EDITOR STEAD'S LETTER FROM ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 40, 24 January 1890, Page 31

EDITOR STEAD'S LETTER FROM ROME.

(From the Pilot.) William T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, is in Borne, and is sending thence some exceedingly interesting correspondence to his paper. He views the (Jhurch with the eyes of a Socialist, who has under cousideratitn all forms of re igion with a view to their ability to promote the welfare of the mass of mankind here and now. How his conclusions are beginning to shape themselves may be inferred fiom some extracts fiom bis description of the Propaganda, and his rtflections on this great fountain of world-wide Cbiisiiai ising and civilising influence — "It is oothinf* to look at outside," isays Mr Stead, referring, to the buiMirga, "and inside its chiet characteristic is want of room. It is a Urge building, but it is all too small for it 3 purposes. Everything is cramped for space Alii? for woik ; nothing is fir show. ... I never cross its threshold without feeling a 9 if I were entering the central hall where ftp by some slet-pless dynamo machine, was generated the elecricity that illumines the worli." Mr. btea I is gn atly impressed by the person an.i work of Mgr. Jacobin i, for eight yiars past fcecretary ot the Propaganda — a post which he describes as representing the equivalent of a I the secretaryships of Englißh Protestant societies put toge her. He tuils like a galley-pliive, says Mr. Stead, and finds bis evening recreation in tbe cans of an Artists' aud Workm»n's Association. "Our Pro'estant societies," he continues, "are hardly a hundred years oil. The College of the Propaganda was fouuded in 1662 by Gregory XV., and has been working ever tince. Oniisshelvei are archives iecording an activity that has never ceased, tnd which it is devoutly to be hoped will never cease. . . . From the point of view of the Socialist the mifcsiouary activity of the Church is pure gain. To the vague aspiritions cf the semi-*avdge man for a more human life, theße teaoht rs returu a prompt and tfleciive response. Not less and and sumetim s more, than the missionaries of other cree Is, they are the devoted Servants of Man. . . . All that the early Church did for tbe barbarians of Europe, the Church of to-day is doing for the barbarians ot Asia, of Africa and of Polynesia. To teach letters, to inculcate industry, to war against war, to suppress the slave trade, to d.ffuse the arts, to introduce all that differentiates man from beast —these are social services to be welcomed with gratitude and enthusiasm, even if those who render this service are vowed to obedience to tbe P ppe of R>me »r to the Vicar-General of the Society of Jesus." He is warm in his praise of tbe work which the Church is doing for the uplifung of womanhood in heathen lands. •• Nothing but good can follow the apparition of such sweet and saintly Sisters as those whom I saw in the aate-room of Monsignor Jacobini, in the midst of populations whose only idea of women is that of a twolegged beast of burden, whom it is an amusement to degrade." ~ Mr. Stead, admiring as be does the work of the propaganda, naturally disapproves the nigh-banded dishonesty of the Italian Goveroment towards it. "In an obscure corner of the museum,' he teri'ts, " behind a gigantic elephant tu-k, lies the jewelled crosi of an *alian order, bestowed by the Italian Kingdom on tne late Cardinal Massaia in recognition of his services to humanity and civilisation in Abyssinia aud Ethiopia. TYe Cardinal refused the decoration. 'How can I receive this jewelled star,' he asked " from the hands of tbe men who have plundered the Propaganda ? ' For the Italian Govern-

mentbaß laid violent bands upon tbe property accumulated for the diffusion of the faith among the heathen, giving the Propaganda Italian stock in exchange for the confiscated estates. So Cardinal Massaia refuted tbe order, and it lies to-day in the museum, a silent bat eloquent witness, at once to the sterling merit which wrung such a tribute from tbe enemy, and to the bitterness of feeling engendered by the feud between the Pope and the King." The problem which still weighs on Mr. Stead's flonl is the relation of the Church to the modern world. Trie Pope might become the leader in tbe onward march of humanity, thinks Mr. Stead ; and he offers many well-meant suggestions as to how His Holiness might improve his opportunities. The horn sty of the man and the earnestness of bis belief in the vitality of the Church make the Catholic lenient witb his strictures on the actual work the Church is doing in aud for the modern civilised world. His pessimistic spirit here comes from that regrettable inability to grasp the true relations of contemporary events which marks men who just fall short of the qualities required in successful social reformers.