WAIPAWA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIII, Issue 49, 10 April 1896, Page 15

WAIPAWA.

PRESENTATION TO REV FATHER POWER. (From an occasional Correspondent )

Yesterday witnessed a very pleasing little ceremony in the Catholic infant ■choolroom, when the Rev Father Power, the esteemed paßtor of St Patrick's, was the recipient of six large silver-plated candlesticks and crucifix, a set of church cruete, and a pair of vases. The schoolroom was prettily decorated by the Sisters, who had spared neither time nor trouble in decorating it with flowers, etc, and when well filled, as it wsb, with the children's happy faces, presented a very cheerful appearance. The entrance of the Rev Father Power was the signal for very warm greetiegp. After a simple, short and touching birthday ode iung by the children, Miss Lizzie Shanlycame forward and read an address, after which the presentation was made by seven of the children on bebalf of their schoolmates. In replying the Reverend Father Power said he conld not but admire the way in which the children managed to keep the prepßra" tions eecret. He had often heard it Paid that children found ii impossible to keep a Becret, bnt he wag glad to know that this school would turn out year by year a body of boys and girls who would give no occasion for sneb a reproach. They kept their secret extraordinarily well, and as a result they found him cemp'etely cfi bit guard. No donbt it was a pleasure to them to have po surprised him, and as whatever gave pleasure to hie childrtn was also a source of pleasure to him he would say that that was » pleasant surprise, Little demonstrations of this kind when got up by grown up persons very often deierve to have little importance attached to them. But when children, fresh Irom the bands of God and as yet unspoiled by world, wished their priest a happy birthday there was something more touching, for was it not the dearest and best portion of our Lord's little flock reminding their priest how he should love and care for them. No priest could hope to stand with any cotfidence before tbe great white throne who bad not done all that was possible 'o give a Christian education to the children whom|Aloiighty God placed nnde his care. They should thank their own good parents first of all for the presence of the Bißters. Their parents were worthy children of ancestors who not only gave joyfully their last penny but even laid down their lives to secure a Chriitian education for their children If they wiibed to thank him in the way that he would most apprecUte they would strive to second the tfforts the good Sinters were making in their behalf. They would perfect themselves as far as maybo in those warlike exercises through which a nameeake of a great warrior monk daily put them. Some day it may be their du'y to take a man's part in defending these beautifnl shores from a foreign invader. They would feed their minds with the intellectual food given them in the clasi room, especially with the religious doctrine. They had heard and read what the Arch-

bishop, in his Lenten Pastoral, demanded of the etndentg of St Patrick's College. He, Father Power, would expect the same of the pupils of this ech >01. No boy or girl should leave \h- se walls until they were first nb!e to give a plain and aitnp'e explar ation of the Oath' lie religion. This was absolutely necessary at the present day. A großi ignorance of the simplest and clearest points of Catholic belief permeated society rutside of the Church. What would they think if he told them that a few Sundays ago, in tbe most fashionable Protestant church in Wellington, a clergyman, who was supposed to be a man of education, told tbe large congregation that Catholics adored the Blessed Virgin. 'I he children of this school have heard a hundred times during the past eight months that it would be a sin of the most deadly kind to adore the Blessed Virgin. Every Catholic boy and girl before leaving school should be in a position to explain their faith to poor pc pie who are kept in ignorance by their preachers. Ihe children should, in the third pluce, form their hearts on the model put before them by the Bisters on the great model of children, the child Jesus, and on the model of the saints of God, who are put before them from the holy Scriptures and from the pages of Christian history. If they did all this they would give him more pleasure than they had done that morning by those costly and beautiful presents for the altar, because he could then say with the Blessed Disciple : " I have no greater grace than this, to hear that my children walk in truth." After the singing of a hymn to St Joseph, tbe Rev Father Power gave the children a holiday. Thres hearty cheers were then given by the children, and after some games in the school ground all dispersed f )r the day.