Untitled

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 5, 31 October 1890, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

SOCIALISM ADD ITS ABSoCIATIONS.

W« we with flomo little amazement, and some little amusement forsooth, that a claim ii made to the effect that Socialism is not suspicions from a religious point of view. Veri Ijthere are short memories amongst utnow-a-days, and whatever is convenient seems easr of belief. Socialism, as a matter of fact, is remarkable for nothing more than its association from the very beginning with religion. Sorely Saint-Simon has not so long passed away from among the living that be should be wholly forgotten, and sorely the doings of the Saint- Bimonians were sufficiently reoent to be still within the recollection of many with whom they were contemporaneous. The father of Socialism although the palpi 1 of D'Alembert was nothing if not religious, though bis religion was of a very different nature from that inculeatad by any branch of Christianity, however withered and separated from the parent stem, and, above all, was it widely separated from the Catholic Ohurch, to which its heresUrch had from his boyhood been violently opposed. So precocious was he in hia rebellion that, when a boy of thirteen, he resisted with success the efforts made by his father to have him prepared (or his first communion. But, though he was the inaugurate* of a levelling system and the professed friend of the masses, with a strange inconsistency, he remained proud of the name of Saint-Simon and of the blood of the Counts of Vermandois, aa inconsistency, we mty remark, that becomes very apparent in contrast with the enmity against the privileges of birth declared by his successors In a proclamation, for example, posted by tham on toe walls of Paris in the year 1830, the following passage occurs. * Feudalism will be finally extinguished, when all the privileges of birth are, without exception, abolished, and wh<n everyone shall be placed according to bis capacity and rewarded according to bis works. And when this new religion shall have realised upon earth the reign of Ood, the reign of peace, and of liberty, which the Christians have placed in Heaven alone, then the Catholic Church will hive lost its power, it will have ceased to exist." At to the creed of Saint-Simon, it was a fantastic one, capable, as it proved, of still more fantastic developments among his followers and successors, spread abroad, moreover, through France by a very active and devoted propaganda and owning at one time a considerable nnmbrr of adherents. As to its morality it was dubious and even more than dubious. Saint-Simon himself was accused and truly accused of frequenting haunts of infamy, but he explained that be did so in the interests of science, claiming that a man who acted on such motives most, through such associations, attain to tbe highest summit of virtue. His definition, however, of the virtues by which the chosen of God were to be distinguished is very suggestive, at least as to bis frame of mind. These, he said, will no longer be the insignificant matters of chastity and continence. They will be talents, tbe highest degree of talents. But Saint-Simon insisted on tbe necessity of definite doctrine. The formation of doctrine, he wrote, to serve as the base of the industrial system, as the former doctrine served as the base of tbe fendal system, is altogether an urgent necessity. The religious system, as we have said, was further developed by SaintSimoo's followers, and especially under tbe succeeding apostle, Knfantin, an apostle whose conduct vacillated be* ween libertinism and asceticism and who, in fact, served a sentence of a year's imprisonment, under the popular government of King Louis Philippe, for bavin* outraged public morality. The tohration, meantime, to be permitted by B>»int Simon may be gathered from tbe fact that into his designs there entered the publication of a catechism framed on the Encyclopedia in a perfect form, and whose teaching would leplace that vi the Catholic theology.— The study of this catechism would be compulsory, no ether religious teaching would be permitted, and no one who bad not passed an examination in it would be admitted to the rights of a citisen. There ir nothing on which Saint-Simon more emphatically insists than on tbe necessity for interfering with the religions institutions already in existence. "The jole object," be wrote "that a thinker can propose to him*

eelf to-day, U to work at the reorganisation of the moral system, the religious lystem, the political system, in a word the system of ideas under whatever sspect they may be regarded." "It is evident," he wrote again, " tbat after the construction of tbe new scientific system there will ba a reorganisation of the systems of religion, general politics, morals and public instruction, and that, consequently, the clergf will be reorganise 1." He had, indeed, very strict notions as to what the clergy should be — but into which their qualifications is theologian! hardly entered. As we hare seen, hia intention was that theology should give place to the system set forth in the catechism he proposed to frame on the teaching of the Encyclopedia. If, therefore, it has amazed, and aljo a little amused, us to fiad it assumed and asserted that Socialism was, and must necessarily be, in its very essence disassociated from religion, and a system recognising the right of every creed to equal treatment, we may reasonably claim to be held excused. At the same time, we see no reason why Socialism, as a political system, should necessarily interfere with religion, or why if it were found otherwise praotical and useful it could not exist side by side with it. WLat we do see, and see with perfect clearness is, tbat, in attempting to introduce among as a byatem wbich in its initiation was associated with a hostility to tbe Christian religion, and whose propagators and adherents hare ever since been largely identified with every attack made in Europe on religion and the Catholic Church, men should be careful to prove that they have no irreligious sympathies, and no intention also to adopt the sinister course that has brought tbe system into suspicion— and obtained for it the reputation of being the determined and relentless foe o Ch rietianity. It is much to be regretted, therefore, that ge ntlemen who have come forward as candidates for Parliamentary repiesentation seem inclined to furnish us with mo inch proo', but, on the contrary, give us reason to fear that tbe Socialism of which they deolare themselves advocates, most prove identical with tbe system wbich, even if it be otherwise capable of producing good results, otnoot fail to be vitiated and rendered venomous and destructive by its enmity to religion. Tbis is certainly the oaly light in wbich we can interpret the expressed determination ol these gentlemea to fores Catholics still to support tbe godless 8chooli—al» > planned by Saint-Simon, thus punishing them severely for their fidelity to the precepts of their Charcb, and their undying and indestructable attachment to their religion.

" BLOW."

OtJK contemporary the Wellington Press is didactic, and even dogmatic. Nay, he is a secular Pope, against whose infallible utterances no one matt protest. With what an air of authority does not our contemporary lay down the law aa to secularism. " There is nothing," he tells us, for trample, " in the teachings to undermine whatever faith their (the children's) parents or the Sunday schools instil into their mind* and a great deal of desultory teaching of a moral character is scattered throughout the lessons. All that is wanted is to systematise this, and the objection of those who decry the absence of all religious teacbiDg would vanish." Our authoritative contemporary notwithstanding, we venture to doubt as to whether the Bystematisiog of even a great deal of desultory teaching of a moral character would really satisfy the conscientious scruples of people desirous of religious teaching. Opinions, in fact, are ton widely divided as to the effects of mere moral teaching to allow people of any prud mcc, even apart from all considerations of religion, to accept as conclusive ths decision of the most dogmatic editor. — Let us take, for instance, the conclusions to which his experience has led a certain eminent Frenchman, Dr. Uocbard, a member cf the FreDch Academy of Medicine — himself an ex-pupil of the secular system, and who has educated his sons in a similar manner. Dr, Rochard disclaims all predilectioos for religious schools, still in a book, entitled '^'Education de nos Filt" and recently published by him, he speaks as follows :— " I affirm that the greater part of the pupils ouly see in the 9tudy of morality a course to follow, additional phrases to retain. I am convinced that there is not one pupil in a hundred into whose mind the thought enters that these notions are given to him in order that he may conform his conduct to them. This teaching is absolutely sterile : it goes for nothing in forming souls and characters. Practical morality is the continuous lesson, the good example. It is

the constant, ordioary guidance, which sets right the little slips of the child, makes him ashamed of his faults, gives him a horror of ▼ice, inspires tim with enthusiasm for what is beautiful, with the love of devotion and the austere passion of duty. . . . Now these are things with which it is very difficult to meet in a State school. "—We fear, then, that even the sweeping together of that . desultory moral teaching, »nd tl c giving it ont to be learned by ' rote—so many lines in balf-an-hour— would hardly have the rn> c i of dispelling the objection to secularism of people desirous of having their children relif ioußly educated. We reallj fear that the authority of the Wellington Press in this matter must go for very little, and that he has still a good deal to learn before he is capable of doing much more than strengthening in prejudice and bombastic pretensions people of his own calibre. The misfortune is that many such foolish and preteatious people are to be found.

A KOBLE EXAMPLE,

We have quoted tbe opinion, based on personal experience, of a competent authority as to the moral 'teaching of the young. We find an interesting instance of the effect of religious example on the old which it seems apposite to us also to quote. It occurs in an incident related of the late renowned scholar Littre by one who dad been a friend of his, and who is still, as he himself had been until the example of his wife and daughter converted him on his death-bed, a Freethinker. "On tbe day bia daughter was born," writes M. E. Legouvtf, the friend in question, " LittrO eaid to her mother, ' My dear wife, you are a fervent and practical Catholic. Bring up your daughter in the habits of piety which are yours. I add only ona condition. On the day she is fifteen years of age you will bring her to me. I will explain my views to her, and she shall choose for herself.' The mother accepts ; the years flow by. One morning she enters her hußband'B study. ' You remember what you asked of me and what I promised. I cm come to keep my word. There is your daughter ready to hear you with all the respect and confidence inspired by a beloved and venerated father. Will you have her come in ? ' « Oh, yes, certainly. But why ? In order that I may explain my views to her 1 No I no ! a thousand times, no ! What I you have made of our child a good, tender, simple, upright, enlightened, and happy creature. Happy! that word which in relation to a pure being includes every virtue. And you believe that I am going to cast my ideas across this happiness sad this purity 1 My ideas ! my ideas 1 They are good for me. Who will tell me that they are good for her ? Who will tell me that I should not risk destroying or overthrowing your work / Oh, yes ! let our daughter come in, dear wife, so that I may bless you in her presence for all you have done for her, and that ehe may love you a little mere than hitherto.' "—We may rationally doubt as to whether even a consolidation of tbe desultory moral teaching given in the secular schools could produce such results as tbis— produced by religious teaching. And Littn 1 was one cf the gitat intel ects of the age. M. Legouve, his friend, ba9 knowa how to profit by the lesson given. •' I also," he Bajs, '• have had and still have around me believing souls, and, like Littic, I should hold myself criminal ti I ever troubled by my doubts, tff ended by my railleries, or shook by my objections, the religious convictions whence these beloved beings have ntver drawn anything except joys, conflations, ana virtues." But, among our■elvis, tbeie is proposal to us the sweeping together of a desultory moral teaching as a desirable and compulsory alternative. Shall we not fare better by following at all coat the example givea to us by Littjc7