Religious Pictures Banned.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 26, 27 June 1901, Page 9

Religious Pictures Banned.

Ulster Orangeism has rarely given such an evtfenoe of its intolerance as that recently supplied by the Derry Guardians in refusing to accept a picture of Our Lord to be hung in the Workhouse Infirmary. The picture was an ' Ecce Homo,' and a counterpart of the copy which hung in the death chamber of Queen Victoria and on which the dying monarch is said in her last moments to have frequently turned her gaze. The gift was offered by Mrs. Morris, herself one of the Guardians, and apparently a Protestant. She designed the gift as a memorial of Queen Victoria, and explained how a similar picture had hung in the bedroom of the Queen. But not even that consideration could move the Orange Guardians of Derry. One of them (Mr. Hall) moved ' that no sectarian pictures be brought into this house.' Another (Mr. Shannon) said 'We don't want it here.' Some others less ingenuous 1 objected on principle.' Finally, when the vote was taken only about three of the Protestant Guardians were found willing to support the acceptance of the gift, for which the four Catholics on the Board also voted. Eighteen sturdy Orange Guardians rejected what they called ' the thin end of the wedge,' and so these people who pose as Christians rejected a picture of the thorn-crowned Christ.