Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 19, 7 September 1894, Page 3

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Profebsob Gilbay on Da Johnson,

A lecture, delivered to the Dunedin Catholic Literary Bociety on Wednesday evening, Augurt 28, by Professor Gilray, of the Otago University, was one of the principal eventß in the Society's career. The subject was Dr Johnson, and its treatment was extremely able. The lecturer gave an admirable summary of the life and character of the great, big-hearted, manly, honest English man of letters — refreshing their memory pleasantly to those among his hearers who had read Boswell's famous book, and making those who had not acquainted with its contents io a manner to arouse their interest and incite their Btudy. Other sources, however, besides the principal fountain of information, had baen sought by the lecturer, so that bis picture might hays complete fulness and faithfnlcess, and the living man, in all his power, humour, originality and oddity, was placed vividly before the listeners, as only one who had lovingly and wi'h perfect understanding lingered long ia hia presence could place it there. A chief merit of the lecture — as, in fact, was afterwards pointed out — coneiated in the wise and measured condensation, which, from so vast a quantity of matter, had chosen in due proportion, and enlarged do single feature at the expense of another. For our own part what pleased us best was that which was more especially the speaker's own — what had more e-pecially passed through the alembic of hia mind, and received the impress of his particular talent — that is, his criticism of the work done by the renowned writer. His vindication of Johnson's style, for instance, from the accusation of inflation that has been brought against it, was strikingly able. Professor Gilray is plainly of the opinion that a man who presumes to offer ideaß to the world is bound to express them plainly and clear'y. He very aptly condemned a good deal that ia otherwise put forward at the present time with much pretension. A (l Germanising jargon," if we recollect aright, he called i', not that we at all understood the lecturer as addressing a word of contempt to the German language in its own peculiar guise or in its proper place — but that hardly needs explanation. The Professor afterwards spoke of Browning hs the instance, par excellence, of obscure writing. Browuing, however, may perhaps claim a poetic license, though when a man has a message to deliver to the race, and the poet who has not is improperly called a poet, he seems little excusable in wrappijg it up in dark words. Browning's obscurity of language, moreover, Beems to have been a conceit. So much, for^example, seems certainly implied iv his reply to Lord Coleridge, that, if ten per cent of what he wrote was undersiood by an intellect of the calibre of that of his correspondent, it was all th&t could be expfcted. The pact, nevertheless, may possibly claim a licdnse all bis own. Wh&r appears wholly without excuse is that the writer of prose should assume a similar privilege, and write so as to convince the reader attempting to understand him that, if hs himBelf ically understood hiß thoughts, he was acting on the principle ascribed to Prince Talleyrand and using lan^^e to conceal them. In hia criticism al&o, the nice discriminaion shown by Profesfor Gilray in his narrative was observed. Nothing could be better choßen than the passage selected by him, that from the " Life of Pope," in which the merits of the pobt are contrasted with those of Dryden — to illustrate the conclusions arrived at by him as to Dr Johnson's place as a writer. There, indeed, is a passage of classic dignity and simplicity. Ter&eness, fulness of matter, clearness of ityle, vigour of expression, and force of antithesis, could find no finer example. There is language, not employed in grotesque conceit, or in aping foreign idiomp,*but straight and bones*-, drawn from a well of English undefined, not used to conceal thought, but revealing it beyond tven the desire of the wrier,i er, who deprecates the partiality which in spite of himself he has made apparent. There is hope, therefore, still for English prose. Professor Gilray speaks cheerfully of the renewed consideration commanded by Dr Johnson in the world of literature. Of the appreciation referred to, indeed, the lecturer in his own person gave a notable proof and ia a manner thoroughly calculated to communicat9 it to hi» hearers, or at least to iuduce them

to betake themselves to studies that must produce such a result. In every respect, we say again, the lecture was most able, entertaining, and profitable.

OH I NOT AT ALL, MR MCULLOUOIH.

We publish in another place a speech delivered two or three weeks ago at a meeting of the Iriita National Federation in Wellington, bj the Hon Mr M'Cullough, W.L.O. We do bo under protest, strong and emphatic, i where one passage of the speech iB concerned— the stronger and the more emphatic because the sentiments expressed were allowed to pass unchallenged by a meet* ing largely consisting of Catholics. There was neither a hiss to mark dissension when the words were spoken, nor an amendment to reject them when the resolutions were passed. On this we are unable to corgratulate the Catholic portion of the auiience. It ill befiti Catholics anywhere to show a pusillanimous spirit when there is a question of their religion or their priesthood. Those who hare heard the speech to which we allude, or who read it now, as reported in our column", will have no difficulty in perceiving the passage which we refer to. It is that in which the speaker, with come slight flttempt to appear impartial, made a bitter attack on the Irish Catholic clergy. Otber clergies, we understand, were brought in to act M a cloak. For the '' heads of all the churches," to whom the speaker especially addressed a word of advice, we may read the Pope. But we already know how the Pope is ready to receivej.the Hon Mr M'Callough's kind suggestion. Th 3 Pope, for hia part, has very fully given the world to understand that in his eyes the spiritual and the political are closely connected. The priest, he said for example the other day, must leave the presbytery and come out among the people, Lst Mr M'Culloughand those who sympathise withhim find their answer in tba\ What, indeed, at the presentday, does the political separated from the spiritual tend towards, if uot the dismal and murderous tbysi of anarchy ? Why, again, should the priest renDunce his privileges ai a citizen 1 To demand this of him is to cast a slur upon religion and emulate the spirit of the Continental revolutionist. This is a taint that Catholics will everywhere indignantly repudiate, Cardinal Logue, a few weeks since, in speaking at Limerick, alluded to this proposal* "He ceed not assure them," he sud, " that if there was nothing to be done for the country — the temporal interests of the country — and if all the claims of the country were secure}, there wai no one in Ireland would more gladly retire within the rails of the Sanctuary than he would ; but so long as the people were struggling — the people who were the mainstay of the prie^tP, he thmght it natural for the priests to j jin with the people and mnrch shoulder to shoulder with them, and keeping them within tLe bounds of what is just and right and constitutional aad in every other respect to eoter with them with all the energy they can command into the grand struggle that is being made by the Irish people for freedom." We do not presume to add anything to his Eminence's words. But it might be thought that what was implied in Mr M'Cullongh'a argument itself would bring indignant remonstrance and rejection to the lips of every Irish Catholic who heard it The priest, he said in tffect, has been your friend tmd stay in the past. When you bid no other friend the soggarth aroon stood beside you and helped you — often laid down his life for jou. Who but he, the patron of the hedge school, and the protector and instructor of the hedge schoolmaster, gave your father ■ such a share of education as they had, and guided and inspirited you until he and you forced your cause upon the attention of the men in power ? But, now you have gained strength through his devotion and fidelity to stand alone, turn yoor back upon him ; treat him as the stool by which you have mounted, and kick him from beneath your feet. Sell him to buy the support of bigots. — We cannot congratulate the Irish Catholic listeners who heard such an exhortation with* out a bids or an amendment of rejection or remonstrance. For our own part we repudiate it utterly aod protest with all our force against it. The Weekly Freeman of July 27, publishes a letter in which Mr Timothy Qulnlan O'Brien, secretary of the Denniston Branch of the Irish National Federation, acquaints Mr John Dillon with the formation of tha branch. The Ireeman in a leader lays much strew

ODPS AND ENDS.

on Mr O'Brien's assurance, "that when the cry ' tis for Ireland' ie raistd, the whole Iriih race in New Zealand will be to tbe fore once again, only too eager to assist their kith and kin in the old laneV 1 Tbe Freeman expresses a b >pc that New Zealand's gift, promised by Mr O'Brien before winter, " will be ' the hansel ' for the evicted BlartiDg once more in that battle of life in which they have struggled so industriously and so bravely." Our contemporary also refers with high appreciation to a condemnation of disunion made by the correspondent and an expression conveyed by him of sympathy with Mr G-I adit one. Reports received here some time siuca regarding an nnsatief&c. Tory state of the Pope's health wee, we are happy to find, without foundation. The latest reliable news is that his Holiness was in excellent health— pronounced, in fact, by his doctor to have nevsr been better, and to have evtry chance, under ordinary circumstancep, of living to be over ninety years of age. Such reports, however, are the nsual thing and may be expected from time to time to recur. It is announced that the immediate erection of a Catholic cathedral at Westminster has been determined on. It is to be built in commemoration of Cardinals Wiseman and Mannin?, will seat 10,000 people, and will cost a quarter of a million sterling. The styls is to be that of the basilica. The announcement may be hailed as a note of Catholic progress in England— and more especially in London. 11 Who born for the universe narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." Oar advocates of the Referendum must perforce follow a bad examp'e a little longer. Their Bill has been rejected. If, nevertheless, we had more confidence in the " universe " we should feel a little nnre for their need. But, as tbim»s now are, whut greater chance would the d.rect vote have of bsing cooler or oetter weighed than the indirect? Our "universe" is, we f>ar, a flighty one, subject to maay crazes and doubtful fancies. Ladies and no smok*, snch was the distinguishing feature of the banquet given to Mr Scobu Mackenzia tha other night at Naseby, But was it polite of the gueit to djclare that to put up with tue one Without the other required an effort of self-denial ? Burely the charming presence shoulj atooe for every want and leave it quite nnfelt. It is well, mesntitna, that there was no stranger present, else he would have made ai big a mistake as he had ever made, or could make, in all his life. Mr Mackenzie s*id he (the stranger) Coming in would suppose that he (.Mr Mackenzie) wps a represeatative who had rendered soma prodigious public service. Otherwise Mr Mackenzie said generally what might be expected of bim. He praised his own manliness and integrity ; warned the Government that he was going to accept their uawillin? invitation to Wellington —to expose their doiDgs respecting the Pomahaka estate ; referred to his speech-set a thief to catch a thief, we say again-a couple of years ago on the " policy of imposture ' ; accused the Government of surreptitiously pluogiog tha country into enormous debt and of botching everything all roaad in a very dishonest manner. Mr Mackenzie bases his hope oa the eyes of the people being opened to the necessity of truth and probity ia public business. Tobaccosmoke, then, was absent from this meeting, but something of an obfuscatory nature was not wanting there any more wa suppose than 11 Tea to please tbe ladies." Tbe Archbishop of Melbourne delivered, in Sydney on August 20, a very able and interesting lecture on ancient Irish art— that is, as the most rev lecturer explained, the "proud pre-eminence an i very perfection of art." In replying to a vote of thanks, which was carried by acclamation with cheeis, His Grace, as reported by the ' Freeman's Journal, spoke as follows :~" When he first prepared the lecture in Melbourne, he did.'so to oti.it a protest against the insolent tone in which Ireland'siifairjfame was so frequently spoken of in j poblio (applause). It was to be deplored that young Irishmen, and sons of Irishmen, instead of resisting the efforts which were mada to damage the Irish nam?, were often found in Australia representing Characters and scenes which were gross burlesques (hear! hear !)— •cenes, which, even if there was any truth in them would be a disgrace to Ireland (cheers), He wanted the young Irish Catholics to b« proud of the old country (cheers), and it was his aim in giving this little lecture to arm them with a weapon for warding off nnjußti flable attacks of abuse and ridicule so generally bestowed on Irish history (applause). He regretted, too, that the way in which sime Irish Catholics themselves spoke of the old country, its history, and its manners, was the reverse of what it ought or should be (hear, hear). For his own part, wherever opportunity rffered, he would protest against the calumnious trea'ment of Irishmen and their nation (cheers). If he had done anything to remove prejudice, if he bad done anything to induce young Irishmen to study the history of their country, he thought he had abundant reason to be greatly gratified (cheers)." It is announced that Bruneau, the curate— not the curd but the tfioaira-convicUd of the murder of the Abte Fricot has been

executed at Laval :-» It i 8i 8 satisfactory to note in connection with so deplorable an affair (writes the Paris correspondent of the Catholic limes), hat the efforts of the anti-religious Press to m>ke capital out f it in furtherance of the* campaign agninst tde Church have completely failed, for if the trial established beyond donbt that a man in which the criminal impulse was stronger than any oiher had succeeded in entering the prie fl thood, it threw into strong relief the sacerdotal virtues of other prieets, whose guileleuaness rend 3 red them the easy dupes and victimi of the abominable brigand who wore the soutane and the tonsure to put men off their guard and to gain the confidence wh.ch he schematically abused. The feeling o f loathing and horror inspired b, B.aiwWa character as it has now been brought to light is no B'ronger than the syrup.thy, the pity, and the admiration inspired by the Abbe Fpicofa death. The latter was as good a man as the former was a bad one." n h,° B T' 9 candidature &>r the city marehalsbip of wl w ' w M ir X* V a lafge mai ° rity> The Bacc "^» candidate was Mr W. E. Clancy. A great deal of popular excitement had been aroused and a meeting of somo 30,000 people held in the Phoenix Park had advocated Rossa's Cairns. We have no doubt, however, but the corporation took the wiser course. Apart from all other considerations, the appointment in question must have gone far to increase arumen^ 86^ 84 Uati ° aal CaUSB l ° giV6 C ° : ° ar to adverße According to the London correspondent of the South Australian Register Dr. Kennion. late Aoglican Bishop of Adelaide, owes bis promotion to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells to the imprudence of another dmne Dr Percival, head-master of Rugby school, it seems had been intended for the Set. Ladaa, a horse of Lord Rosebery's meantime, won th- D -rby, aai Dr P.rciv.l, as a prom.nent member of the ant.-gamblin^ league, fol owed up an assault that he had prev.ously made on the Prime Mini-ter f ,r his sporting pursuits by adjurmg him to sell the bor*» This forfeited the Minister's favour and the Doctor's cbfl ace of the bishopric. Impru ience. however, had ere aow blocked tbe way of an Anglican minister to promotion The , grandfather of the famoua Sheiida-., for example, was a divine who stood well in ths eyes of Dahlia Castle, and had apparently a proraising career before him. One fesMval, meantime ho chose for his text i he words " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof " The occasion happened to be the anniversary of the accession of King George I.— aui the preacher was set down m h daring Jacobite. Dablin oastle replaced its smiles towards him by a studied oblivion. Lord Russell, of Killowen, late Sir Charles Russell, as Lord Chief Justice of England, has reached the summit of his profession possible to him. Above him in it is only the Lord Chancellor, and be a Ba B Keeper of the King'a Conscience " must be a Protestant Other Catholics on the English Bench are Judge Day and Judge Mathewtbe firit Catholic judge there having been Sir William Shee. There ie, meantime, in the town of Falkirk, a worthy minister who evidently thinks that, under some circumstance*, the King's con science should be easy to keep-that is, if what is non-existent can be kept at all We do not refer to the past-tbougb, for example, one or two of the Georges, and may be half a dozen others, might give us matter for doubt. Our reference is to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. He and Lord Rosebery, says the Rev Mr Stran* of Falkirk, are "ill, vile, evil devils." What, therefore.fmust be the degree of orthodoxy required to keep the conscience of our comine King f The Rev Mr Stranj, we may add, says also that '• Falkirk is the wickedest town in Scotland." How much that may be to say it is not for us to decide." The advantage to society of a religious training of the individual even though it may be betrayed, is illustrated by the facts attendant' on the execution of Franchi, an Anarchist convicted of exploding a bomb in the theatre at Barcelona. Santo, the assassin of President Carcot, died, in effect, exciting his sympathisers to vengeance and calling on them to imitate his crime. Franchi asked the pardon of the people for what he had done, thus warning others against following his example. Our Catholic readers, of course, understand that the tatement, that the criminal had at one time been a Franciscan tertiary, if true, does not mean that he had been a monk For the information of non-Catholics, we may explain that the association in question is one to which lay people, for whom it exists, commonly belong, * In one ot a set of poems in prose, contributed by him to tha Fortnightly for July, Mr Osc.r Wilde seems, a« tht saying is to out the cart before the horse. Hi. artist, in want of bronze, melts down the statue of " The sorrow that eudureth for ever," and make. onto! • it the statue of " The pleasure that abideth for a mrment." Surely it J is tbe other way. And what does Mr Wilde mean by his parable 1 " The Master "-the youth who has done all that Christ has done and yet weeps because he has not, like Him, been crucified f That merit needs, to prove it, the hatred of the world 1 That, we should say, or nothing. Passed away from living memory and become ancient history i* it-the terrible tale of the well at Cawnpore 1 Here is a cablegram

nnder data Calcutta, August 29 :— " It is reported that the Bombay police 'have arrested Nana Sabib, who turned traitor during the omtiny and cruelly murdered a number of the British, irrespective of age or sex." Mild, indeed, is the tone in which the capture of a fiend is announctd. But is it true at last, and how will another generation avenge the crime f Mr Stead hardly seems to agree with those who think that the priest should not take part in politics. In an article on the incidents of the labour war in America, for example, coctribot-d by him ti the Contemporary for July, he says that no ore by reading the records of tbe strikes, would imagine that they bad occurred in a Christian country, or in a country where Christian missionaries had penetrated. No pressure had been brought to bear on the disputants by Christian ministers. " This is perhaps due to the recoil from tbe old doctrine of the union of Church and Btate, but, if so, the recoil has practically paralysed the Church, while the State, bereft of its conscience, is practically heathen. Where moral authority is not. resort to Gatlings and dynamite, seems to many the only alternative. » . . Tht Pope, in bis famous Encyclical on Labour, laid down doctrines which all Christian Churches everywhere would do well to lay to heart. But nowhere is there greater need of the preaching and the teaching of that sound doctrine than in the United States to-day. Catholic or Protestant it matters little which, so long as there is a Church which will assert the eternal law of righteousness and jasiice and brotherhood in all the affairs of men " For Mr Stead's facts. with regard to the negligence of Christian ministers, we do not answer. His opinion as to the place of the priest in public Bffairs is what we are concerned with. It is important as that of a noed Libertl. There is our " Civis " once more concerned for us. He invokes tbe devil to come and free us at the Tablet office from " superstition,"—and a work for the devil, we adroit it must be. As to our v Oivia " himself, no doubt, the devil is thoroughly pleased with his enlightenment and would answer no invocation to free him from it, Onr " Oiviß's " allusion is to the passages translated by us from Dr

Bataille's "Lt Diable au 19 Siecle" and the plea for us credibility we deduced from the orgies and character of the Palladia masons. Our "Oivia" chatg amusingly enough about the personal appearance ascribed to ths devil. He, nevertheless, is mistaken in his claim that In a mixed assembly of the sort the devil would wear clothes. A state of nudity, on the contrary, is quite common there. Meantime, bad oar "Oivis " really never before heard any thing of all thiß 1 It has exci'ed a good deal of attention in various places of late, and a savant of such wide research, even thongh a jester, might be expected to know something about it. Had our " Civis," too, not heard of Mr Stead's " Ghost?," and other such publications of the time ? Ihe London Spectator of a few weeks ago, calls Professor Huxley to account for refusing to inquire in'o some such phenomena. As times go, then, the " Buperetition " of the Tablet should seem by no m?ans extravagant. We admit, nevertheless as we have said, that to the devil properly be ongs the ta«k of trying to free as from it. Here oar " Civis," in attempting to jest, haß spoken in earnest — as not uncommonly happens, Mr Northcroft, B.M. at Auckland, it seems, would like to earn his money easily. According to tbe correspondent of the Otago Daily Times, he complains in eff<ct, of a stress of busiaess. His Worship, nevertheless, would be better advised in entering a plea for less to do if he would avoid impudent allusions to his neighbours — to a body of colonists, who, like others, are taxed to pay him his salary. This dealer out of justice— evidently squinting from beneath the bandage — inquired, we are toid, the other day as to the nationality of a certain plaintiff and decided that tbe fact of his being an Irishmai accounted for bis fondness for liligation. The plaintiff's counsel pleaded that this Bhould not prejudice his case, to which his Worship condescendingly made an outward assent, as perhaps he could.hardly avoid. Nevertheless the matter appears to remain doubtful. We would meantime, recommend it to the attention of the Minister for Justioe. He may possibly be inclined to fall in with this Stipendiary's desire for something to do not quite so arduous, and where the old words, " more Irish and less nice " will not apply to the surroundings.

A man, iv fact, of a bigoted mmd and an unguarded tongup, on the magistrate's bench, ie very much out of bii pUca. One Mr Robert C. Gilmour, writer to tbt Otago Daily Tinwt in an attempt to defend the ecclesiastical historian MohLi lm from the charge of treachery, quoted by Cardinal Newmin as brought against him(Mosheim) by Dr Warfdington, Anglican D-an of Durham. Mr Gilmour's urgament is not very clear, bat it seems to be that Mosheim, iv quoting; from St Bligius, had male use of blanks, strokes, or asterisks, to note his omissione, bat that Maclain?, in translating his work, had left out these m \rks, and so had misled c?itain readers. The facts are these, and Mosheina — even if Mr Gilmonr be correct in his statement, as we understand it, cannot b« proved guiltlesa. He had stated a false position, to prove which he quoted a passage from 8t Eligiua, carefully cutting out several sentences that would give the lie direct to his statement. Whether he marked those omissions by blanks, lines, or asterisks, or did not so mark them, signifies little. He knew v ry well that the people for whom he wrote would take it for granted that the passages omitted were of tbe same kind as those quoted— and that they would not seek to verify his quotation. A« a matter of fact, it was not until seventy-eight ytars after Moebeim had written that a Protestant authority— that is Dr Waddington for the first time examined into the matter and found him guilty of "treachery," and " unpardonable mutilation." We hare followed Mr Gilmour's explanation, as we understand it, for the sake of argument, and to show that even if correct, it explains nothing. The leader in our contemporary, the Napier Newt, referred to by a correspondent in another column, is one in which the writer gives the results of hours of idleness granted to him by tbe adjournment of Parliament from Friday until Tuesday. During three whole days the writer had been left without mental pabulum. Ex nihtto nihil fit. Will not our correspondent make allowances for a vacant mind ? A writer, too— who, as this one, in effect, siys he did, looks for guidance from the future may well be allowed tn run amuck— the pou tto of his Mtntor having no existence. Why, moreover, does one so enamoured of what is new give us so much that is old and trite f "To the new era, full of hope and joy and expectancy, humanity turiig," Of coarse it does.

" Hope springs eternal in the human breas*, Man never is but alwaji to be blest." Bat that is as old as Queen Anne, ani as threadbare, for example, at tbe elbow of a pauper's jacket. W* fancy, too, wo had heard before all this rbodomontade about the wordlessness of dogma, and tbe worth of sjmething else that, with my Lord Dundreary, no fellow caa understand . There, we should say, aoy gi ■en extremity of tbe pauper sticks out without a tack on it. What, therefore, is the "ideal of the Press " to 'which this writer proposes that the " ideal of the Church " should be conformed — that, for instance, of spreading abroad for yawning readers a parcel of unmeaning stuff 1 But, at we have already pleaded in his excuse, the wrier warns his readers that he writes merely to fill up empty space — aod emp'ily be has filled it. Such nonsense, we should say, is toa ridiculous to be very hurtful. We learn from a cablegram under date London, September 2, that Mr Gladstone ani Lord Tweedmouth h*vj each given £100 towards tbe Irish Parliamentary fund. Tha example thus shown ii well deserving of consideration. It proves that the donors see tha existing necessity, and believe that their money will be usefully expended. As to their qualifications to judge of the state of affairs they are too evident to need demonstration. Fear?, therefore, as to the inopportuneness of aiding the National cause may be safely diimissed by those who hirbour them. We give this report for what it is worth. " Archbishop Satolli has settled the dispute among the Roman Catholics of the United States and is returning to So rope. The Pope is eotirely satisfied with the result of his efforts. " We may receive it as true that the legate has fulfilled his mission ably and faithfu'ly, and to the entire satisfaction of the Pope. An explanation of its p r icnlar nature we are not prepared to receive from a non-Catholic source. Tbe legate's impending return to Europe, more jver, ha 1 already more t lan once been falsely rumoured.

A pilgrimage of Catholics left London on Monday morning, July 19, for Canterbury, having attended Mass at the Church of 8t Ktbeldreds, Ely Place. Tbe pigrimage was un<er the auspices of the i Guild of Baosom.