The Catholic World.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 12, 22 July 1898, Page 24

The Catholic World.

AFRICA.— A Tribute to Catholic Mission Work —A German colonial official, Captain Hutter. in a recent number of the Beutsches Colonial blatt, pays his tribute to the beneficent work of our Catholic missioners in Africa. His observations have the merit of being all based on personal experience. He writes : As Lagos is the principal trading centre, so it seems to be the African headquarters of the different missions ; at least to judye by the number of churches, chapels, etc. , missionary activity must here be particularly successful. My manner of expression will suggest a certain want of appreciation for missionary work ; and, as a matter of fact, I cannot help in general acknowledging to this, knowing- that in this I agree with all African travellers. Of course I say 'in general' ; for, as a most important exception — and here again I am in agreement with the most eminent names among African explorers, Wissmann, Emm, and others— l must point in the first place to the efforts of all the Catholic missions, as well as to the Protestant Basel mission. Space does not allow me to go into further details nor does my subject admit of a fuller description of missions. The two missions above mentioned work, in the first place, as civilising agents, and only in the second line as ecclesiastical missions. They invert— and very justly so— the maxim ' ora et labora,' and say labora ' first, and then ' ora ' — a process which, by the bye, would by very appropriate in certain circumstances in Europe, for we are too fond of stopping at the ' ora '—the easier part of tLe maxim. But whoever has seen the other missions— American, Anglican, and the rest, at this so-called ' work ' is disgusted. AMERICA—A New Sect— A Unitarian brotherhood (says the San Francisco Monitor), is the latest religion development The Rev. Vemon Herford. has instituted 'The Order of Christian Faith 1 on the lines of primitive Christianity, and will try to fashion Unitarian belief, it there be any such thing, according to his notions of early monasticism. If Mr. Herford should be led to study the monastic system some good may come to his own soul slightly different from anything he now expects from his experiment. The chances are, however, that like other Protestant brotherhoods this latest will be laughed out of being. ENGLAND —More Signs of the Time— Further proof of the change which has come over the people of England in their attitude towards the Catholic Church was furnished by an outdoor procession which for the first time in 300 years was witnessed in the | ancient city of Becclv s. The spectacle was witnessed by a great multitude and a reverential spirit pervaded the whole of the proceedings. The Tablet speaking of the affair stated :— The behaviour of the large Protestant crowd was all that could be wished, respectful always, and sometimes sympathetic. To-day the praises of Catholics are on every tongue. It is interesting to note that the statue of our lady was escorted through the town by a detachment of Yeomanry Cavalry, consisting of six Loyal Suffolk Hussars, under a Catholic corporal, in uni orm and with drawn swords. ° An 'Accurate ' Scribe. The Daily Telegraph has been sending it-. ' own corre-p >ndent ' to revisit Rome. He bids fair to immortalise himself and the Tdegraph. Having come to the Flavian Ampitheatre, (days the Catholic Times'), he writes :— 'ln the centre of that grassy platform, when Mastai-Feretti was Pope-King, stood a tall black cross, and round its borders were ranged the twelve ' stations' (!) of the Pasbion. at each of which pious tourists were wont devoutly to kneel and pray, thus gaining absolution for past peccadilloes and indulgence for future frailties.' As he was giving absolution at all, he did well to give it on a grand scale— not only for past sins but for to come— and all for praying before 'the twelve stations of the Passion.' He has outdone the gentleman who described the acolytes as entering fropi the sacristy ' bearing crucifers and thurii'ers,' and, indeed, is as'humrrous as the paper which some time ago assured the public that Mr. T. P. O'Connor ' invariably wore a sprig of shillelagh in his button-hole.' ITALY.— The Italian Riots— An Account by a Priest — The Rev. Father Wheatley, of Kidderminster, who was in Milan during the riots, was an eye-witness of an encounter between the military and the police. In the course of an interview with the representative of the Edinburgh Catholic Herald Father Wheatley said : 'As we entered the public gardens I caw several persons standing together. I went up to them, and saw a stake had been driven into the 'ground which was covered with blood. On the ■stake was a wreath of evergreens and flowers, and a card with these words written in pencil : " Please pray for the soul of Ambrose Filuo, who was massacred yesterday." The youth had been shot down with four others on Friday evening. Passing through the gardens we paw a detachment of cavalry waiting to charge. In a moment wo heard a roar, saw the mob rush up the street, and a body of infantry who were also near fired volley after voUeyjA which stemmed the onrush. The air was filled with shrieking™ yelling, and shouting. I said to my brother : '"We're a bit too close to be comfort ible," and started for our hotel. On the same sgot there had been a good deal of rioting. On the way we saw a palace which the mob entered. They cleared out the furniture and valuables, nnd then got on the roof and pelted the soldiers with tiles and bricks. The soldiers were obliged to fire. One man was mortally woutded, and a priest, at the risk of hie life, went up and

Administered the Sacrament to the dying man on the roof. In the street the mob had seized two traincars, which they filled with children, made a barricade of the cars, seized the cushions as a prote'tion to themselves, and then fired at the Boldiers with their The accounts of the rioting, however, according to ther Wheatly. have been greatly exaggerated in the public press. The statements that hundreds have been shot down are absolutely without foundation. INDIA— Work amongst the Brahmins— The Hindu, a pagan journal edited by a high-caste native of India, bears this welcome testimony : The increasing number of conversions to Roman Catholicism from the Brahmin community is being looked upoa by the population of Trichinopoly with considerable alarm. Within the past few months there has sprung up in Trichinopoly quite a colony of educated Brahmin converts to Christianity. The chief hindrance to conversions hitherto lay in the social ostracism that the convert was subject to; but since these converts have grown to form a pretty numerous colony, without apparent loas of social position among themselves, it is feared there may be more frequent conversions in Trichinopoly. BELGIUM-— A Well-Deserved Reward-— The King of the Belgians has awarded the Civic Cross of the first class to Sister Dorothee, of the Convent of the Sistera of Notre Dame at Arlon, in consideration of the services she has rendered to primary institutions during a career of more than forty-five years. A Liberal Opinion-— The-Archbishop of Canterbury, speakat Convocation of a clause of the Benefices Bill with regard to Catholic patronage, siid they allowed a Jew or an atheist or any owner of property to present to a living, and he could not see why Roman Catholics should not be put upon the same footing. The Anglican Bishop of Bristol dissented from this view. ROME— The Pope and the Rioters-— The Vatican correspondent of the London Times makes an important correction regarding the attitude of his Holiness in the recent deplorable trouble in Italy. The correspondent says : — The leading article in the Times of May 28, quotes a Reuter telegram to the effect that the Pope admits in his letter to Cardinal Ferrari that many Catholics take part in disorders because in their devotion to the Church and the Holy See, they pretend not to know that, according to the teaching of the Church, they are wrong. This is a serious mistranslation of the Pope's language. He asserts precisely the opposite. He says that it was to be expected that eloquent facts would have opened the eyes of those who combat the salutary action of the Church and eliminate God from society, now that they can see clearly the results of their work of destruction so systematically pursued. To his regret, he says, far from doing bo, those same pereons take advantage of present circumstances to give vent to the most malicious insinuations, and hold up as responsible for censurable rebellion honest citizens who are thus struck at simply because they are devoted to the Church and to the Apostolic See. Those same persons do not know, or pretend not to know, that rebellion or disorder of this kind is not taught by the Church or fostered by Catholics, and that it is elsewhere that we muse seek for its authors and accomplices. SPAIN.— The Spanish-American War : Help for the Sick and Wounded.— The Countess de Casa Valencia (wife of the ex-Spanish Ambassador), has recently opened a charitable fund in London on behalf of the sick and wounded in connection with the hostilities between America and Spain, and has received over £800. Amongst the donors' names are Count and Countess de Torre Diaz, Countess Heeren, Duchess of Cleveland, Duchess of Somerset,' Blanche Countess of Muyo, Hon. Miss Windsor Clive, Mr. and Mrs. John Bryce. The money has been forwarded to the Queen Regent of Spain. Many sympathetic letters have been received from the donors, which have also been forwarded to the Queen Regent. UGANDA.— Brave Action of an Oratory Boy.— lt is pleasing to learn that the young lieutenant Dugmore, whose brave action with his Nubians in Unyoro is said by Bishop Uanlon, to have caved all the Europeans in Uganda, is a Catholic and an old boy of the Oratory school, Edgbaston. ' The Oratorians would, I am sure,' writes the Bithop in a private message, ' be proud of their brave pupil's conduct.' We are also informed that yet a second Oratory boy has probably by this time arrived in Uganda with our troops. UNITED STATES-— A Dastardly Act-— This incident reported from Alexandria, Va., shows to what extremes enemies will go in their warfare against the Church. On entering the church in

that city some weeks ago a lady detected the strong odour of carbolic acid. As she drew near the holy water fount she found the smell of the deadly drug growing stronger. The pastor was notified and on investigation it was found that a large quantity of the poison had been poured into the holy water and also into the baptismal fount. The fanatic guilty of such an act would not hesitate to blow up the church when full of people, and it is a pity he or she, cannot be found and placed where such rightly belong- in' an insane asylum. ' A Welsh Movement in America.— Welsh- Americans, says the Western Mail, have at last inaugurated a movement to cstab-li-h a Welsh professorship in Marietta College. In this matter they have allowed their fellow Colts, the Irish-Americans, to go ahead of them. A Celtic chair has been already endowed with £10 000 at the Catholic University of Washington by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, though to very few Irish- Americans their native Gaelic is of much use. But surely the Welsh, who were so much to the fore through their Eisteddfod at the last Worlds Fair, Bhould not rest until their language and history find a conspicuous place in the curriculum of a reputable American university.