Corrent Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 35, 1 September 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

Police Recruits The success achieved by grocers in securing seats in the Victorian State Parliament has been accounted far by their skill in handling soft-soap. Some statistical genius may, in a somewhat similar manner, find a common denominator for the various occupations folio ved by tine 43 candidates for the police force who were taken on in New Zealand last year. Of the total number, 18 were laborers 1 , 4 farmers, 2 shoremen, 2 clenks. 2 ''blackjsmit'hs, while the following occupations furnished owe each : brickmakcr, enginedriver, drover, platelayer, carpenter, bookseller and stationer, bakejr, prison warmer, asylum warder, shop-assisant, storekeeper, contractor, miner, photographer, and bridgeman. • Move on !' A heavy blow on the epigastrium, or pit of the stomach, is sufficient to double a human being into a bow-knot— and all on account of the twin bunches of feaarfully ' live ' and branchihg nerves that have their centre there. Last week Mr. Scridon smote the Biblc-in-sch'ools clergy in their collective epigastrium, or \enderest part, when he hurled at them the dtead reminder that they ' have had opportunities for years and have failed to embrace them.' ' A great effort,' he added. •is being 1 made now to get some one else to do it, 1 .and thlis enable the clerical agitators to spend in political wire-pulling or in guilty idleness and ease the precious hofurs that ought to be devoted to instructing the cihil. dren of their various faiths in Christian principles. Here and there throughout the Colony— in Dunedin, Nelson, Waimate, and other places— quiet and earnest workers of various Reformed creeds are showing Ihe li. cehsed and noisy idlers of the Bible-in-schools League how rnucft can be effected in the matter of child-instruc-tion by a little personal effort and self-sacrifice. One of those earnest men is the Rev. C. T. Bush, a North Island Presbyterian clergyman. In last week's ' Outlook ' (August 27), he gives the following practical demonstration to a Bible-in-schools confrere who ' has not time ' :—: — ' The district I live and work in is some 77 miles inland from Wanganui and has no railway communication, and is, in other ways, a difficult one to work ; yet I conduct Bible lessons in the various State schools in this district. The scheme has been adopted, I believe, in Oamaru, and a somewhat similar one pertains to Waimate, though of these I cannot speak fr)pm personal

knowledge. If my friend who writes the letter nas more visiting to do than I have, then he has a very hard district, but the administrations of the sacraments have only an occasional demand upon our time, as also committee work. I think, Sir, the time now 'is Nvhen. the ministry ol the Gospel is being sifted, and those men who are quite willing— nay, glad— to sacrifice even physical ease and comfort for the Gospel's sake will be strengthened and fortified for their work, while those who are not willing will have to " move on."' '

The pretexts advanced by the Bible-in-schools clergy for shirking a fundamental duty of the Christian ministry here referred to, are as many and varied as the excuses of tho ill-manneaed ncighhojs of the man in St. Luke's Gospel who ' made a great supper and invited many.' Tho real and unwholesome cause of their neglect is stated with perfect accuracy and refreshing candor by Ihe Rev. Mr. Bush : they are not prepared ' k> sacrifice physical ease and comfort for the Gospel's sake.' They find political agitation cheaper and more satisfying than importing religious instruction to little children where the lime-light is not shining ; and they desire to pick the public pocket and to get done ty lay State official's duties which Catholics and earnest Protestants perform, as a matter of course, at their own expense. In Victoria In Victoria, despite the convincing answer given at the recent plebiscite by a majority of 26,000 electors, the Bible-ih-schools canTpaigners are still clamoring to have the Protestant Bible and Protestant hymns and prayers taught to the public school ohildren by paid State officials. The Premier (Mr. Bont) has, in consequence, brought forward a draft regulation winch prtopotses that ' the Board of Advice may give permission fof the formation of classes on one or two days in each week for religious instruction. Such classes must, however, be held either from 9.15 to 9.45 a.m., or from 11.4,5 a.m. to 12.15 p.m., or from 1.20 to 1.50 p.m., or from 3.30 to 4 p.m., and in any one school only one of these times shall be observed on any day.' A conscience clause is provided, and it is laid down that ' during the time when religious instruction is given in ?.ny school no secular instruction shall be given to ildren not attending the classes for religious instruction.' To these proposals the Archbishop of Melbourne replies : ' LAb far as the religious instruction proposed to be given before school hours in the morning, or after the school

vVork of the 'day, was concerned, he would offer no objection. On the contrary, he desired that every child in the State should have an opportunity of receiving the fullest amount of religious instruction, provided it were given in such circumstances a s would not be prejudicial to Catholic children. Such instruction should be gi.ven hefore the morning session and after the afternoon session ; but as regarded the proposed instruction at the close of the morning session and before the beginning of the afternoon session of school work, he belie.-cd that, particularly in one-roomed schools, and on wet or Sit 7? fTu ii \ WW ° Uld bC in *o« s »le to carry out that part of the scheme without having children present whoso parents objected to them receiving such >ehgious instruction.' b

A Comment on Kruger Here is (in part) a comment on Oom Paul that may serve to point a moral-it is from the pen of the London correspondent of the < Otago Daily Times ' -< Our great adversary of the war, Paul Kruger, has passed away, and a vast journalistic fusillade has been fired over his grave. It is recognised that he was-must have been-a man of great ability and force of character albeit ignorant and superstitious in a remarkable degree Through sheer negligence and Ministerial ineptitude we blundered into a war with him which very slight foresight and perception and tact would have avoided and we blutodered still worse when in it. But the fact must remain historic that this ignorant, boorish peasant did successfully defy the whole military force of the British Entire for three years before he and his relative handful of farmer-volunteers were simply crushed by sheer numlbers,, when outnumbered by more tAan five to one '

During the < hoight iv the fightin' ' there was scarcely a newspaper in New Zealand that would have had the courage (or, shall we say, temerity ?) to publish, as the opinion of a member of its staff, the quoted statements given above regarding the < great ability and' force of character ' of Mr. Kruger, the ' Diddering ' of the British Ministry into a war which they could and ought to have avoided, the ' worse blundering ' Ihat marked the campaign, and the remarkable military capacity of the Boer ' farmer-volunteers.' Adverse opinion as to the origin and conduct of the war found full and free expression in the editorial and general columns of British newspapers of the first repute— in fact, in the greater part of the Liberal press of Great Britain. And nobody was scandalised. British and Scottish Protestant pulpits depLored the war antf cried aloud for its discontinuance. Yet nobo-dy was on fire, ouch tolerance was not, however, to be found in the British colonies that lie south of the line. The Liberal Party and the anti-war section of the Protestant clergy (with whom, in this matter, we were in general agreement) were vehemently denounced in angry editorials, as ' pro-Boers ' and ' traitors.' Our Agent-General was fiercely attacked as a ' pro-Boer ' for the high crime of forwarding war news which was then and subsequently admitted to be correct. Leader-writers scoirched and toasted reams of paper with language as hot as moving lava—' worked oft ' under the stress of a fanaticism of suspicion and of political brain-fever which are frequently coincident with serious crises in a protracted war. It was a variant of the ' we-are-betrayed ' mania that followed Sedan and of the ' Prussian spy ' hysteria that seized Paris in the early days of the siege— otaly that it kept its grip om our Jingo press even in the days of rushing victory, when only a huinted remnant of the Boer forces was left in the field. We are pleased to call the Parisians fickle. The only ap/parent difference between them and our Jingoes was

this : that the latter caught fire mote speedily and took longer to burn out than the people of ' the gayest capital.'

Congregational Singing The usual fast-flitting globe-trotter on the vßhine has an eye for little else than the castled crags and The quaint nestling villages and the terraced vineyard^ that add such a charm to what Longfellow calls ' the most beautiful river on this beautiful earth.' For our part, we have many a time and oft found refreshment in the congregational singing that is siuch a feature in Rhineland Catholic life— especially in great garrison towns like Strassburg, where the voices of the soldiers, accustomed to harmonised singing in barrack and on the march, add a massive character and impressivenei&s to the swelling measures of the sacred chant. The Pope's recent Motu Proprio on Sacred Music bids fair to reinteoduce this ancient custom of congregational singing. I* Rome, a good beginning has been made in the Church of S. Marid in Aquiro. On a recent festival (says the Rome correspondent of the New York ' Freeman ') the congregation ' were surprised to receive, eacfr of them— men, women,, and children— a printed card containing, both' in Latin and Italian, the Gloria, Credo, and 'Agnus Dei. They did not understand the meaning of it until they found at the Gloria that here and there among them individuals were singing -this part of t&e Mass according to the Plain Cliant of Siolesmes. Before the Gloria was over they realized that they were all expected to join, but though Romans are not credited with a surplus of bashfulness, especially in church, the hymn was almost over before many of them plucked up courage to begin singing. There was a noted improvement at the Credo, and at the Agnus Dei at least a hundred of the congregation were doing their best to swell the sacred melody. Last Sunday the experiment was repeated with increased success, and the fathers who minister in St. Maria in Aquiro are quite convinced iihat their people will take kindly to congregational singing.' Here is an example well worthy of the flattery of imitation. Orpheus's fabled song *■ drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.' From the days of St. Augustine the Church's sacred chant has drawn tears of charity and contrition fiom many an iron heart.