Stoke Orphanage

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 42, 15 October 1903, Page 1

Stoke Orphanage

We direct, by request, the attention of our readers in the diocese of Dunedin to the circular by the Right Rev. Dr. Verdon Which appears elsewhere in this> issue. It is unnecessary for us to add a word to what his Lordship has urged in favor of the claims of the Stoke Orphanage and Industrial School to the general support of the Catholic body. We may, however, avail ourselves of the opportunity of repeating a little homily and leaving it to our readers of the Dunedin diocese to point the moral for themselves. The story runneth thus. When Jonathan Swift was Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, he once preached in that famed old Cathedral a charity sermon in aid of the poor of the parish. The mordant satirist—himself as sensitive as a barometer—had, later on, the mortilication to hear that his> sermon was, by general consent, voted decidedly too long. A few Sundays later he had occasion to preach another charity sermon in the same place. This gave him his opportunity, and he made his second discourse as brief and pointed as the most fastidious of his hearers could well desire. The sermon ran as> follows :— ♦ " He that hath pity upon thje poor, lendeth to the Lord, and He will repay him." Proverbs, nineteenth chapter, seventeenth verse. Dearly beloved brethren : I am instructed by my text that "he that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth to the Lord, and He will repay him." Now, beloved brethren, if you like the terms and approve the security, down with the dust ! ' The Dean descended from the pulpit. His sermon had struck home,, and a record collection was the result. Our readers may themselves draw the moral that lies on^the surface of this story. But if we may add one by way of 1 rider,' it would be this : that the needs and claims of New Zealand's Catholic orphan boys at Stoke do not require one word more of urging than is contained in the brief circular just issued by the Bishop of Dunedin.