NAPIER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 14, 3 August 1894, Page 9

NAPIER.

(From our own Corresp undent .)

July 24, 1894. At Vespers ia St Mary's church on Sunday evening last, the Very Rev Father Grogan paid a higu compliment to the Catholics of Wanganui. The previous Sunday evening h3h 3 had the pleasure of preaching in that town, and he was c lifted by the large number 0! people that attended all the services Toe church also possessed a beautiful choir. He waa surprise* at the number of men that attended. Tbere were about 3,000 Catholic* leas in Wanganui than in Napier, the latter place having a total of something like 1,400. He therefore advistd the Ca'boliia of Napier to try and attend church better than they were in tba habit of doing, This week, the llarvkes Bay Herald trotted out the yarn about Father Lambsrt having left tba Catholic Courch in America. Tnauka to the N.Z. Tablet for information contained in that journal a m:mh or mo back, a correspjndeut was enabled to write to the Herald, and prove that the priest who had severed his connection with the Church, was not the Father Lambert who mida tho keenest, clearest, most logical, and masterful answer to the American agnostic, lngersoll, in a series of open letters published about two years ago. The Hera.ll is rather late in publishing this falsehood, considering it had b^en published in one of the Dunedin papers som« time back, and bad also been exposed in the Tablet, but I suppose the Napier editor only just dropped across it, «nd being an attack on the Catholic Church, he could not for the life of him, miss the opportunity of having a " shy " at the ancient Church. The above ia another instance of how the Oatholio Church is elan. dered and misrepresented 00, every possible occasion by her enemiei^ and it further shows the necessity of Catholics subscribing to ths Tablet, which generally gets on the track of these viliflers and and exposes their garbled accounts before they have time to do an/ barm.

I regret to learn from Wairoa, that Mr C. Harmer, who hat resided in that township for a quarter of a century, is seriously ill. Ha has recently been received into the Church, and Father Kerrigan left last week to give him the lasc rites.

The Harbour Board held a meeting on Monday last, and decided to appoint Mr Napier Bell and Mr Maxwell to report on the damage done to the breakwater. It seems strange that Mr Maxwell ihonld be chosen, he not being an engineer. I do not know whether bU experience as a Railway Commissioner will enable him to Rive satif. faction to the Board, but it seems that is his only qualification foi the position. A rate of }j in tht £ having been struck on rateable property, taxpayers are anything but pleaaad with the present state of affiirs. Mr Carr, the engineer to the Board, estimates that It will cost about £1.000 to repair tha damage done by the recent gales.