Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 20, 3 March 1893, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Wb have now before us a lecture, published in COMICALITIES pamphlet form, which was delivered, in January OP THE KIBK. 1892, at Glasgow by the late Moneignor Munro. It is entitled " The New Methods of Evangelical Preachers." and deals with a very choice selection of devices by which the sectarian preachers of the cicy had recently attempted to attract dißciples to sit under their ministry. The right rev lecturer began his lecture by explaining that in Glasgow, a city containing a population of 770.000 souls, only 120,000 church-goers could be reckoned up by all the non-Catholic religious bodies. The Catholic population, he said, amounted to about 120,000, against whom no sweeping accusation of indifference could be brought. But to attract congregations, rev ministers had various methods. There was first the " Sensational Minister," who made capital out of any event of the week which had excited public interest. He advertised his sermons as follows :— " Playing the fool," " The Opening of the Edinburgh Exhibition," "A Noisy Devil," " Lessons from the Kirriemuir Divorce Trial," " Auld Langsyne," "A short bed and a narrow blanket." Next came the " Funny Minister." He reasoned with himself that if fan could fill theatres and music halls it could also fill the kirk. Sometimes the fun was found in the subject of the sermon, thus, " Landladies and their lodgers ; what they think of each other." This, said the lecturer opened up a field for infiuite jeut when the funny man wa9 really up to his business. At other times the fun lay in the form of the pennon, the conundrum being a favourite, as, for example, " Who's the Gentleman?" "Cinders and Crumbs,' " Come alung I Do," " Who's your Father ?" There was again, the preacher who dealt in amatory subjects, " Proposing, rejecting, accepting," " The pleasures of friendship and love," " Somebody's darling, or the true art of love," "Two strings to his bow," "A Humbugging Wife." Next came the preacher of what the lecturer said he might call the music-hall type. This was a kind of preacher who trusted ody a little to a taking title, but a great deal to an "accompanying entertainment." Some amusing instances also were given of this. " Evidently,' said the right rev lecturer, '■ Scotch Presbyterianism is on the down grade. Its cnurches turned into music halls, its ministers advertising themselves as harkqmns, and its sabbaths given up to musical selections, to masquerade, and to magic lantern exhibitions, give evidence of the extent and rapidity of its descent." The last type dealt with is the " Evangelical Swashbuckler," who seeks notoriety with much bluster and far greater ardour than honoarable men seek fame. At any cost, no matter whose feelings he may wound, or whom he may shock or unset le, he will have freedom for his tongue. " He," aaid the lecturer, " has adopted the vernacular of the slums, and is able to clothe his thoughts in language which calls up the desired grin on the face of the profligate, but causes men who fear and honour God to shudder as they listen. I extract the following from the Dally Mail of 16th November : — 'The Rev John Robertson is a brave man. He says : After all my Presbyterian feather-pluckinp, Galileo-ways, I'm afraid I still believe that Jacob was a sneak, and that Noah was once " spewin' fou," and that the Church is goi: g to the devil with wet rot.' " Albo the lecturer takes this paragraph from the Evening News: — " Rev John Robertson, of Gorbals' fame, when in Stouehaven, attracted attention by intimating a sermon on 'Almighty God with His Coat Off.' " Yet again, we are given an extract from a sermon preached by a Mr McNeill, a? reported in the Daily Mail: — " Poets and Christian philosophers had notice^ God'u slowness. Oh, the creeping thiDg about God was the slowness of him. Ii was a h<ird thing to ktep up with a flod to whom a thousand years was aa a day. God rose fresh in the mornine as evei, and in a day packed up the works of a millennium Someoue asked him what abc Kit David ■ their bits of en frs and farms were going wrong, and it was their darkness that drove them to Divid. If everything had been going up they never would have heeded, but merely said : — Gee up, Jess,' but when a wee bird came to oor ha' door they came

to David." " You have in tbis extract," says the lecturer, " a rather mild specimen of an evangelical sermon by a preacher according to the new method." " What Btrikes one at once on reading this, and the extracts I give bef oie from another pi eachsr," he adds, "is the tone of insolent familiarity with which the speakers treat Almighty God. They actually patronise the Almighty. They are fully in His confidence, know all His designs, can explain all His doings, and condescend even to suggest excuses for His shortcomings. It really appals a Christian of the old school to be brought face to face with such measureless vanity as alone could bring even an evangelical coxcomb to venture on such a style of speech in the presence of a Christian audience." The change to such revolting stuff from the subject! and style of the preachers of the Covenant, says the lecturer, is no improvement. " Tet it, at any rate, serves this purpose; it enables us to measure the depth of degeneracy to which the new evangelicalism has dragged down the Protestants of Scotland." Momignor Munro, nevertheless, expresses himself as not altogether without hope for the result. "It may be," he says, in concluding his lecture, " that the excesses of the new Bchool of evangelists will open the eyes of some to the untenable position of the Protestant churches. These men and their methods are truly the reductio ad absurdum of Protestantism."

The Great Protestant Tradition, which takes it for that TBADi- granted that the Reformation was the original tion AGAIN, fount of all that was good and holy and of that only, is kept so constantly before our eyes that it is necessary, from time to time, to quote testimony to an opposite effect. We therefore take some passages from an article in the Contemporary Review for December, sod in which, on material recently provided by Dr Keller, the Archivist at Munster, a favourable account is given of the Anabaptist, Hans Denck. With this, however, we are not concerned. What seems us-ful to us is the admissions made by a wrier who is, nevertheless, a partisan of the reformers and their work :— «' It is also necessary, ' he writes " to keep in view the low condition into which morality had at this time fallen in Germany. Lutheran divines testifi> d to thiß being the case in their own localities, and Lu.her himself recognised the fact, putting f^rth his shorter catechism to stay the evil." The writer explains that the shorter catechism contained teaching of a different kind from that which the Apostle had preached at the outset —a strange departure, we may remark in passing, for one who had at first and once for all been divinely called to teach the truth— as if, for example, one of the Apostles of Christ had to recede from what be had received from the mouth of the Saviour, perceiving its evil fiuits. And if Luther was not such an Apostle he was an imposter :—" Sacramental theories," eayß the wntßr, " by which stupendous privileges belonged to all Who received Lutheran baptism, believed the creeds, and partook of the Holy Communion led to Buch a condition of public morality that Luther was driven to build again the things he had destroyed. ' But the devil rebuilding the works of God must needs figure as a sorry mason. "Dr X jller, " says the writer again, " has collected a number of tes'imonies as to the state of morality ia Augsburg about the time Denck was living in that city. The Lutheran minister, Hubernius, wrote in the >ear 1331, • Decency and hon mr seem no longer observed in Augsburg. All kinds of unchaeteaess and licentiousness have gained the upper hand.' The Zwinglian minister, Musculus, said ' Those in our time who confess the truth of the Gospel treat it with even less regard and with more contempt than the misguided Papists did the silly stories of their monastics and the decrees of their false bishops ; in fact they have become more worldly-minded, dissolute, and libertine than even the children of ihis world.' And the preacher, Dr Nacbtigall, said from the pulpit in the year 1526—' If things goon like this i f wou'd be better to fight one another to death ; I have got my little knife with me.' And ttut these were not mere querulous lrutabie utterances, is snown by the fact that in thin same year tha municipality usued c mandate in which they reproached the Augsburgers for their immorality, and expressed a fear that, if this state of things continued, some very severe punishment would fall on the city." Another popular anicle of the Tradiuon has it that the Refoimation fulfilled the Gospel precept and vr :+ cd to lue wisdom of the serpent the harmlessncss of the dove. "In the sixteenth cen'ury," says th c

writer in the Contemporary, " Germany tried to get rid of a civil and religions tyranny similar to that against which France struggled in the eighteenth. A new doctrine was preached and everywhere accepted bat the old spirit and the old beliefs everywhere remained. Even men who held the most exalted doctrines of liberty and brotherly lova fell back into the old way of forcing their own creed on tbe recalcitrant by violence and the magistrate's sword." We may take with a grain of salt what the writer says of tbe old spirit and the old ways.— His opinion belongs to the Great Protestant Tradition. To it also belongs the assumption of exalted doctrines of liberty and brotherly love, whose falsehood the writer reliably exposes. We quote these pasages, as we have said in effect, because the Great Protestant Tradition being always current it is necessary to keep its contradiction current also.

The perennial cranks are all oat with protestations ODDS AND BNDS against tbe Hcme Rale Bill. The Rev Roaring Kane demands the retention of the Union as it now exists, or, apparently, the seclusion of the Orangemen in some bright little isle of their own. And what, in fact, should hinder their conveyance to some island, for example, of tbe southern seas, denuded by the Queensland slave trade of its Kanakas ? His roaring reverence insists that they should resist to the death. And if they did ? How much worse would the world remain 7 Professor Goldwin Smith, in a manner, throws np the sponge. He expresses an opinion that Ireland will continue a vassal to England— but will eventually become independent. So nonsensical an utterance well befits it author. Tbe Professor's loyalty, however, has been under suspicion, since he lately advocated the annexation of Canada to the United States, or some* thing to that effect. He speaks merely out of hatred against Ireland. —O' Donovan Bossa, who had kept silent this long time, declares the Bill will not suit the Irish people.— Lord Wolseley, finally, outraging all the proprieties of his position, expresses sympathy with the Orangemen. If he has spoken as reported his removal from his command would seem a matter of course. Bat the Orangemen have method in their madness. They know what particular spirits to summon from the vasty deep. — " Belfast is placarded with bills bearing the legend : ' Rise, sons of William, and defy tbe Pope, and traitors, and tbe unholy Bill I Defend your lives and liberties 1 ' "—But William had no sons.— How, therefore, should bell unloose its jaws 1 Belfast will not be terrified by ghosts. If men who are still in the flesh, and who have adopted William as their posthumous daddy, attempt to rise, are there not policemen in the land to deal with them ? And, indeed, they who contemplate a rising, as a rale, proceed in secret. — So noisy a threat reveals a desire for prevention, We shall see no rising in Ulster. We Bhall, however, hear infinitely more of a minatory screeching.

Here are consecutive cablegrams suggestively placed :—": — " The Pope praiies the Home Rule Bill, which, he says, gives justice to 'my good Irish,' while tending to strengthen England's power." — " Special prayers will be offered in Ulster next month against tbe success of the Home Rule Bill." — We may believe that the Pope approves of the Home Bule Bill, though we doubt if hi« Holiness has thus expressed himself. But if the Orangemen would cot fine themselves to praying against the world, the flesb, and the devil, it might be to their advantage. Someone ought to impress on them tbe necessity of their specially doing so. They have prayed long enotigh against the Pope to prove to them the vanity of their petitions. And when they take to praying the game, in their eyes, is, no doubt, up. The cable agency, however, as we have eaid, has conveyed its suggestion adroitly. It would seem that the celebration of the Pope's Jubilee has not been permitted to pass by without attempted interruption.. The arrest, at least, of twenty-five anarchists, on a charge of being in. gaged in the explosion of a dynamite bomb, is reported from Rome. Is is also announced that 104 members of a secret society have been ■entenced there to various terms of imprisonment, and, finally, that 14 anarchists have been arrested for a conspiracy to blow up the Pope and Ht Peter's. The appointment of a Governor to succeed Lord Jersey in New South Wales has been the occasion of some debate, the Premier of the colony having claimed that he should be consulted relative to the candidate proposed. Tbe claim was not allowed by the Colonial Office, and tbe Bight Hon Robert William Duff, M.P. for Banffsbire, a follower of Mr Gladstone, although a rrlation of the Duke of Fife, who is anything rather than thut, has been appointed. The cla mof a colonial Ministry, meantime, to control the appointment of the Governor is utterly inconsistent and improper. The chief advantage of having a Governor is that he is an impartial authority, who may exercise a check on a tendency on the part of the Ministry, should ~ucb oxißt, to temporise with the majority in Parliament, contrnry io the interests of the country. The impartiality of the Governor is the most important characteristic about him, supposing, of course, that he is capable of exercising it with wisdom. To give any particular party a deciding voice in the choice of a Governor would be mani-

feitly to risk bis impartiality, and, therefore, in a great degree, to nullify his usefulness. It may be questioned, indeed, as to whethe% it would not be preferable to make the office electoral within the colony — a change, nevertheless, against which very much may be advanced. In North Meath also "clerical intimidation," although inactive, has again prevailed. Mr Gibney, the Nationalist candidate, has defeated Mr Maboney, the Parnellite, by 2635 to 2376. Other byeelections leave things as they were. At Stockport Mr Whitely, a Tory, replaces a Tory, and at Oirencester a Home Baler replaces a Home Ruler. So also respectively at Horsham and Oatethead. Mr Hogan, late of Melbourne, where he had held a distinguished place as a journalist and writer, has been returned unopposed for Mid-Tipperary. The Earl of Meath, who lately paid a visit to the colonies, where, as well as we recollect, his Lordship conducted himself in a goodygoody sort of way, has given the results of his observations in the Nimeteenth Century. His Lordshi pa ideas are aristocratic and all that tends among us in that direction he approves of. He declares, with evident satisfaction, that in Australia capital has been victorious over labour— whereas in New Zealand it has suffered a lamentable defeat. The Earl could find no good whatever attendant on manhood suffrage. It is sad, meantime, to learn that Anglican vestrymen in New Zealand have not better manners. His Lordship was told by one clergyman here that he "had to submit to most foul language from members of the vestry who held the purse-strings." Was there any consolation to this poor parson, we should like to know, in the recollection of Judas lscariot. Judas, however, had a smooth tongue. Let as believe, therefore, that course language is an index of honesty in an Anglican purse-bearer. In concluding, the Earl Bays that, " large classes of colonists are affectionately loyal to mother country, and only need the occasion, to astonish the world." But what then may we expect ? What is the occasion, and what is the nature of the astonishment ? The Earl of Meath gives us reason for suspicion and alarm. On the whole, his Lordßhip seems to write much as we should txpect of a distinguished visitor who had conducted himself in a goody-goody kind of way.

The County Down Constitutional Association are going to send over Beveral thousand Orangemen to hold special meetings in Trafalgar Square. That is the way, the Association thinks, to disgust Londoners with the Home Rule Bill. When Orangemen, nevertheless, held a special meeting some years ago in another part of England— that is at Cleator Moor — it was at themselves and their proceedings that John Bull expressed disgust. Tee meeting in Trafalgar Square, we should say is likely to produce a similar effect. May it proceed and prosper. Mr Gladstone has been rabidly taken to task for declaring in answer to an American author who hid sent him a book criticising the English character, that under the discipline, which they greatly needed, of criticism, tbe English race were capable of " a great elevation and of high performances." Wherein tbe offence lies, it is impossible to see. Not surely in saying that a people of exuberant strength and vigour need discipline — nor yet in pointing out the admirable effects it is capable of producing in them ? Mr Gladstone's words, in fact, if properly understood, contain testimony to tbe nobility of the race — and his carping detractors betray their stupidity as well as their bitterness. The burden of the secular system is making itself heavily felt in Victoria. Influential members of all the parties are calling out for some modification of it — and, even ia the most unwilling quarters, acknowledgment is made that matters have gone too far. Children, it is complained are being crammed with subjects which are of no use whatever to them. The character of the scholar in the abstract which, as anung ourselves, was the standard aimed at, h >s b9en perceived to be unattainable, and the utilitarian end is now pointed to. For this it is urged tbe three R.'s. should be sufficient, In our owa Colony some suspicion of a similar kind seems to be making its way even into the preceptorial mind. The Educational Institute at Wellington, fjr example, haß recommended that drawing should be made optional. We have little hope, however, for New Zealand. Matters here are in the bands of faddists, who will hold on by the skin of their teeth to tha very last. It is, in fact, to the piling up of the agony wa look forward. Our faddists plume themselves on origina-lity-—and attain it, we admit, at least in one sense. However, if the fool has considered bis way in Victoria, we need not altogether despair concerning Now Zaalanl. Necessity, after all, is a stern master.

The following seems to be the utterance of a much-vexed editor : — " The poet bears tbe impress of original Bin. Adam and Eve were made, not born. The poet is born, not made, therefore, he came into the world only after the fail of man. The poet's baptism in inkdoeM not remove tbe stain, but rather makes ita blackness perfect. The sin the poet causee in other people is not original. It has been in existence since an editor knew how to swear and before that if possible. If the poet were wise he would take the swan for his model. The swan sings only once in his lifetime, and that is when be is at

the point of death. Consequently tha swan has not breath en >ugb left to make himself heard. No one can liken the song of the swan to tbe cackle of a goose. If the poet would emulate the swan be woßld make it easier for bis survivors to tell the truth in his epitaph.' 1 —This, ar our readers will perceive, is tbe utterance of a man who has no music in his soul. But let him be excused — he has been piped dry. He speaks no doubt out of the fulness of his was'e-paper basket.

Someone has asked as why irreligion is so prevalent postscripts, just now in Italy, anl if its bsing so does not reflect adversely on the Catholic Church. Tbe answer seems to as not very difficult. Early in the last century, then, a young Frenchman, of brilliant talents, but of no very fixed principles, went to England, where he became a disciple of the infilel Bolingbroke. The poison of B >lingbrjke's doctrine he took baik with him to his own country to affect a section of the people. We nted not say that we allude to Voltaire. From France, where they had been thus implanted, atheism and tbe doctrines of the revolution spread into Italy. There also they were ad opted by a minority. Bi b in Italy and in France the revolution was the work of a noisy minority ; the great body of the nation remaining sound at heart, though, perhaps not without some fault, oowed by the smaller section. It is not true that either Italy or France is irreligious as a whole, or even in tbe greater part. Catholicism is still firmly rooted ia bob these countries, and vigorous and flourishing. That the powers of evil should obtain the upper hand for a time casts no reflection ou the Catholic Church, On the contrary, Christ foretold for His Church seasons of trial and tribulation, and that tbe Church of Borne suffers such trials and tribulation proves her identity and her divine foundation. In a few words, then, we are able to answer the question that has been pat to as. Tbe Rev A. B. Fitchett, in preaching an ordination sermon the other day at St Paul's Church, Danedin, seemed to confer on the Anglican parson a new character. His reverence, according to the

preacher, is bound to be a "well of English undefiled." Perhaps, by the way, this may account for that complaint made to the Earl of Meath by a certain clergyman in New Zsaland. The language of the vestrymen may have been foul on'y when judge 1 by so pure a standard. Lot the foul-mouthed officials at least have the benefit of the doubt. "Among many excellent observations," reports the Evening Star, approvingly, "ho (the rev preacher) referred to the fact that the clergy more than any other class of men are the custodians of the national speech." — But does this also refer to the Non-couformists, or is the privilege exclusively that of the Church of England ? We had, however, heard of the Queen's English, Perhaps, in fact, it is only the clergy, at whose head as such her Most Gracious Majesty stands, that form the custodians in question. Mr Fitchett's claim, then, is a deeper one than at first sight it might be thought to be. Of course it seemed evident, on the face of it, that the rev gentleman did not claim as the spiritual privilege of a particular class of speakers the obligation to speak good grammar and correct English, for that would involve his talking rank nonsense. An article on " Happiness in Hell," published recently by Dr St George Mivart in the Nineteenth, Century, and to which a few weeks ago we made a brief reference, has attracted a good deal of attention, and has been taken by some people as indicating a change in doctrine on the part of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Vaughan, who was questioned on the subject by a correspondent, made the following answer:— " io the main part of Mr Mivart'a article the wor i 'hell ' is used in its strictly theological sense, which covers any ultimate future state which is outside of Heaven and the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision. It, therefore, includes the future state of children who die unbnptised, which the accepted teaching of the Church recognises to be one of happiness, as thero can be no fu'ure punishment awarded to the innocent. As to those mitizatioQS which the article Buggeßts as applicable to the punishments of hell, viz., the hell of those who were baptised but lost on account of sin unrepeated of, they must be taken as personal views put forward by Mr Mivart and other writers on their own responsibility, bat to which the authority

of the Catholic Church is in no wise committed " For onr own part we do not see any useful end to be attained by utterances such as that in question. The exceptional cases with which Dr Mivart deals, even supnosing him to be correct in bis treatment of them, which Cardinal Vaugban, however, serm3 to deny, do not personally concern the class of readers addressed. For all who are duly icstiucted, or who have before their eyes tbe mean? of. obtaining instruction, if they aie guilty of transgression or voluntary neglect, there remains the hell, that, as the catechism teacbes us, is " a place of eternal torments." It seems strange, meantime, that educated people should not be aware that Catholic doctrine bas always recognised degrees in eternal punishment and mercy for the ignorant and personally guiltless. Is it not kaown, for example, to every educated man that it was Calvinism which introduced the hideous and revolting belief in the damnation of little children 1 If, moreover, Catholic theologians, as a rule, be little consulted by non-Catholics, there is, at least, one book in which Catholic theology is very fully explained, and which is known generally among people of culture. We allude to the " Divine Comedy " of Dante, in which the distinctions made by the Church are plainly to be found. Those, therefore, who speak of Dr Mi rart's article as a new departure on the part of Catholicism, betray an ignorance hardly to be expected among the more cultured classes. But, as we have said, we Bee little good to be derived from the popuUr publication of such an article. Toe chances are that none of its readers are among the exceptional cases referred to, and it may only tend to give a falsa security. Of the two extremes we should, in fact, consider tbe less harmful that much condemned publication, " Hell Open to Sinners."

The Danedin Star, as the winding up of a dispute respecting the attitude of Sir Bobert Stout towards the female franchise, publishes a note from Sir Bobert to Sir George Wbitmore. Sir Bobert gives his correspondent a reference to Herbert Spencer, and adds his own intention. "Of course I vote for it (female franchise) ; but I believe it will ba distinctly Socialistic, as Spencer says, and not be Conservative, as Sir John Hall believes." But must not every man have hi*

particular faith in lovely woman ? And she ? Well, she will prove herself responsive, as she always do s — with exceptions we admit. There is the motber-in-law— and sometimes, alas, the wife. But, for the general rule, let us take that verse lately sung to us by a somewhat whimsical Italian singer, " La donna c mobile Qual piuna' al vento." Is it not her privilege to be all things to all men 1 With the Conservative she will be a Conservative, and with the Socia'iat a Socialist — that is, of course, if he knows how to fall in with her fancy. Who would rob Sir Robert or Sir John of his faith. No doubt it rests for each on sufficient grounds. The deputation which is referred to in our leader is one of 5,000 Orangemen which goes to plead with Mr Gladstone for their own lives and liberties— or for the direct contrary of their Catholic fellowcountrymen. It ia their last desperate resource before they enter upon the lining of the ditches. Meantime, at least, steamboat and railway companies will profit. It is, they say, an ill wind that blows nobody good,

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