Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 8, 23 February 1899, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The Outlook is the organ of the Presbyterian body in New Zealand. The literary quality of its editorial matter, the calmly judicial moderation of its tone, and its practically uniform fairness to the Catholic body, place it on a pinnacle above the many other Protestant publications that see the light in the Australasian colonies. So much in passing. In its last issue there appears a report of an interesting interview with the Victorian Congregationalist leader, Dr. Bevan, on — among other matters — the evergreen education question. From the well-known attitude taken up on the subject by the Congregationalist body in Victoria, it was but^natural to expect that Dr. Bevan should fail tn see how the State, having assumed a practical monopoly of elementary education, can step over or rise out of the deep-worn rut of the system that has come to be known by the triple designation of free, secular, and compulsory. ♦ * Some of Dr. Bevan's views on the question of religious instruction in the schools will scarcely awake a responsive echo in the minds of the members of the Bible-in-Schools League. He frankly regrets the absence of religion from the school-life of the child. Here, said he, is a great range of subjects not only in relation to personal life and character, hut aUo to the religious history and principles which all form a very important part of cur common life. And for children to grow up untaught in these is a very stnous lu'-s to the community. Therefore, I mourn quite as much a 4 * the- Bible Leaguers the absence of any religious instruction. Dr. Bevan would fn\ our voluntary religious instruction in school hours and 'as part of the school-attendance.' He would not oppose the introduction of Bible lessons into the State schools. He thinks, however, in etfect, that the members of the League are engaged in what may be termed rainbow-chasing. liven if they attained their object, the system proposed by the League would never be a very effective religion* education, but it would be looked upon by the Churches as supplying- the religious education which, they ought to supply ; and it would thus become an opiate to the conscience of the Churches. Another ' objection ' to the platform of the League is staled in the following terms :—: — If we satisfy the Protestant conscience in this way, we should have to satisfy the Roman Catholic conscience also. If, therefore, we have Bible readiDg ani Bible lessons in the bchools given by the State. I do not see how we can resist the claims of our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. This has often been said before. It is not often, however, that it is put by a clergyman with such refreshing frankness. Briefly, then, one chief crux ot the situation is just this : the tear that any concession to the Protestant demand may likewise involve an acknowledgment of the Catholic claims in the matter of education. Rather than see Catholics benefit even to the extent of a capitation grant, many of our Protestant fellow-colonists are prepared to abide by the consequences of a system of godless instruction which, in the practically unanimous opinion of their religious leaders, is sure to work spiritual havoc among the rising generation. * * •* One other objection made by Dr. Bevan to the whole State school system, root and branch, is worth quoting :—: — As an educationist I also object to our State school system that it tends to the centralisation and to what may be called the crystallising and mechanising of the system of education. Every child in the State is taught in the same way. This is felt in France by the best educationists there, and it seeuis to be the real blot on our btate school system. It wants Uuidity and variety, it ought to call in a great deal more of voluntary interest on the part of the people than it does. That is, of course, apart from the religious aspect of the question.

DR. BEVAN ON THE STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM

This is undoubtedly a blot upon the State school system. But to Catholics ' the real blot ' must ever be its cruel divorce of adequate religious influences from the school life of the child.

APTER OMDURMAN.

A stormy controversy is surging and beating in the London dailes over Mr. Bennett's article in the Contemporary Review on the butchery of wounded Dervishes on the battlefield of Omdurman. Mr. Bennet Burleigh has taken up the cudgels for the army, and hits about him with a tolerably liberal use of language that is painful and frequent and free. One statement made by Mr. Bennet Burleigh would, if substantiated, do more than all the rest of his correspondence combined to give — in so far — a favourable complexion to incidents which, even despite his explanations and denials, wear a sufficiently black look. It is his statement that 11,000 Dervishes were cared for in hospital after the battle. For the credit of Christian civilisation— which, in the Arab mind, is involved in the events of Omdurman — one naturally clings hard to the hope that Mr. Bennet Burleigh's assertion squares with fact. Thus far, however, his statement is unconfirmed, and Truth's pertinent queries rise to the inquiring mind • — If, of the 25,000 who must have been wounded, 11,000 were treated in hospital, what became of the rest? And what became cf Mr. Burleigfh's 11,000 after they were treated by the doctors/ Surely there would be some official record of these 11,000, and of the tune, labour, and medicine bestowed upon them. Should the rccoid be forthcoming, it will stand as a set-off to the massncie ot wounded which undoubtedly took place after the battle. » T » It seems to be admitted, on practically all hands, says TrutJi, that a vast number of wounded Dervishes were killed, and that, too, by British as well as Egyptian soldiers. The melancholy fact is established by the evidence of the other war-corre-^pondents, and of officers and soldiers who took part in the campaign. The only question that is left to be solved is this: Whether the wounded Dervishes were legitimately shot or bayoneted because the> were still righting, or whether the}' were simply massacred in cold blood ? There probably will be small hesitation in admitting that, in some individual cases — as Mr. Bennett's article declares, —wounded Dervishes were justifiably put to death. The charge is that the slaughter of the wounded went far beyond the utmost limits of military necessity, and degenerated into a mere indiscriminate massacre. * * * The statement made by some English papers that the slaughter ol wounded was ordered by the Sirdar may probably be dismissed. It is, however, significant that the Sirdar admitted the tact of permitting looting by the lower orders in Omdurman, and that, in another matter, he contented himself with denying a charge which nobody ever dreamed of making : namely, that he ordered the killing of women and children. To the charge made against him there is thus far no reply. As illustrating the feeling of the soldiers at Omdurman, Truth of January 12 tells of an interview which Mr. Labouchere had with a British officer — ' a most honourable and kindhearted man ' — who was wounded in the battle. 'He regarded the dervishes as such scoundrels that the killing of them was as justifiable as a massacre of rats. This feeling,' says Mr. Labouchere, ' was no doubt prevalent in a certain measure even in the British forces, but it must have been an article of faith among the Egyptian and black troops.' Truth, the Daily Chronicle, and other English papers, demand a searching investigation by independent men, into the facts of the battle of Omdurman. It is probable that the matter will be ventilated in the House of Commons. As matters stand, the burking of inquiry would itself be a stain upon the British army.

pstunoPROI'HKTs.

And so Old Moore's Almanac still flourishes. The Irish correspondence published elsewhere in this week's issue, coupled with information received from other sources, shows that this year's Old Moore is full to the chin with lurid

prophecies of war, massacre, blood, fire, smoke, and flood. Such things are as hot spices to the palates of the vulgar, and create a demand for the prophet's wares. Many years ago — it was after a dull year — he foretold an unexampled war, with ' mountains of dead, rivers of tears, and oceans ot blood.' But it fell out otherwise. In that particular year the world was as quiet and well-conducted as a hree legged stool. Moore loves to couch his predictions — ' prognostications 'is his term — in words of learned length and thundering sound. It is one of the amiable weaknesses of unshaped minds. Alice, in Wonderland, liked the words ' latitude' and 'longitude' She had no idea what they meant. She used them bf-cnu'-o ' tN'y were nice, grand words to say.' The pedagogue in Vanity Fair, Rev. Lawrence Veal, had a similar weakness. ' lie took care,' says Thackeray, ' to produce the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him use ; rightly judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet as to use a little stingy one. Old Moore is probably the last ot the line of irish hedge-school masters. With them, as with him, a word of four syllables has twico the hittingpower of a word of two. A. M. Sullivan tells of a Bearhaven schoolmaster who was once retained to indite a complaint against a policeman. 'He read out to his awestruck clients,' says Sullivan, ' as the finish of a sentence, "he being supereminertly obnoxious to the people." "Do you hear that," said he, "laying down the pen for a moment, and looking arourd with an air of pride and triumph : " supereminently ! '1 hat one word alone is enough to take the jacket off him ' " ' * * » But to return to our muttons : Old Moore prognosticates by the stars ; l'kewise by the moon. Like the seventeenth century soothsayer, he Knows when she is in fittest mood For cutting corn or lcttirg blood. Like our New Zealand ' futurists ' and 'astro-mathematicians,' he prophesies on his own account, and more with an immediate view to ' siller' than to reputation. Piophctic almanac-makei", were not, however, always lelt to shi\er in the sh idem of official neglect. In the time of the Civil War m Kngland, the Parliamentary party wore the salt of the e.uth m their day. If there was one thing they abominated moie than another it was ' superstition.' However, nevertheless, and likewise notwithstanding, they set gieat store upon almanac-prophecies. They accordingly licensed a man to act as their almanacmaker, astrologer, and bole fortune-teller. I'nhcensed prophets were punished with all the rigour of the 1 i\v. The man selected was the notonous Kushorth. Wi;h him was associated William I. ilK , a noted astrologer of the times. In the almanacs they loutold \ ictf rk s fur the Pai liairent w ith c onMclerable ■/A'n\ and asMt'uiiy. When sieges wc.e in pro^u x>-, the preuous pair were bi ought to the •-pot, as a' l olc'ic^ur, were feaMeii riijht merrily, and, alter,* confirmee willi the mn^'.iN issued their predictions lor the ioailort ol tin: X >und!iead army. But the day came when the autnor lly ol Parhami nt began to sink. 'Ihe power of the aimy increased. The Anadci, iiiubo were worshippers of the Great Jumping Cat, and one fine New Year stoutly prc>phesied that the Parliament ' stood upon a tottering foundation.' Lilly was dragged before a Parliamentary Committee. Ihe offending words were pointed out to him. But the old to\ knew a tuck or two He had had notice of the proceeding 1 -, had the oltendmg sheet reprinted with the obnoxious wordr. left out, produced sundry pocketfuls of the amended almanac, and roundly and indignantly declared that the others were forgeries trumped up b) his enemies with a view to working his ruin. History doei, sometimes repeat itself. A precisely similar ruse was played upon Parliament by the Iri-.li Grand Orange Lodge, when the Society's illegal oaths and te^ts were under the consideration of the House ot Common-, in 1834. But the results were different. Lilly hoodwinked Parliament. The Grand Lodge did not. Its little trick was promptly exposed.

The century of steam and electricity and da/^ling allround enlightenment has, in the matter ot divination, nothing to boast over the dajs ol Nolly C iomwell. nor c\en over those of pagan Rome. In Australasia thousands of ' palmists,' ' mediums/ ' iutuiist^,' and such-iike shady iolk, are living on the crass credulity and superstition that giow out of lost or weakened laith as cancers and tumours do in weakened tissue. They Make fools believe in tlu ir foreseeing Ot tiling's betere they arc in bring 1 , To t>\\ allow uuiJjreoiis ere they're eatehed, .And count thtir chickens ere they're hatched. Lut s-till the best for him that 'ihe beat jjr.ee l'oi'c, or best beluves. There is a wondrous lack of originality in the methods of the frowsy, ungiammatic.il, or halt educ.itid prophetical tricksters that prey upon foolish women and pin-headed youths in all our large cities. A friend forwards to this office a copy of an insane spiritualistic paper published in Melbourne and circulating in New Zealand. ' Crystal balls for developing clairvoyant vision ' are pointed out to me as something new. They

are as old as the hills and are not nearly so useful for producing double vision as their purchasing-price in Jamaica rum would be. Not to travel farther back in history, rounded crystals were used by the Welsh imposter Dee — Queen Elizabeth's salaried astrologer and seer — during his pretended communications with the angels. There are many new things under the sun. But the traternity of prophetic charlatans do not seem to have got hold of them. It is, perhaps, because the old irauds 'get there' by as short a route. This saves waste of brain-power. And among that class of tricksters and their dupes brain-power is at a discount.

THE FEAST Ot A I'ROTEST\NT SAINT.

On the 30th of last month a body of Anglicans assembled to celebrate the 250 th anniversary of the execution of Charles 1. An enthusiastic supporter of the movement describes the unhappy monarch as ' the only canonised English [Anglican] saint since the Reformation.' There is so strong- an aroma of ' Popery ' about the term ' canonisation ' that few of our Anglican friends care to employ it. The life of Charles I. underwent none of the ri^id searching with lamps that in the Catholic Church is a condition of even being declared Venerable or of being beatified, much less canonised. Apart, however, from this he approached as nearly the fact of canonisation as any Anglican is ever likely to. A church was dedicated to the hard-used monarch in Plymouth. It was built in 1657 — only eight years after the masked evecutioner had shortened his inches by the stroke of his heavy axe. Parliament, too, the supreme authority on such matters in the Establishment, passed an Act (12 Car. 11., c. 30), appointing January 30 of each year a day of solemn fasting in memory of the king's murder, and provided a special service for the occasion. According to Lathbury's History of Convocation (p.p. 305 sqq.) two offices for the festival were published in 1661. One of these contained the following petition, with its singularly Catholic allusion to the intercessory power of the martyrs : ' That we may be made worthy to receive benefit by their prayers, which they, in communion with the Church Catholic, offer up to thee for that part of it here militant.' This petition was laid aside and another form published, by Convocation in the following year, 1662. The service was, according to Procter, removed from the Book of Common Prayer by Royal Warrant dated January 17, 1859. Parliament canonised Charleb I. The Crown decanonised him.

\ ( oi.i c c,r i ok ( O\\ h.'.T.S.

Tiik 1 itest of the many-sided activities of the I loly Father furnishes strong evidence of the interest which he takes in the progress of Catholicity in Kngland. He has founded the new Collie of St. Uede in Rome, in connection with the hnghsh College, and endowed it out of the papal treasury with a sum ot mm. To baulk the grinding rapacity of the it.ili.in (io\ eminent, the fund will be administered by the \ichbis.hop of Westminster for the time being. St. Bede's College is intended chiefly for Rnglish clerical converts who desiic to become pne-jts, and to return as missionaries to help in the spread ot the Faith in the fair island that was once known to the Catholic world by the title of the Dowry of Mary. It is pleasant to know that all the vacant places in the new missionary College are filled. The students — except those who have free places — pay a pension of £50 per annum, and attend classes at the Gregorian University. The Rector (who is also Rector of the Knghsh College) receives a modest stipend of about £45 a year.

i.v wcelisivc, THE M .

Tun ' evangelisation ' of C üba is fairly launched. A notorious Methodist clergyman has settled down at Havana to guide the benighted Papist natives of the new American colony in the way that leads to life. It is a mere coincidence that, according to a secular paper, the new evangelist ' has at least nine wives, most of whom died under suspicious circumstances.' To their credit, the Methodist body ha\e peremptorily recalled the budding apostle of Cuba. He, however, sticks to his post, and answers letters of recall by texts of Scripture and pious platitudes. Memo: He is the stuff that so-called 'ex-priests' are made of. He is vastly better than some of them and by no means so bad as the rest. And of such is the new kingdom of heaven. Meanwhile the New York Sun of January 12 gives a far from rosente view ot the state of things brought in by the new ri-oinie. It is from the pen ot the Hon. H. C. C. Astwood, formerly United States Consul to San Domingo, and now missionary of the American Methodist Episcopal Church to Cuba. Profanity and intemperance, Fays he, are the greatest evils that our civilisation is teaching in Cuba. The poor little Cuban boys and girls are being contaminated by the fearful conduct of some of our men. Decent Cubans are horrified and live imprisoned within their homes, leaving their countrymen to be judged by the rabble that mingles with our rabble. Generals Lawton and Wood

are good commanders, but they seem ignorant of the surroundings. The reports coming to them from their staff officers are conflicting and the heavy duties devolving upon them make it impossible for these two competent men to be advised of the real condition of affairs. . * Now,' says the Philadelphia Catholic Standard, 'we know M what direction missionary effort is needed.'