CATHOLIC NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 43, 12 August 1892, Page 7

CATHOLIC NEWS.

(Liverpool Catholic Tivies.') A New TOBK contemporary says :— There are at this time, to our knowledge, aix Indian maidenu who bavt entered the Order of St Benedict. Wi also understand that several Indian students are preparing for the priesthood. Twelve Protestant ministers of Bombay have issued a public repudiation of an article making foul charges against convents which bas been published in the India Watchman by its editor, a Protestant minister named Oladwin. The id«a that Home Bule would be used by the Catholics of Ireland to oppress the Protestants was combatted by Lord Reay at a Libtral demonstration at Ptebles. He held that an Irish Parliament would probably comprise three parties— Constitutional Nationalist, Badical Nationalist, and Pioteßtant, the last-named holding the balance between the others. Pere Portalie, S.J., contributes to the Etudes, published monthly by the French Jesuits at Paris, an article in which he proves that many of the phenomena of hypnotism were known to the students of the Middle Ages, who, far from attributing them to either witchcraft or diabolical possession, explained them much in the same way as they are now viewed by modern science— namely, as the effects of suggestion or imagination on the human organism. The Pelervn, relates the following anecdote, tending to show the obduracy of Protestant prejudice with respect to the Blessed Virgin:— Professor Eossi was recently conducting an English professor from Oxford through the Roman catacombs. When they had reached the catacomb of St Priscilla, they stopped before a mural painting, and toe Boman archaeologist, turning to bis companion, said : " Can you fix the date of that painting ?" " Yes," said the other ; " I have jost come from Pompeii, and this seems to me to be of the same date as the frescoes there." " You are right," said Professor Rossi ; "we have before us a painting of the Ist century. Look at it well," he continued, at the same time casting the light of his torch upon the wall and revealing an exquisite picture of the Blessed Virgin and Child. "Do you recognise the subject Vhe asked. " Yes," said the Englishman, "it is a picture of Mary." After telling how it had lately been revealed to view, D« Rossi said : " We are in presence of a monument of art of the primitive Church, proving the antiquity of the cvltua of the Blessed Virgin." The Anglican was silent for some moments, and then said : " Antigua mperstitimum seminz " (ancient beginnings of superstition), to which the illustrious archaeologist replied in the words of Bt Cyprian : " Tenebrm sole lucidiores " (darkness more brilliant than the sun). Mr George Augustus Sala, who, in the course of his lengthy and varied experience has had frequent opportunities of knowing how monasteries and convents are conducted, has been impressing his opinion on the petitions for the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the condition of those institutions. He observes : "To my mind, the appointment of such a Commission would do a vast amount of good, since, if evidence were fairly, and fully, and impartially reported upon, it would probably bring to light the pleasing fact that there is not a monastery nor a nunnery in England the inmates of which are subject to any kind of ill-treatment ; and that British monasticism in tbe Victorian era devotes itself exclusively to works of piety, charity, and mercy. My good friends the Sisters of Nazareth House, Hammersmith, should be among the first monastic community to call for such a Commission. They would have everything to hope, and nothing to fear, from the most exhaustive of inquiries." The opinion of a broad-minded n.an and clear cbinker such as Mr Sala would outweigh in value all the petitions of all the bigots in the United Kingdom. A reverend Protestant editor in Bombay, who probably imagined that he was in this country, made a cowardly attack on some Catholic nuns some time ago in the India Watchman, comparing their consecration to religious work with that of the dancing girls of the Hindoo temples. The vilifier has been rather astonished at the sen-

eation his foul charge has created. Respectable jounuls of all shades of opinion united in denouncing as atrocious and intolerable this libel upon a class of women whose meekness, devotion, and self-sacrifice can be daily witnessed in schools and hospitals and lazarhouses. Here is what the Bombay Gazette said : " Until he has apologised, he must be kept at arm's length by all people of cleanly life and thought, who live in charity with their neighbours, and think it worth while to keep their tongues from evil-speaking, lying and slandering. The police have been sampling the filthy literature by which these singular missionaries pretend to advance the cause of Christanity in the East. There is a provision in the Penal Code which was meant for these gentlemen, and it would be a pity if they did not get the benefit of it. It is, at any rate, satisfactory to know that the obscene trash which has been so widely circulated is bow under the consideration of the Public Prosecutor." Tht Times of India writes in the Bame strain, and the general feeling is that th« calumniator deserves to be whipped at a cart. On Friday, the 27th May, his Eminence the Cardinal-Vicar presided at an examination of the English classes in the Eoman Pontifical Seminary of the Appolinare. It will be remembered that these classes were instituted during the year by his Eminence in order to give the students an opportunity of learning the English language. The examination was well attended, close upon sixty students taking part in it. This being the first public examination at which the Cardinal had presided in the Roman Seminary, one of the students, Rev Alexander Solari, read an address in which he thanked his Eminence for the patronage he had extended to them, and for the interest he had manifested in their progress. At the conclusion of the address the Cardinal replied in English, " I thank yon." After the examination, which was in every way satisfactory, his Eminence addreßsed the students. He congratulated them upon the amount of progress which they had made in so short a time, and thanked them for the heartj co-operation with his desires which they had thereby manifested. Professors and students alike had given themselves to the work with real earnestness, and he felt sure that their work would be successful. Whatever might be their future career they would never regret the time spent in acquiring a knowledge of so wide-spread and so useful a language. It would help also to infuse into them much of what is good in the English character, and even though their sole object might be a desire to read the gems of English literature, such as the works of Shakespeare, Milton, and many others after them, down to those masters of style, Newman and Manning, their labours would be amply repaid. He knew no literature more beautiful, more interesting or more extensive than that of the English language, and he reminded them that owing to the richness of its vocabulary as compared with that of many otherß, there was, perhaps, none which suffered so much by translation,