Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 15, 13 August 1897, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD

The proposal that the preamble of the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth should recognise Almighty God as the Supreme Ruler of the world has been rejected by the Federal Convention recently held in Adelaide, and there is not much ground for hoping that the efforts which may be made to secure such recognition when the Commonwealth Bill comes to be submitted to the consideration of the various Parliaments will meet with any better success. It is interesting to notice that the most earnest and determined effort to secure such recognition was made by Mr. Glynn, a Catholic delegate, and that strong opposition was offered by some of the New South Wales delegates who were among the " chosen ten " of the Protestant clergy. On the sth of April Mr. Glynn, who was one of the South Australian delegates, presented a petition signed by Archbishop O'Reilly of Adelaide, Bishop Maher of Port Augusta, and Father Strele, administrator of the Northern Territory, praying in the name of the Catholic community of South Australia that the preamble of the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth should recognise Almighty God as the Supreme Ruler of the world. Speaking on the proposal at a later date, in a brilliant speech he moved an amendment in favour of the petitioners. " The foundations of our national edifice." he said, " are being laid in times of peace ; the invisible hand of Providence is in the tracing of our plans. Should we not, at the very inception of our great work, give some outward recognition of the Divine guidance that we feel ? This spirit of reverence for the Unseen pervades all the relations of our civil life. It is felt in the forms of our courts of justice, in the language of our StaUitet?, in the oath that binds the sovereign to the observance of our liberties, in the recognition of the Sabbath, in the rubrics of our guilds and social orders, in the anthem through which on every public occasion wo invocate a blowing on our executive hesid, in our domestic observances, in the offices of courtesy at our meetings and parting and in the time-honoured motto of the nation. Says Bourke : 'We know and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society.' The ancients, who, in the edifices of the mind and marble, have left us noble exemplars for our guidance, invoked, under a sense of its all-per-vading power, the direction of the Divine mind. Pagans though they were, and as yet but seeing dimly, they felt that the breath of a Divine Being — ' That pure breath of life, that spirit of man, which God inspired, a 9 Milton says, was the life of their establishments. It is of this that Cicero speaks when he writes of that gre;\t Elemental law, at the back of all human ordinances, that eternal principle which governs the entire univeise, wisely commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong, and which he calls the mind of God. . . . Right through the ages we find this universal sense of Divine inspiration — this feeling, that a wisdom beyond that of man shapes the destinies of states ; that the institutions of men are but the imperfect instruments of a Divine and beneficent energy, helping their higher aims. Should we not, sir, grant the prayers of the many petitions that ha\e been presented to us, by recognising at the opening of our great future our dependence upon God — should we not fix in our Constitution the elements of reverence and strength, by expressing our share of the universal sense, that a Divine idea animates all our higher objects, and that the guiding hand of Providence leads our wanderings towards the dawn ? ... It was from a consciousness of the moral anarchy of the world's unguided course, that all races of man saw in their various gradations of light the vision of an Eternal Justice behind the veil of things, whose intimations kept down the rebellious hearts of earth's children. It was this that made them Consecrate their national purposes to God ; that their hands might grow strong and their minds be illumined by the grace of that power divine through which alone, as Plato says, the poet sings :

THE RECOGNITION OF GOD IN THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

V ' We give like children, and the Almighty plan Controls the forward children of weak man.' Under a sense of this great truth, expressed some thousand yeara ago, I ask you to grant the prayer of these petitions ; to grant it in a hope, that the justice we wish to execute may he rendered certain in our work, and our union abiding and fruitful by the blessing of the Supreme Being." Notwithstanding this eloquent appeal the proposal was rejected, 11 of the delegates voting in its favour and Yt against. The question is not yet finally disposed of as the Commonwealth Bill has to be (submitted to the various Parliaments and any amendments proposed by them will be again considered by the Convention. There is still a bare possibility, therefore, that tho foolish and altogether reprehensible decision of the Convention may be reversed. Already a number of petitions in opposition to that decision have been presented to the various Parliaments, and it is satisfactory to note that tho Catholics everywhere are taking a hading part in the movement to secure for the new Commonwealth the recognition and blessing of Almighty God.

TITLES FOR COLONIAL BISHOPS.

The following somewhat puzzling statement appears in the Christchurch Press of the 4th inst: — '"We pointed out some time ago that the Premier had drawn up an Order of Precedence, and that he had recommended that Anglican Bishops should have some position that was not accorded to other clergymen. The telegram published in our columns on Saturday shows that the recommendations of Mr. Seddon have had some effect. Mr. Chamberlain has agreed to address the colonial Bishops of the Anglican Church as if they had some lordship over the cities wherever they reside." Our contemporary then proceeds to discuss the whole question of precedency, and concludes by strongly condemning the action of the Preoiier who, in a country calling itself a democracy, could thus recommend the officers of one church for a distinction which is denied to similar officers in other churches. It appears to us that our contemporary has made a great deal more of this matter than there is any ground for doing. The cablegram referred to is at all events sufficiently harmless, and discloses no huch state of things as is suggested by our contemporary. It is as follows : — ■' Mr. Chamberlain, as a matter of courtasy, has expressed his willingness to address the colonial prelates by tho colon'al titles conferred on them." There is here no question of formal precedency, it is a mere matter of courtesy in addrev>mjf colonial prelates, and there is no limitation of the courtesy to bish >ps of th •{ Church. There may, of couive, be more than appears in the cablegram but we see no reason to iibsume that there is The Pits.* states that according to the bebt authorities a bishop in a colony, who i-. not a govern ment officer, is only entitled to be addressed as '• Right Reverend Sir."' As far as we can see Mr. Chamberlain's new concession ainjuius t) this : That if the colonial government agrees, for example, to address colonial bishops as "My Lord " or ''Your Lordship " the Imperial Government will be prepared to do the ba.ne. If Mr. Seddon had indeed sejured Mr. Chamber lain's recognition of a new order of precedency in which priority was given, in democratic New Zealand, to Anglican bishops, his action could not b? too strongly condemned. We are sure, however, that Mr. Seddon is the last man in the world who would be likely to be guilty of such a blunder. Touching the que&tion of precedency, a correspondent sends Us a recent copy of the Loiidoni2)j%j.l/ai/, in which, in a list of chur jhjadrerti c aents Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Methodist and Pre-byterian services are announced in the order named, and finally at the bottom of the list under the heading "Various," a Catholic service is announced in company with a Theistio Church and a Unitarian Church service. It looks decidedly odd at first sight but our correspondent would be wrong in supposing that it was meant as an intentional slight on the Catholic Church. The printer's order of precedence is based, not on theology but on pounds, shillings and pence. The other bodies had sent in a large number of announcements, the Catholic Church only one, and that was quite sufficient from the printer's point of view to give the other bodies an undoubted title to priority. That the Daily Mail is not by any means a bigoted or intolerant paper may be seen from the following

kindly reference which it made to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster on the recent 65th anniversary of his birth :—": — " There are many archbishop?, but only one Cardinal Archbishop in England, and the distinction is one that even in a worldly sense compensates for the loss of other privileges denied to a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic. Cardinal Vaughan, handsomest of clerics, is sixty-five, active and untiring in his work, extraordinarily popular with his flock, and not a little popular with his heretical fellow-countrymen. At many a public dinner the red biretta and cloak of his Eminence adds a picturesque note of colour, and signifies the burying of old bigotries. The Cardinal is so gracious and amiable that, in spite of his militant Roman Catholicism he cannot make an enemy. . . . His Eminence is the oldest of a large family of sons, each of whomi except the youngest, has given up in turn the family estates to his next brother, and entered a Church in which, in England at least, poverty is one of the accompaniments of Orders. The Vaughans are an old Welsh Roman Catholic stock, and have a fine place near Boss. They are all of them able men, good speakers, and indefatigable workers, and all have the art of carrying through difficult and arduous undertak'ngs. The Cardinal has now, in addition to his ordinary work the task of building his new cathedral to occupy him."

PUESBYTEBIAN UKION IX NEW ZEALAND.

The great wave of feeling in favour of reunion which, is sweeping over the whole of the religious world has made itself felt among the members of the Presbyterian body and a determined effort is being made to bring about a fusion of the Presbyterian Churches in the Colony. Our readers may not be aware that there are two distinct Presbyterian (Jhurches in New Zealand, viz., the 1 Church of Otago and Southland, and what is called the Northern ! Church, the former embracing the two provinces named and the j latter extending over all the other provinces of New Zealand. Though distinct as to their legal status, the two Churches are practically identical in matters of doctrine, the only difference being a slight variance on the question of the lawfulness of mar. liage with a deceased wife's sister. As both Churches have adopted Declaratory Act which allows to ministers the widest possible latitude in the interpretation of the Presbyterian creeds it seems hardly necessary to hesitate at a trifle like that. They have already swallowed the camel and there should be no need to strain at the deceased wife's sister. A more serious hindrance to reunion has been the financial question. The Southern Church has numerous and valuable endowments which the Northern Church has not. and the difficulty of arriving at a satisfactory financial basis of reunion is what has really kept the matter in abeyance for many years. However, even this obstacle had been surmounted and a financial arrangement had been proposed which commended itself to a majority in both churches, when a small but energetic minority of ■' auld lichts'' threaten to upset the whole affair. They take their stand on the constitution of the Church and seem determined to fight the matter out to the bitter end. They have formed themselves into an antiunion committee and have taken legal advice on the matter \\ ith the encouraging result that the lawyers assure them that the Church has absolutely no power to alter the constitution and trample on their rights in the way proposed. Mr. Chapman says: — "The Church has no power, still less has its Synod the power, by a majority however la ge, to altor its constitution in the face of a protesting minority, whether large or small. The right of the minority, however small, to stand upon the constitution as formulated by the founders despite the desire of the majority to alter that constitution or modify the doctrines settled by it, is one of the mobt clearly-defined rights in our law." It is somewhat disappointing from the point of view of an amused outsider to find that the remedies of the minority are mostly of a passive character. "In the event of union on the proposed basis being resolved on by a majority," continues Mr. Chapman, " the remedies of the minority are of a passive character, as the courts will not entertain questions of doctrine apart from rights of property, though they will freely entertain suoh questions as relate to mixed spiritual andtemporal matters. The remedies, however, are : (a) Generally to ignore th 6 resolution and the basis of union as ultra vires of the Synod and incapable of being enforced. (7>) To that all ministers coming into incumbencies conform to the law as expressed in the procedure relating to induction, (r) To oppose legislation designed to alter the constitution and doctrines of the Church and to force such altered doctrines upon the Churoh." It appears that the union party will h&\a no other alternative but to appeal to the Legislature, and that the result of such an appeal is to say the least of it problematical. "It will be clear from the foregoing," says Mr. W. C. Macgregor, who had also been appealed to. ■' that, in my opinion, by legislative action alone can any effective step be taken in the direction of union, In other words, it will be essential that the section of the Church desirous of union Bhould apply to Parliament direct on the subject. What the result of that application may be it is impossible to predict, especially in view of the fact that opposition to the proposed legislation ii certain to be strenuous. One thin?,

however, is clear, and that is the extreme danger of bringing under the notice of a Parliament notoriously not prejudiced in favour of ecclesiastical endowments the fact that two large sections of a wealthy church are compelled to appeal to the Legislature to settle the ultimate destination of their church property. In the result it may be that the property in dispute may be appropriated by Parliament in a direction not contemplated or desired either by unionist or non-unionists." These are ominous words indeed, but Scotch Presbyterian ministers are not the men to be frightened by mere words, even from a lawyer, and they may ba relied upon to stand to their guns and bring the matter to an issue one way or th other. A pitched battle therefore, between the two parties, with all its attendant entertainment for outsiders, may be safely anticipated. The Presbyterians may ultimately succeed in getting union, indeed, but it will be after the manner of the new minister who declared that he was determined to have peace among his people if he had to fight the whole village for it.

A REFORMED MEDIUM ON SPIRITUALISM.

We have not heard much about spiritualism in New Zealand for some time, and there is reason to believe that if not in actual numbers, at least in active influence, it has of late years undergone a steady decline. Perhaps New Zealand spiritualism has never fully recovered from the depressing effect of the exposure, which took place a few years ago in Wellington, of a well-known " materialising " medium. He had been specially imported from the other side as being able to produce real and genuine materialisations, and he was doing very well indeed out of the business, when an unsympathetic body of police made a raid on the premises while a stance was being held, and carried away all the medium's belongings. A subsequent examination in court elicited the fact that Mr. Hackett's beautiful materialisations of the dear departed were produced by a judicious combination of phosphorus and gauze. But though spiritualism at present languishes in New Zealand it is making head-way in some other countries, and notably in the United States, where it is said that the spiritualists now number between nine and ten millions. A prominent Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev. W. H. Claget, president of the Board of Trustees of the Texas Presbyterian University, who was at one time a spiritualistic medium, has been recently giving the public the results of bis experience, and his utterances are marked by the customary American outspokenness. Shortly expressed, his view is that spiritualism is a fraud, two-thirds of it being devil at second-hand, and the rest of it devil at first-hand. "Fortunately, or unfortunately," he said, " it has been my lot to see a great deal of spiritualigm. I was a firm believer in it for years, often acting as a medium in private seances. I believe there is such a thing as communication between men and spirits. I believe that there are real spirits connected with modern spiritualism. A great many people have wondered at the power of spiritualism to mislead intelligent people. It appeals to one of the strongest feelings in the human heart — our love for the dead. Where are these loved ones ? Do they still exist ? What is the nature of that existence ? To the man who rejects the Bible no answer comes to these questions. All is dark, and as the soul tries to penetrate the gloom it cries out, with the most intense longing, ' Where are you 1 ' Satan, in the form of spiritualism, offers to bring the loved one back again so that we can hear his voice and actually see his face. Then, again, spiritualism comes to us as a new religion. It proposes to be a system of religious philosophy. It undertakes to solve the question : 'If a man die shall be live again ? ' By attacking the soul in this subtle and plausible manner it is not strange that Satan, in the form of spiritualism, hads many astray." Dr. Clagett declared that there was not a single thing in common between the communications of the angels and the manifestations of spiritualists, pointing out that the angels were never required to sit in a circle, nor turn down the | lights, nor have singing at their communications. He further characterised spiritualism as alike silly and degrading. "To think," he said, " of a wife or mother, even if she could communicate with us on earth, going to a woman whom she never knew, and with whom she would not have associated if she had, and telling her the most sacred things — the idea is degrading and a dishonour ! Spiritualism is a fraud, two-thirds of it being devil at second-hand, and the rest of it devil at first-hand." This is pretty severe, but we believe it to be the truth. Even if it be admitted that communication with disembodied spirits is possible, spiritualism has never been able to prove the identity of these spirits with spirits known in the flesh. And even if that identity could be established it would yet remain to be proved that spiritualietio communications were on bhat account a trustworthy source of religious knowledge. To us it has always been matter for surprise and wonder that otherwise sensible people should be found willing to sit together for hours, week after week, waiting for a communication which, when it comes, neither adds to their Bum of knowledge nor throws a single new ray of light on any of the problems and difficulties which beset mankind.

THE TRACT NUISANCE AGAIN.

A correspondent draws attention in another ' column to the apparently perennial tract nuisance. It appears that Mb little girl "was returning 1 from church by train on Saturday and happened to leave her prayer book in the carriage. It was sent to ita destination all right but it was found on opening 1 it that a typical specimen of the tract pedlar's wares had been placed within its pages. This " gem," as our correspondent calls it, professes to deal with the subject of prayer, and contains a covert attack on the whole devotional system of the Church. It ifone of those puerile productions that have done so much to make tract literature nauseous even to the majority of Protestants. We have no hope that anything we could say would be likely to induce the trsyst pedlar to mend his foolish ways. The pedlar, like the poor, will be always with us. Nor would we object very much to his ministrations if they were confined to grown-up people. Our people, for the most part, are quite able to defend themselves and their faith in fair argument, and if argument is useless they can fall back on the apostolic injunction and do their best to '■ suffer fools gladly." But with children the case is different, and to attempt to take advantage of their helplessness and simplicity is both mean and cowardly. We can only endorse our correspondent's caution, and advise parentß, especially those who have children travelling regularly by train, to keep a careful watch over their children's reading. If these tract distributors had any manly feeling or sense of honour at all such a caution would never be needed, but experience has shown only too clearly how foolish it would be to rely on their possession of either of those qualities.

ODDS AND ENDS.

Professor Harnack who enjoyß the highest authority in Germany as a Protestant divine, in a recent address delivered before a coterie of his co-religionists gives expression to the fact that Protestantism in the Fatherland is tending towards what he calls Catholicism. "The old, narrow, doctrinal form of Protestantism," he says, "is disappearing ; the old relation, between theology and Church no longer exists, the ancient system of religious instruction has proved Insufficient, there is a tendency towards extending, remodelling, organising, while the clear conception of the fundamental condition of Protestantism is vanishing." The learned Professor very seriously warns his countrymen and co-religionists against this movement. Such a development and organization of German Protestantism, would, he thinks, lead to a weak and ineffectual species of Catholicism, having none of the safe-guards and advantages of Roman Catholicism. "Roman Catholicism" says Harnack, "has the Pope, it has the saints and the monks, (the italics are Harnack 1 !?). These we cannot obtain. The monastic tendency towards the formation of saints, the self-sacrifice, contempt of the world and devotions in the Catholic Church form a mighty barrier and corrective against worldlincss and formalism which we do not possess. In the papacy on the other hand, lies the power of adaptation to circumstances, personal authority as against the authority of the letter, the firm conviction that the Church of God in the highest instance is not to be governed by a tradition, but by living men guided by the spirit of God. But Protestantism, if it should continue to develop on the lines of Catholicism, could not reach these ideals for they are excluded from its first principles." The only logical advice for Professor Harnack to give his Protestant fellow countrymen would be to submit to the Pope and the " menks and the saints " would soon be forthcoming from the now sterile soil of German Protestantism. Strange, that an historian and divine of such broad and liberal views should shrink from this conclusion. But stranger still that a rationalist, to whom Christ is a merely human being and the Christian religion is merely human work, should be so eager to preserve in the Fatherland the rigid forms of Lutheranism and be so shy of the slightest symptom of Catholicism.

Mr. Lipton, who recently made the magnificent donation of ;£25,000 to the Princess of Wales' Poor Dinner Fund, is an Irishman, hailing from the County Monaghan. He was born about four miles from Clones in that county, and after many vicissitudes commenced business in Glasgow some twenty years ago as a provision merchant. In the comparatively brief space of time which has since elapsed he has built up his present enormous business, which is now known all over the world. Mr. Lipton is a Home Ruler, but takes no active part in politics. His subscription, however, is always forthcoming when required, and indeed there is no good case whatever that appeals to him in vain. He is unmarried, and lives at present at Sandgate. He has travelled all over the world in connection with his business, and haß just returned from a trip to Ceylon, where he entertained the Marquess and Marchioness of Breadalbane. Mr. Lipton is a tall, thin man with a pleasant face and very charming manners. He has made his huge inoome by his marvellous organising capacity, his great industry, and application to business. He is practically a teetotaler. Singular to say it is generally believed that since the death of his father and mother, he himself has no

relative left, so that if he were to die inteßtate his huge property might very easily revert to the Crown. He has, however, it is to be hoped, a long life before him, as he is a comparatively young man. Some time ago he had a very narrow escape owing to the result of an operation which was not at all successful. For some time his life was in critical danger, and on one or two occasions it is said his servants were called in fco see him breathe his last. He has now, however, entirely recovered, and is devoting himself with renewed energy to his great undertakings. Mr. Lipton has been constantly pressed for many years to convert his business into a limited liability company, but he has steadily refused all offers to this purpose. He is a great believer in advertising, and his ingenious advertisements in the early days contributed greatly to his success.

A letter from M. Loon Harmel has just appeared in the France Libre, a journal published in Lyons in the interests of Christian democracy, in which the writer plainly expresses the conviction that the future is with it. He places all his hopes for the reign of justice and solidarity in the action of a democracy permeated with the Christian spirit which will, by a recognition of mutual rights, bridge over the chasm that sunders the strong from the weak. He spoke of rights before duties because it was from rights that duties sprang. If the father of a family had no rights over his children he would have no duties. The very reason of the depression of the French people was that citizens were no longer taught their rights. Fathers would never have tolerated the monstrous laws which robbed them of all say in the education of their children if they had only known the imprescriptible rights which belonged to them. The same cause lay at the root of the law of divorce that disgraced the home and the law that deprived those dying in hospitals and on the field of battle of the last consolations of religion. Individual rights were often the safeguard of the respect due to the rights of God and the family, and so they were trodden under foot by the Government of France which was made up of Jews and Freemasons. Boys should be taught at school that when they were men they would have the inalienable right of honouring and serving God and of driving away the enemy who tried to insinuate himself within the home. Such rights were also God's, a part of man's dignity and freedom, which should not be allowed to be violated even at the sacrifice of life itself. Such language seemed strange at the present day, yet it was the voice of Christianity that had steeled the martyrs. There was no longer such a thing as fierce hatred of wrong, and so there was no love of right. Injustice stalked boldly through | Parliament, and abroad over the nation, without raising anything moro formidable than a mere empty parade of indignation. The victims of the Panama scandals were ready to be the defenders of the thieves. Whence came such degrading cowardice but from men's ignorance of their rights, which carried with it the betrayal of duty. Every struggle was denounced as a revolt. If it were not for the Christian democracy, which, echoing 1 the voice of Leo XIII., claimed justice for the lowly and the oppressed, the last day would have dawned on the nation.

The scientific spirit, for better or worse, has invaded even polemics. Father Herbert Thurston. S.J., has laboured conscientiously through forty-nine volumes of the mammoth Dictionary of Xational Biography for the purpose of comparing the men who entered the Church between the years 1000 and 1800 with those who embraced Anglicanism during the same period. No name appears in the Dictionaiy, of course, which has not attained to a certain degree of celebrity — a fact which makes the test all the more interesting and conclusiva. The result is that of the 178 notable men who changed their religion during that period, 106 are set down as sincere converts to Catholicism, only 22 being classified as " outwardly respectable converts to Anglicanism." It is to be remembered, too, that whatever inducement there might have been to tempt men to adopt the Anglican form of belief, there was none to tempt them into the Church. In accepting Catholicity they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. And it is a notable fact that "among the handful of outwardly respectable converts to Anglicanism there is an absolute dearth of men who seem to have impressed their contemporaries by their singleness of purpose or by any remarkable degree of personal holiness.."

A writer in the (Anglican) Church lirrieic says : " A correspondent in Rome assures me that it is perfectly true that dispensations for non-fasting communion can be purchased in Rome. It is said that the Pope alone can dispense, and he requires a certificate from the applicant's bishop to the effect that ill-health requires the privilege being granted. Rightly or wrongly, I have heard of Anglican priests sanctioning a little food to great invalids before communion, but I never heard of their making any charge for this." The above paragraph (says the London Tablet*), is a curious mixture of truth and untruth. Dispensations for non-fasting communion are sometimes granted by the Holy See in cases of sickness, and when the privilege is recommended by the applicant's own

bishop. But the dispensation does not extend, as the above paragraph would seem to imply, " to a little food " but only to liquid nourishment. There are cases in which there is not that danger of death which would justify a priest in administering the Viaticum, but in which the sick person is unable to receive communion while fasting. In such circumstances, though a bishop cannot himself grant a dispensation allowing the sick person to take some liquid before receiving communion, he may refer the case to Rome. To §ay that such dispensations can be purchased is, of course, absurd. It would ba as reasonable to Bay that the Church of England sells the sacraments of baptism or matrimony because fees are charged for marriage lines and baptismal certificates. When the dispensations in question are granted through a congregation other than Propaganda, a small fee has to be paid. Applications for dispensations come froja all parts of the world and involve certain expenses which have to be defrayed somehow. Suoh things as offices, attendance, postage, stationery, light and fuel cost money in Home as elsewhere, and in the case of these congregations such necessary expenses are met by charging certain fixed fees — just as in England marriage or baptismal certificates are paid for. We may add, however, that this question of fees in Rome is not of much practical Importance to English Catholics. In the oase of missionary countries all dispensations can be obtained through Propaganda without kdj charge whatever.