Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 34, 22 August 1901, Page 18

Notes

A Wanganui Lecture. We have received the first published instalment of a lecture delivered reoeutly in Wangauui by Mr. Joynt, M.A., ou the middle ages. When the remainder of the production is before ub we shall have a few brief words to say regarding that much-misunderstood and much-maligned period of Christian history.

Lucky for Him. A Bign of the weakening of Christian principles and of retrogression towards pagan ideals outside the Catholic Churoh was furnished by the Colorado State Medical Association deliberately and in all seriousness discussing the advisability of putting imbecile children to death. The report went ou to say that, if the suggestion be adopted, a petition will be presented to the Legislature with the view of making this brutal practice a law. A Denver doctor has, within the past few weeks, also advocated the slaughter of imbecile innocents. Which leads the Boston Pilot to remark : 1 Lucky for him that the custom did not prevail when he was a youngster !'

Wealthy, but not Happy. Wealth and happiness are not necessarily yoke-fellows. In M.A.P. of June 29, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., sayß of one of America's greatest and most generous millionaires : • In spite of a happy marriage, Andrew Carnegie is not a happy man. I remember as we drove down to the station on his four-in-hand coach, I was Baying how I envied him his wealth, and he said : " I am not really to be envied. How can my wealth help me ? lam sixty years old and I cannot digest. I would give you all my millions if you could give me your youth and health." And then I shall never forget his next remark. We had driven on some yards in silence when he suddenly turned, and in a hushed voice, speaking with a bitterness and depth of feeling quite indescribable, he said : •If I could make Faust's bargain, I would ; I'd gladly sell anything to have half my life over again." And I saw his hands clench as he spoke.'

•A Little Fun.' 1 A famous Jesuit missionary (says an American exchange) had just concluded a successful mission, and was walking up and down the platform of a European railway station, awaiting the arrival of a train to convey him home On the same platform stood several well-dressed atheists, intently observing him, and among themselves exchanging derisive remarks about him. " Wait one moment," said one of them, "we will have a little fun out of him ; I will give him a nut to crack." Courteously approaching the Jesuit, he bowed and said : " Pardon me, reverend sir, I have always heard that the Jesuits are very knowing men. Therefore, lam so bold as to ask you if you can tell me why it is that my head of hair is yet all black, whilst my beard, as you see, is white." Nowise disconcerted ( the Jesuit answered in all courtesy, but in a tone of voice easily heard by all on the platform : " The reason, sir, is self-evident ; in your life time you have ezeroised your mouth more than your brains." The laughter of the waiting passengers was not suppressed, and happily for the oreßt-fallen atheist, the train just then came along.'

Christian Science. Some years ago, when the Christian soience craze was getting well floated, an American writer said of it : ' Christian science, sooalled, recently reminded a clever leoturer of the definition applied to a crab by a coterie of Frenchmen. It was a fish, they said, of red color, and walked backward. But when an old scientist wan called in he remarked that this definition was a good one, bnt needed a little modification. For, in the first place, a crab was not a fish ; in the Becond place, the color was not red ; and, in the third place, it did not walk backward. And so the term Christian Scienoe, as applied to the " ism " of that name, needs modification. It is not Christian, and it is not science.' Which reminds us of what a wit said some time ago of Christian Scienoe. 'It is like a guinea pig, 1 said he, 'because a guinea-pig does not come from Guinea and is not a pig.'

A week or two we dealt with some of the vagaries of those strange psychological freaks— Dowie and Mrs. Eddy—who, claiming the most extravagantly miraoulous powers, have oontrived to become millionaires by securing the ardent belief of tens of thousands of well-meaning gobemonohes. Madame Eddy's followers are progressing apace, and we should not be surprised to see the craze break out, in the near future, in New Zealand. The Eddyites undertake— of course for a consideration — to cure all manner of disease by either ' present ' or ' absent treatment.' The records of the oriminal courts show they are not exaotly prize-winnere in the matter of oures. An American contemporary tells the following story of the effects of the ' absent treatment ' : ' Out in Ohio an earnest advocate of Christian Science noticed a very lame man passing her house and determined to effect a cure through absent treatment. After several days of prayer, Bhe was delighted one morning to see that his limp had almost entirely disappeared. That evening she accosted him as he approached and joyfully related what she had done for him. 4 " Yes, ma'am," said he, " it has been very very bad lately, but yesterday I had it fixed. You see, ma'am, it's a wooden one." ' The New York Freeman's Journal ' gets off ' the following : 1 A leading Chicago Christian Scientist had a sick horse, and he determined to cure him by an application of Christian science doctrines. He knew Christian-scientifically that the horse was only sick "in his mind,' beoause nothing that has a mind can be sick outside of it. All that was needed was to draw the hallucination out of the mind of the horse and he would be sound in wind and limb. To this end the horse was left alone in his stable — where his meditations would not be disturbed — and the Christian scienoe gospel, that is, a copy of Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health, was placed in the hayrack in front of him and he was told to concentrate his mind on the idea that sickness is only a myth. The horse's opinion of the new scientific treatment can only be inferred from the fact that after a prolonged meditation and one-horse power concentration of his mind he lay down and died. The faith -cure might work on automobiles.'