on good authority of their own, that the character of the individual must not hinder the Evangelical banquet. The hunger for filth may as well be satiated by a rogue as by anyone else, and, indeed, who else would minister to it ? The Rev. Theodore Oswald Keatinge. then, bad hal his adventuies, had been the confidential friend, for example, of a cardinal whe was assassinated by the Jesuits at Rome, had been persecuted there himself because of the superior morality of his life, had baen betrayed at Montreal where his child was poisoned, and bad been only spared from perishing as a war-correspondent in the Soudan, where persecution was driving him to find a welcome grave and avoid direct suicide, by the fact that the withdrawal of the English troops was simultaneous with his appointment. The Rev. Theodore Oswald Keatinge, moreever, was converted from a state of reprobation, and in the twinklirjg of an eye became a vessel of election.

And here, just as a specimen of his style and to thb thief's asord our readers an opportunity of seeing how PRETENCE. completely similar his story is with others that they have heard of, we shall quote a passage or too. He has been describing the persecution, to which he although still a Teßsel of wrath was subjected " These things," he continues,' 1 added to mental disquietude, brought on illness. I bung between life and death, but God was merciful to me, and spared me from dying in my sins. [ was enabled to believe that Jesua died even for me. Colonel Rowe examined into my case in America and here, and found I was grossly persecuted, and that wherever I had been treated according to my behaviour I have invariably won esteem aad confidence. But I have testimouy to give against Rome and men listened to it because it came communicated to them as true, and, therefore, it was important to stop my moutb. However, I want to preach Jesus, and His blessed Gospel. Whenever I related my experiences as a priest, people have beeu converted, and directly some one goes to the rector and says, ' have you heard about Dr. Keatinge ? ' ' No.' ' Well, 1 say nothing, but I should not like to have anything to do with him." But when he politely gets rid of me, he has no charge to make against me, but has beeu intimidated. Colonel Rowe found that Dr. Lee circulated a report that I had assassinated my dear friend and benefactor, Cardinal d'Andrea. The prevalence of Ritualism has lowered that wholesome dread of the Papacy which ought to be a safeguard to plain minds. When a priest leaves the Church of Rome he is hunted down until he turns to the Church again broken-hearted and despairing, because Protestants will not take the trouble to learn the tactics of Popery and save him from this cruel persecution. . , . Unlike the majority of priests who are purposely kept in gross ignorance in order to keep

them dependent on the Church /t/ttve* several accomplishments that would afford me a livelihood if I (foUtfonly get fair play ... I lam fond of Church work. Although thoroughly up in all points of the Romish controversy I prefer to ««ke my stand upon the simple Gospel truth in all its fulness, and show how incompatible with it is the Church of Borne, and that you re Scriptural truth, tradition, and Gospel on your side. My WV^fis a devoted worker herself principally amongst girls."— The sentence we may observe relates to the redoubtable " Polly "— i lady .lescribed by the reporter of the Freeman, as not in the least showing any gigns of bashfulness on her appearance in court.

But this wretched cant with the invention well bt no means worthy of the hulks accompanying it was swallowed extinguished, eagerly by the whole pious Evangelical world of Dublin, from Archbishop Plunket down, and we may reasonably believe that a great deal of the regret and mortification caused by the rascal's detection, is owing to disappointment at the impossibility of maintaining the truth of his rigmarole. This, nevertheless, has probably suffered only a temporary eclipse, and we may expect to find it reproduced after a little, as most true and edifying history — many falsehoods, at least, of a like invention passing current among our Evangelical friends for true history, and being every now and then reproduced as such. For foul-mouthed filthy .apostate and lying writer of begging letters, disreputable uneexed drab, or convicted felon, all and each are historians, apostles, guides, and prophets in Evangelical circles, if only they have a tongue to abuse the Catholic Church .

The season of school examinations which comes the newest round regularly every year ia always one that thing in the provides us with much tbat is interesting, and female line, from which we derive a good deal of profit. All our pundits are in full feather, and the fruits of deep study, and ripe experience are to be had on every side for the reading. This year the chief laurels of the campaign seem to have been gathered by those gentlemen who dealt with the great subject of woman's culture at the Girls' High School in Dunedin, and the mind arises refreshed and invigorated from contemplating their pronouncements. Great are the privileges, for example, attached to our acquirement of the profound truth that gymnastics and the Latin tongue are now the accomplishments that form the perfect woman. Time was when a woman was considered fully competent to undertake and perform all the duties of life if she »vere skilled to carve a goose and make a shirt, but we are far removed from those days of darkness, and our grand, mothers no longer possess the slightest scrap of a claim on our reverence. Gymnastics and the Latin tongue. What indeed would those stately dames whose spelling even of plain English w*« rather deficient, and whose liveliest movement was confined to the solemn grace of a minuet, have thought of the chatelaine become a perfect mistress of the flying trapeze and able to direct her household affairs in polished hexameters? But away with such an inquiry, what have we to do with an ancestry? Did not Sir Bobert Stout' in fact, speaking at another school give ns to understand that there were very heavy penalties attached to having an ancestry at all) and that we might much better have come into the world without any such aid ? Sir Robert wisely provided for a departure from those figures without fact, by which he attempted to prove the beneficial nature of godlessness, in attributing the criminal classes for whose increase he, neverthless. with a shrewd prevision, looks, to the faults of offending forefathers. Would it not be eminently worthy of the learacd Knight s genius and quite on a par with many of his hobbies were he to advocate some plan for the reformation of this ancestry He would at least do so as usefully as he occupies himself with other plans for the benefit of mankind. We propose, then, that Sir Robert be incontinently appointed President of an Ancestral Morals Reformation Society. Even godlessness itself, as it appears cannot remove the blots this ancestry has left, and save from the curse the miserable victims of fate. But long live the Latin tongue and gymnastics by which our fair ones are at length to attain to the elevation kind nature prepared for them. Dr, Hislop haa given us the key and revealed the hidden path. Whether or not, however according to Hiuley, as quoted by the Doctor, the golden hair wU

continue to curl on the skull in which the brains of tha girl graduate are enclosed still remains to be seen, We have at least known close students of the othtr x who attributed an early baldness to hard study, and the fair graduate would be quite above supplementing any premature failure of tin kind with borrowed tresses. That, of course, is understood. Or if the golden hair remains, how will it assort with other common defects arising from deep scholastic pursuits. Golden hair without a °,o t and gleaming eye to correspond, and merely, for example, fringing ovoi a pair of green spectacles, would scarcely be completely redeeming, ami might partake of that stamp of the ruin that s)iuc artist-, hive noted in thr remnaa's of beauty mixed with deformity. But, however it be, judging fioin the enthusiasm with which another speaker at the Girls' High School, that 15 .Mr. W, D. Stewart, took up Dr. Hislop's theme and dilated on the learned glories of the sex. it woul 1 seem that he assumed the continuance of the beauty or even its increase as a nutter of course. Were the days of chivalry to return it id cvi lent that Mr. Stewart would catch up • Latin grammar as some fair lady's favour and enter the lists with ardour to challenge the world to produce anything more beautiful than the female scholar. We need not particularise the kind of steed with which Mr. Stewart might suitably associate himself for the occasion, or any other perhaps, for that will be apparent ♦o anyone of any intelligence. But Mr. Stewart has seen the photograph, so he tells us, of a lady lawyer in Chicago, mat re pulchra (ilia pulckrivr, and for her de,\r sake offers to provide the first lady who fo'lows her example in New Zealand with a brief. It would be uogallant to suggest that Mr. Stewart's particular client would have anything to 1 egret in the transaction. But if MrStewart were engaged on the other side. Ab, then, indeed a client would be in j"opaidy. But lady doctors, lady lawyers, lady professors, ladies made tough and supple of body by gymnastics, and strong of intellect by the Latin tongue, the world is at your feet I

The evil of the matter is, however, that all this the devil to bracing of the female body and strengthening of pay. the female mind must play the mischief with posttrity. Dr. Richardson, for instance, a well known authority on ?uch matters, gives us in a recent number of Longman \- Mugazuu a scientific statement of what the result must be. And although his conclusions may in some degree be flattering to women, to women of common sense they must convey different impressions fiom those we have heard so pretentiously put forward in Duncdia within the last few days. Dr. Richardson declares that Up to the present science bad misjudged the capabilities of the woman's fiame. Everything that a man does, he says, a woman may be traintd to do. In all the active pursuits of life she may become the rivai and tt c \ ictor ot men. For every kind of labour she is as weU fitted by natui-i , nnd some of her (nullification?, both of body and mind, mrke u.r the v >tur:»l superur uf any m-in in such a h e. In intellect aNo faue may surpass, and there is no'hing to prevent hhre r from attaining to the highest eminence. But at the ame time the system low so much iv vogue and commonly known as '■ cram ' mu-t prove immediately and inevitably her destmction. If a woman, nevertheless, makes up her mind, or if otheis determine for her, she being to ) jouug to d'.eule foi herself, as must neeessari.y be the case bo ihat -he may be traineJ at the light age, that she is to lead the life of a. man Cither bodily or mentally, she must surrender al' thought 1 - of maternity. She must devote herself to a life of celibacy and puisue her calling steadily in such a state. Human society, in short, must adopt something of the ua'ureof life in a bee-hive and divide itself, so to speak, into workers, drones, and queens. But whether the celibite woman working for herself, an active, but not necessarily .vi ann.T.blo or improved, old nmd.will be a more valuable being than the hone=t man who toils for the support of his wife and family, may easily bo determined.

Wk do not, however, anticipate any danger of such the safe a division for any of these colonies. Mr. VV. D. guard. Stewart's fear isour hope,and we rely on the indifference of the children to counteract nearly all the mischief of pedants and experiment » lists. Ho.vsoever great the sums that may be spent upon the educational craze, and the Premier speaks with something like bravado, in the present state of the Colony, of his intention to stop at no expense, the children of these colonies will not respond to the eilorts made, or as a whole become a deeply studious class. Money miy be squandered, will be squandered, in fact, iv vast sums, accoidiug to the Premier's alarming statement, but the results will be insignificant. The age of universal scholarship is as yet far removed from us. The mediocre clerk will tor the most part be the outcome among our boys, anil our girls will never renounce their hop' s ol matrimony in favoi 1 of celibacy combined with hard work either of the hr<\.,\ or hind*. Livish and useless expenditure of niur"\\ needi ' by thi counti_\ foi other purposes; the exaltation ot i i l an" or two in. iking a moun.ing-block of a popular creze : the aii^u... n.uuthing of men who talk of they know not what; superficial acquirements, and lalse show; these are the

advantages of the education system as it now exists and as the future is to improve it. Its raii»n d'etre, meantime, and the end which it is intended to promote, and which it will in troth promote, are godlessnesi, and godlessness only, We shall have among our women few celibate workers, but among both sexes many Belfindulgent atheists.

We have no intention of meddling in whatever i" ▲ fobtonate is that has occurred between the Most Rev. Dr' utterance. Luck, and the Mayor and ex-Mayor of Auckland* as reported by the correspondent of the Otag* Daily Timet. But one remark made by his Lordship on the occasion has a common interest for all Irishmen, and is moreover important owing to its bearing on the future of religion in this Colony, and therefore we corosider ourselves excusable in referring to it. Dr. Luck said, " He was an Englishman, and therefore could say diiinterestedly of the Roman Catholic Irish of Auckland that they had always given liberally to everything and everybody." Dr. Lucki here, indeed, reminds us that he is to be taken as the typical English Bishop of the colonies generally. It was in such a character that it pleased His Lordship to come among us and the display of the loyalty made on board the vessel that first brought him to our shores, earned for him a patriotic reputation that does him infinite honour, and f urnishes an eloquent reply to those who maintain that the|Catholic ecclesiastic belongs to no country but Rome. To find that His Lord. ship, then, in his especial character of Englishman, for the moment having divested himself of the bishop's associations with his flock as the common father of all, and viewing them from a distant, more elevated, and wholly disinterested stand-point.gives his approval to Irish Catholics as such, and vindicates tbeir claim to liberality and generosity, is most agreeable and flattering to us. The Englishman as we see, may rush in where the mere Irishman dare not tread. We Irishmen may now hold up our heads, indeed, for we may claim that the Irishman of Auckland are no exception even in Dr. Luck's mind, but that all of us are included in this sentence of approbation. We have been tried in the furnace of disinterested English opinion and have borne the testThe decision fills us with gratitude and makes us doubly honourable in our own eyes as we are convinced that we must henceforward be also in the eyes of our neighbours. It givei us a firm security in a championship possessing special claims to consideration, a n d which hitherto we could not rely an. We are no longer a people concerning whom invidious doubts may be harboured. But this approval as we said has an important bearing on the future of religion m the Colony. It is of high importance to learn that even in his natural state and without any of those circumstances of interest that must influence the ecclesiastic who necessarily recognises the Irish Catholic people as a race of missionaries, owing to whose devotion and faithfulness to their religion the Catholic Church is established firmly in these colonies, he himself exercises the office of a Prelate, and bishoprics, parishes, and missions exist, the Englishman can confer his approbation upon them and hold them up as an example to be profitably followed. The future of religion in this Colony, as elsewhere in all the British Empire, even in England itself, depends upon the position of the Irish Catholic as standing apart from the surrounding population. The great example of the United States, for instance, is before us, and nothing can be more plain than the fact that the Church there arose and grew and flourished by means of the Irish people, bound together by the ties of a common nationality and clinging to it with passionate devotion. — They, in this way, made themselves a power in the State, and, by means of their united strength, they asserted the claims of their Church and ensured for her safety and respect.— Had the Irish Catholic been deprived of his nationality and confounded with the people of other races, nothing of all this could have happened . Accommodation to the temporal prejudices of his neighbours would have been followed by accommodation to their spiritual prejudices, and the Irishmau, become a feeble, isolated, member of society, living among his neighbours on sufferance, would not have had either the means or the will to uphold bis religious rights.— There is now besides, almost in every part of the world, the need that the Catholic should be a man of considerable independence, and indifferent in a great degree to the prejudices and opinions of those among whom he lives. — But if the Irish Catholic gives away in a matter that enters so deeply into his nature as does hit spirit of nationality, the chances are that he wrll not long hold out without a like surrender of his religious principles.— We see, in fact, that wherever the Irish Catholic becomes indifferent to the traditions of his country, he is lukewarm also concerning his faith— and his children, still more than he himself, are careless and indifferent, or, it may be wholly neglectful and apostate.— We, therefore, look upon it as a most fortunate omen when the Englishman as such, who occupies an influential situation, finds bimself able sincerely to commend the Irish people and to hold them up as an example of what is good and praiseworthy. — The Englishman of such a disposition, combined with the Bishop whose first and almost whose only care is the welfare of

religion, and who has before his eyes the things that the Irish people have done for the Chorch, and the position that clinging together and asserting their nationality they have gained for her in lands more or less hostile to her,Bbould necessarily be as anxious as Irishmen themselves to foster Irish nationality. We, therefore, rejoice to find the traces of sacb a disposition in Dr. Luck and augur the best results from it. — It is fortunate that his Lordship's paths of duty both as disinterested Englishman and interested Catholic Bishop are perceived by him to be identical, as we have no doubt they are.