CANTERBURY CATHOLIC LITERARY SOCIETY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 20, 6 September 1889, Page 13

CANTERBURY CATHOLIC LITERARY SOCIETY.

The weekly meeting of the above was held on Tuesday, 27th August, when the chair was occupied by Mr. F. Cooper, president, and with an average attendance of members. After a little routine business the balance-sheet for the past twelve months was handed in, wlicb showed a very satisfactory balance. A debate on "Is Corporal Punishment ia Schools Advisable " formed the programme for the evening, and was very ably discussed by several members, morn speaking in favour of it than against it, but, on putting it to the vote, the negative side gained the day.

The sum of 16,000 dols. has been forwarded from Berlin to America, for the benefit of the JohnApwn sufferers From 1852 to 1877 war killed 1,^8,000 people, and what is Htillmore wonderful the killing of each man cost more than 10 010 dola The total cost was 10,413,000,000 dols.; so that peace has' its r.hh! points from an economical side.

Berlin maintains her reputation for suicides. During the month of June fifty-nine persons attempted to quit this mortal life and thirty-eight of them were successful, One boy, twenty women and thirty-eight men made up the list. The Pope takes a deep interest in Jerusalem. Only a few months ago, the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice were surprised to receive an urgent snmmtfns from Propaganda to go and found a new house in Jerusalem. The Mother-General was uway from Rome at the time, but on der return lost not a moment in obeying the call The nuns are already established in a bright little home outside the walk and soon hope to be so well settled as to have accommodation for ladies who go to Jerusalem.

Mrs. Rebecca Harding Davis describes, injthe New York Independent, under the caption, " The Plague Spot of America," the leper district in Louisiana, on the bayou La-fourche, and urges 1( Catholic* Protestants and infidels" to unite in a movement, by way of memorial to father Damien, to relieve, isolate and nurse these afflicted of our own nation. Mrs. Dans incidentally recalls another martyr- nnest of our own timea. Father Boglioh, chaplain for fourteen years to the Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Knowing full well the risk, he administered the last consolations or religioo to some dyine lepers nursed them till their last breath, and buried them with °hi Bown8 own hands. He contracted the disease, and died of it about two years ago *v *?£ J £ h X G . ilm r ary Bhe .*< editor o£ °« esteemed contemporary', the N.Y. Catholic News, writing on " Pilgrimages to the Holy Lanj " says of the Jewißh population of that venerable city:— "A few yeais ago the Jews in Jerusalem might be counted by hundreds. But since then a tide of immigration has set in— which has flown on surely ami steadily till they now number some 30,000, or three-fourths of th«> whole population of the city. Hunted like wild beasts from European countries, despoiled in maoy instances most cruelly of their means of existence, it is true that they come to Jerusalem in poverty and ra"--but once there means are found to clothe needy ones, for they too have rich and powerful friends in Europe who believe in the resurrection of Israel. Mr. Gladstone has an article in the Nineteenth Ccnturu for July entitled « Plain Speaking on the Irish Union." In it he says : '• Sir Richard Webster, in examining William O'Brien before the J'arnell Commission, implied that a grave charge would be proved again-t certain Irishmen if it could be shown that they regarded English power as alien. I should like to have asked Mr. O'Brien wbetlu-r th<> Irish, so far as he knew, regarded the Act of Union as possessed or the same moral authority as the laws against theft and murder • or as possessed of moral authority at all. Ido not doubt that Mr O'Brien' would have answered that they regarded it as an act of force to wiiicit Ireland was under, not a moral, but only a prudential obligation to conform. There may be immorality in miscalculated resistance evr-a to immoral laws, but such resistance ia not in itself immoral Tte question is whether worship of the Act of Union is piety orsupeistition. . r-n.r -n.