Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 28, 2 November 1888, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Hi 3 Eminence Cardinal Moran, during his recent stay in Ireland, visited the town of Callan in his former diocese of Ossory, for the purpose of making

THE FAITH IN AUSTBALASIA.

arrangements there for transferring thence to Paramatta, near Sydney, a community of the Sisters of Mercy. His Eminence, on the occasion, preached an eloquent and beautiful sermon, in which he spoke of the thoughts that had arisen in his mind, as a few d ays before he stood on the Rock uf Cashel and saw the surrounding trophies of Ireland's earliest sanctity. The subject waß one with which his Eminence, from his special qualifications as a scholar, as well as bis Catholic fervour, was thoroughly fitted to dealThe Cardinal took for his principal theme the missionary calling, under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin, of the Irish people, tracing their labours in thii connection from the earliest times up to the present. Oar readers will find the following passages relutingto the establishment of the faith in the new w^rld, and particularly in these Australasian colonies, of the highest interest: — "Wherever." siid his Emineace, •' the English-speaking world extends its sway, it is the sons of Ireland that plant the standard of the Cross and assure the triumph of religion, of Christian love, and of all true virtue. Throughout the United States, in the eighly great dioceses that now adorn that glorious Church, it is the sons of Ireland who have built up the sanctuaries of God,aud in like manner they have upheld the standard of religion in Canada and other colonies, These would seem a triumph of Irish 'faith. But 1 must in a special way attest, as an au'hentic witnesy, that the same triumphs of Irisi faith a;e to be found throughout the length and breadth of Austia'ia. !Nctsomany years ago the power of elaikness erected every bulwaik that malice could devite to shut cut Ireland's faith from the Continent of Australia. I was reading the other day the oiigin of the colony of South Australia, and m the programme published in London inviting the lirst settlers to that colony it was proclaimed, and pioc aimed in an official manner, that all citizens wjuld be fiee to settle in that colony excepting Pagans and Papists. The same regulation \va* made in the colony of Otago, and restrictions seaicely less severe may be found in the beginuiugs of the other colonies. But the mal co of man might devise its schemes in vain whilst the Providence of God was watching over the future destinies of this great southern coctinnt. Those first pilgrims — those first txilcs from Ireland — when they aw the standard of the Cross emblazoned among the constellations of the southern sky, shed tears of joy and tears of hope, though away from every consolation that religion might give ; they prayed in the fervour of their hearts, and their prayers were heard, that that sign of the triumph of faith would not have been set in the southern ■ky in vain. And the malice of man was conquered by the grace of God. At the present day we see how our holy Faith is spreading its triumphs throughout every colony of Australia." Hh Eminence afterwards spoke of the sympathy that imtcs the In A raoe, far apart at they any be scattered :: — •' I must also assure you,' he said, " that in Australia, not in one diocese alone, but in every colony, and and in the twenty-five dioceses that are now erected there under the Southern Cross, all our people share not only in the piuty aril religious spirit ef their countrymen here at heine, but they are united with them heart and hand in every aspiration for the material blessings and independence of this country. If agita ion— political agitation — is necessary to attain the results to which you aspire, you may rest assured of the hearts of the Irish faithful throughout the world in securing them. The fervent and disinterested prayers prooeeding from the loving and devoted hearts of the sons of Ireland throughout the world shall not ascend before the Throne of God in vain. Sooner shall heaven and earth pass away tt v >an that these prayers shall fail to brin^ down a b'ejsiog upon this favoured land. Through these prayers and through the exertions of our faithful people at home and abroad. I have no doubt that bef jre long not only the spiritual blessiug of heaven shall abound among our people, but the material blessings of true freedom, and the abundance cf prosperity and peace shall be multiplied among us.

The exposure male by the ArchbishoD of Dublin in the Contemporary Review for September, of th«

balfoubism.

tricka of Mr. George Wyndham, secretary to MrBalfour, should make evea a Unionist blush. Those who are not Unionists, but honest men, must feel highly disgusted at the matter. Mr. Wyndham wrote in the May number of tb ■°»w--— in reply to an article of Mr. Davitt's, and the Archbishop -i • tat, although Mr. Davitt may have thought the misrepresentation ' itent to need an answer, he was wrong in not pointing out to th 4 ie generally» all of whom could not be looked upon as fully inforcaed, the grossness of the misstatements. The Archbishop tells U3 his own notics was attracted to the subject by finding in an out-of- ".he-way town in North Italy a copy of the London Graphic lying among other newspapers on the table of a reading-room in an hotel. In this Graphic was A notice of Mr. Wynd ham's article, and the Archbishop says that on reading it, his conclusion was that the writer in the newspaper had made a mistake. On returning home, hcvever, he found that the writer hai been correct, and that the errors were Mr. Wydnham'a. The statement was to the eftect that official statistics proved that the Land Commission in Ireland had increased rather than reduced the rents, and as an instance certain cases were quoted. In Fermanagh, for example, it was stated there had been an increase of 168.3 per cent, in eleven cases, in Kildare a rise cf 21.1 per cent, and in the Queen's County one of 2 per cent., while the increase for Leit ster as a whole was 6 7 per cent. The Archbishop says he can hardly believe that the writer is the Mr. George Wyndham who is Mr. Balfour's secretary, and who must ht-ve particular lacihties tor knowing the truth. It is beneath the Archbishop, but we find it quite en our own level to 6ay that Mr. Ralfour's secretary must also have particular facilities for knowing what is false, as he hai particular le is iris fjr stating it. That he does stute it Archbishop Walsh most cleaily prove?. The cases in Fermanagh, for example, as stated plainly ia tut! official table whence Mr. Wyndham took tbini, had not been dec ckd by the Commission itself, but were cases in wnich a decision had been given upoa the repoits of valuators appointed upon the joint application of landlords aDd tenants. But, evtn in biic.i cates, a icduction had been generally given ; tne average for the whole country where, from 1883 to ISS7, 72S cases of the km 1 had occurred, being, for the whole fire yearn, 110 per cent. During the sam; jcais the cases decided by the Commission in the ordinary way had bean 41,501, with an average reduction <_f 20.5. As to the eleven cases in Fermanagh decided by valuators, and nail to be increased by 168.3 per cant., the statement also is inexact. Out of the whole eleveu cases the former rents paid in three only weie known. These three amounted to M'.l7 6s, the increased rents ia the whole eleven cases amounting to £100 12s 6d. — And it was by comparing toe sum total of the three former rents with that of the eleven new rents that the large per centage of increase was arrived at. But that method of calculation is evidently misleading. Ab to th; asseriion made by Mr. Wyndham again with re.-pect to the Province of Leinster. where lie says an increase cf 6.7 per cent, hid taken place, the Archbishop ihows that, whereas the valuators' table contains only 8 case 3 asdecided with ar increase by arbitration, 894 cases had been decided by the Commissioners with an average reduction o£ 34 7 per cent. His Grace also refutes Mr. Wj ndham's statements with regard to Kildare and the Queen's County. The Archbishop quotes Mr. Wyndham as saying in his reply to Mr. Davitt : — " A correct is in moßt cases as short as an incorrect statement of figureF. It is only the capacity for making the former — which appeais to Le the rarer gift of fortune " His Grac9,at the conclusion ot the exposure made by him, refers humorously to this passage as bearing -apou the conduct of Mr. Wyndham himself. Hat such is Ba'tcirism. All things are lawful to it, and there is no statement, however false, that it will not brazenly publish to the world and as brazenly sustain to serve its nefanous ends.

THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND, t

A. writeh in a late number cf the Month deals with the probabilitea of the convertion of England ;o the Ca'holic faith, bringing fjrward, in support tf the hope, many curiou9 and interesting predictions of holy men and women. Among o'her thinge, in speaking of the crusade of prayers originating with tb.2 Passionist Fathere, on whose labours, foreaeen miraculously by their founder, St. Paul of the Cross, much relianca is placed, the writer alludes ac follows to the

late rererend Father Ignatius :-« He said, he Valued the prayers of the Irish more than of all the continent put together ; these were gcod.thosi were heroic. And he got them. The writer happens to know of Irish families where the enstom was kept up, at least till a few years ago, of adding to night prayers father Spencer's Our Father and Hail Mary for England." But it is to be hoped that the custom has not as yet died out and that it never will die out until the prayer has been, answered! It may be heroic, as Father Spencer said, for Ireland to pray for England at whose hands she haa received such bitter suffering, but, in the answer to be expected to her prayers lies Ireland's best hope for the future. It is impossible that, were the English people a nation of sincere and feivent Catholics, as we believe that, were they converted at, the present day, they would be, closa bonds of sympathy and affection woald not unite them to their Irish brothers in religion. Itiatrueihatin the old Catholic days the English in Ireland were cruel tyrants, but Catholic England during those ages was in many instances; falee to the faith. We know what the reign of Henry II was and what was the reign of King John. In the rei-n of Henry 111., the country was iv rebellion against the Pope. Both clergy and laity, for example, were joined in a conspiracy having for its end the ill treatment, and even vie murder, of foreign ecclesiastics. In the reign of Heiry VI., was committed the great national sacrilege of the burning of Joan of Arc, and then followed,-as we m^y reasonably believe, in punishment for that deed of infamy,— the Wars of the Hoses, preparing, some English Catholic writers explain, the way far the great national apoaU-y— j, due penalty for many crimes. But were England now to be converted, we are convinced she would prove punned by trial, and that her faith and fervour would b 3b 3 sincere and deep.— And we are justified in our expectations as to the close bonds ot union that would exist between the people returned to the fold and those who had never left it by what we have alrea \y seen. There are, it is true among the English Catholics who despise the Irish people, and belie and blacken iheir character and cause, a few who have been converted from Protestantism. Bat we must not judge of the whole b.dy from these pestilent and noisy uaits. The English Catholic enemies of Ireland, as a rule, are the descendants of the old Catholic families, and their enmity arises in all probability from a cause for which they are greatly to be excused. They were for centuries a people living in the midst of dangers, subjected to suspicions which they knew to be UDJust, and in many respects so situated as thtt nothing short of a miracle could save them from forming on some point or another a morbid frame of mind. Tney were, for example, constantly suspected and accused of disloyalty, and, therefore, it was but natural that in resenting aad iepelling this charge, which they know to be false, they should fall into a nervous disposition. From morbid loyalty, then, we bjlicvj the animosity of the old English Catholic party to proceed. They see Ucts with impaired vision, and judge of them on their purblind views. But, let us not forget to honour tho<c whose eyes are clear, and who are not afraid to speak o f things a3 they truly sze them. There is, for instance, the noble Bishop of Nottingham. Uure is Mr. Weld Bluudjll, and there, we believe, is &Ir. \V. S. Lilly, the famous wntjr. wno, so far as we kno v, is not a convert. But Ireland's friends arc chiefly to be found among the converted ranke. Father Ignatius was a convert— md by the valu/alone he placed upon Irish prayers for the conversion of England, esteeming them heroic, we uid :rstmd his mind. Were he alive to-iay we may lirmly believe he would be the advocate of the Irish people,— and perhaps although ha id not alive he may still more powerfully be so. The greit convert, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, was the ardent friend of the liish people. "How glad I am not to be Irish," she wrote to Mr. Grcville, " I should hate England too much." Cardinal Newmaa is the friend of Ireland. So, very notably, is Cardinal Manning. So is Lord Rtpon, and Lord Ashburnhatn, and Air. Wilfrid Blunt and Mr. Orby Shipley. So was the truly great Frederick Lucas, and so is his brother Mr. Edward Lucas. Ireland, then, has a very deep interest in the conversion of England— even apart from the charity which should make it the derire of every Catholic heart. The most eminent amoag the converts are her firm aad devoted friendp. and she may lationally believe that their standard would be that at attaining to which the converted masses would aim in everything. They could certainly have no more noble models. Father Ignatius' prayer for the conversion of England, therefore, should still be repeated in Irish homep and never laid aside until it has been answered. And the writer iv the Month shows that there are good grounds to hope for such a glorious consummation.

The impression produced by reading in Monday s

thk NEW country,

Dally Times the report of the exploration of the country between Milford Sound and Lake Te Anau

is, iirsl of all, that it was very wet. Teeming rain, varied by thuader showers, and floods, trimmed round about by avalanches and anow in all its shape 1 , seem to be the most common characteristics of tha coun'n'. Itrcquiicl no small share of pluck and reholute endurance to aicotnplish the task, and the pioneers who went through with it are well entitled to admiration and applause.

New Zealand, moreover, and especially the southern districts, are to be congratulated on the success of an undertaking that must result in opening up a country of magnificent scenery and rich mineral deposits. And, after all, is not umbrella-making an important branch of industry ? not to epeakjof waterproof garments of various descriptions with which tourists in these newly-discovered places must, according to all appearances, be abundantly supplied. We do not know whether it will afford any marked consolation to the settlers in the province of Auckland to learn that if their beantiful lakes district has been disfigured by a volcanic eruption and their unique terraces annihilated, a district of as great, though of a different kind ot beauty bids fair to be brought within access of the settled parts of the South — a land of fine forests, and towering mountains, and rushing streams abounding in waterfalls. These waterfalls reach their culmination in that — the highest, they say, in all the world— which carries down the waters of the Arthur river, from the snowcapped mountains still 2000 ft. above its summit, in three gieat leaps, amounting in all to 1904 ft. in height, and which is named from its discoverer the Sutherland falls. The dampness of the surroundings may well be braved by the lovers of the fair face of nature who hear of these marvels. And, as we are told tbe explorers return from their bold and arduous undertaking in better health than when they set out, a visit to the country in question should prove advantageous as well as agreeable.

A correspondent! tends us a copy of the Obewi Times with a request that we should give our opinion

BANK nonsense.

of a latter that it contains. The letter is from a certain Rev. John Moore, of Boston, U.S., and relates to the recent pilgrimage to lona. But has our correspondent ever heard the old story of that good man who, wishing to know what kind of weather it was, and mistaking a cupboard for a window, poked in his bead. — " The night is close," quoth he, " and smells of cheese." The Rev. John Moore has be«n investigating ecclesiastical history in a some* what similar manner, and with similar results. The Rev. John, however, only differs in degree, and not in kind from many other controversialists, and the difference is that he is rather mor« profound than the average. The Rev. John tells us that St. Colnmba was no Roman Catholic, that, in fact, there was no Roman Catholic Church in St. Columba's day ; that the supremacy of the Pope was only claimed some centuries after, and that Pope St. Gregory the Great had declared that whoever called himself universal bishop waß an Anti-Christ. The Rsv. John also asserts that St. Patrick knew nothing of Rome, and that the Pope came over to Ireland only with King Henry 11. As an argument all his own he assures us, moreover, that in a penny to be levied on each house in Ireland for the benefit of the Pope by King Henry 11. we have the origin of Peter's Pence — and this is a brilliant controversial effort that we do not recollect before to have met with. Such, then, are the great truths that the Rev. John Moore baa perceived in his cupboard, as he stared out into the dark, and all of wnicb, with the exception a 9 we said, of the origin of the Peter's pence, we have heard over and over again. But something we are obliged to give up to this learned divine. The late Father Tom Burke, for instance, in controversy with a certain preacher, admitted that St. Patrick and Oliver Cromwell came over to Ireland in,company, or something to this effect, and how shall we contradict the eminent Dominican. And if St. Patrick was a follower of Oliver Cn mwell's, it is clear he heard nothing good of the Pope. If he was not, it remains as clearly proved as any fact in history that he received his commission from Pope Celestine, and as the missionary of Rome converted Ireland. Aa to his not mentioning in the brief writings left by him his connection with Rome, the argument is not to the point. The matter did not enter into the subject of which he wrote, and full historical evidence otherwise remains as to what his teaching was. No argument can bo deduced frem such silence. St. John, for example, in his Gospel is eilent as to certain occurrences at the Crucifixion narrated by the other Evangelists, and yet St. John was himself an eye-witness. As to St. Columba, the ancient Irish history of his life, testifying, alio, to the custom of tbe ancient Irish Church, recounts his pilgrimage to Rome, a&d further narrates how he afterwards received in his island the messengers of Pope St. Gregory, who brought him Latin hymns and other bounteoup gifts. As to Pope St. Gregory the Great, and his repudiation of the title of Univeiv-al Bishop, the sense in which he condemned the title was that wheiein it was understood to signify that he who bore it was alone bishop, to the exclusion of all other bishops, and not that in which it may signify bishop of bishops. St. Gregory in every respect exercised the office of the Pope, not only claimed but made constant use in every country of the Papal authority, and daclared that he knew not what bishop was not subject to the Bishop oE Rome. As to Peter's pence, the payment originated with a Saxon king, Off a of Mercia, who, in gratitude for a victory attributed by him to the aid of St. Peter, vowed an annual gift to the Pope. The payment had become regular and recognised as a national institution in the time of King Edward the Confessor. So macb, then, for the salient points of the arguments which the Rer. John Moore has dia-

covered in bis cupboard. They are hardly an equivalent even for the smell of cheese. And this is all the opinion we have to offer our correspondent.