Converts to the Church

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 5, 4 February 1904, Page 30

Converts to the Church

In one of it> recent issues the London ' Daily Nev s' lefeis to the comorsion ot the Anglican Vicar of St Martins, Brighton (England), the Rev Mr Hardy Little lie is a hi other ol the famous Anglican oratoi, Canon Kno\ Little, and although not the first member of the family to join the Church, his ' going over 1o Rome ' caused a bit of a stir in Anglican circles We refer to the matter here in order to remene a misconception that tl.c ' I)ail\ New s ' was under in connection with converts tr< net ailv Referring to Air Little's con-■\cr<-ion, it sa\ s tl'at lie, ' like most modern per\eits to Romani-m is uiihont academic distinction' The names of Luke Rnington and Basil Alatunn, to take two at

random, sufficiently controvert the ill-natured calumny The Cowley Fathers, many of whom have joined the Church, are not (says the ' Glasgow Observer ') quite the noodles of 'Varsity life. The ' Daily News ' was sharply brought to book for its statement, as may be seen from the paragraph appended :—: — ' A member of the Benedictine Order writes to us' from Magdalen College, Oxford, to point out that Mr. Arthur Hutton (whom the ' Daily News ' mentioned) is not the only Oxford first-class man who has become a Roman Catholic during the past thirty years. He cites two names, those of the Rev. H. H Ramsay, of Exeter College, now headmaster of Downside, near Bath, who obtained a first-class in the final school's in 1885 , and the Rev. Henry Chapman, of Christ Church, now Prior of Erdington Abbey, Birmingham, who gained the same distinction in 1887. These names, says our correspondent, do not stand alone. We regret the inaccuracy which he points out.' The censor to whose correction the ' Daily News ' so humbly submitted was Father Hunter Blair, 0.5.8. Of Father Hunter Blair the ' Daily News ' gives some interesting particulars .— 1 The foregoing correction is supplied to us by the Rev. Sir David Hunter Blair, 0.5.8., a Catholic priest and monk of the Order of St. Benedict, among whose writings are a volume on ' The Rule of Our Most Holy Father St Benedict ' and a ' History of the Catholic Church in Scotland ' (translated from the German of Canon Bellesheim). Sir David was at one time an officer in the Prince Regent's Royal Ayrshire Militia, lie was a Private Chamberlain of the Sword and Cloak to the two' immediate predecessors of the present Pope. He entered the Benedictine Order in 1878, and was ordained a priest in 1886. He was for some time Rector of the Abbey School, Fort Augustus, N.B. In! 1896 he was sent on a special mission to Brazil, and in 1899 was licensed as Master of the Hall bearing his own name in Oxford. He is undoubtedly in a position! to correct us on the point to which he draws attention.' And on many others '