Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 51, 22 December 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

Where Catholics Lead. 1 The Church ot tjhe Future '—of which we ha\e been lately hearing so much in magazine and piulpit essaysis simply the Church that begins by takimg to its heait the children ot tilie present. And, in tihese countiies at least, Catholics have a 'practical monopoly of lhat work. They alone have a just appreciation of the tremendous penis of childhood and jouth and of our lesponsibihties m regard to them Otiher demminuions see this mighty sign ot the times not at all or as a red ant sees the lowering mass of Mount Cook— only in microscopic fragments, one at a time, that qan ?ie\er give an i»dea of the vastness of the outlook. And they have not yet risen to the point ot personal effort and self-sacriiicc for the s;ouls of Christ's little ones In New Zealand a noisy body of the non-Catholic clergy are spraining their jaw-bones in an effort to abdicate their duty ot instructing childrem unto justice, to pass it over t,o State officials, and then sit down and leaf and laze with drugged consciences u\ a lotus-l"; id of drowsy ease 'line Protestant Episcopalian Bisl cp (Ireer, ot New York, had something apt to say on this matter in a recent speetih to a gathering ot nn co re 1 i matter in a recent speech t o a gathering of his co-reli-was,' said he, ' such an appetite for knowledge in the world as now. It is the altar and the shrine to which t|he world Kneels. All t*his is admirable. But we are begunjnuig to discover that intellectualisation of the worlld has been gr.owrng in advance of its morahsatijon. We are coming to feel that knowledge m its secular significance is not sufltcient. We must have moral training, a*vl that training must begin with the Ohild. " The child ls father to the man," and the OhAiroh that lrves a,nd works for the child will contribute most to the greatness of the future anti will itself be tthe greatest Church in Christendom.'

* In the one archdiocese of Melbourne, for instance, fchere are 23,894 children in attendance at Catholic sjchaols. Of these no fewer than 21,714 receive their training in 111 primary schools. The oost of maintaining these amounted, during the past twelve mionths, io £22,450. In addition to this, repairs and otKer contingencies absorbed a ssim of £16169, artd during the same period Ha less than £10,916 was expended on new school buildwugs. Altogether, the clergy and laity of the archdipcese of Melbourne expended, during the past twelve

months, £35,035 on primary education alone, besides paying t/heir full quota of the cost of providing free and secular instruction for the children of others. The same thing is taking place in every part of Australasia. At a public meeting in New South Wales Sir Hejuy Parlces held aloft his draft Bill on (secular) Public Instruction and exclaimed : ' I hold in my hand what will bo death to the calling of the priesthood of the Chfurch of Rome ' Mr. Stephens, the Victorian Attorney-Gen-eral, was equally oiutspoken as to the chief object of liisi giodless system of public instruction : it was to ' reind the Catholics asunder,' to ' purge the Colony of cletr uoal ism,' and to lead the young generation by sure but g,radiuial Nteps to ' worship in common at the shrine of o/ne nqutral-tinted deity s-anctioncd by the Stiate Department ' Tihe Protestant clergy, we are told, ' tiid not lift a 1 little finger ' agawist the new educatiional ppoject when it was before tflie House. They now realise tttviti it has quite failed in its avowed object— tlo ' reiid tlhe ClatihohcK asunder.' The lines of cleaivage ai]e f in poiint of fact, following quite other directions. A,ivd the alarmed .clerics of sundry non-Catholic creejds, seei'ngj ttoe girmrnd opetning beneath the foiiiWdatitoins of ujieir own churches, fill the air with what the ' Allocate ' ajjt/ly dc^enbefe as ' noisy, meanmglesis, an!d ilnsincere clangor,' instead of letting their energy— like th&t of their Catholic fellow-citizens— take the normal path of discharge.

Atheistic Socialism.

Sw,cct aro t?he uses of advertisement. For sipme time a half-educated and crudely amateurish foreign atUieist-slqeialist lecturer has been perambulating 'the chief citica of New Zealand. With characteristic modesty jhe ,'doscri'bes himself as an ' orator.' The stroller's business seems to be to teaoh New Zoalanders — at threepence or sixpence or some such charge per head — how to manage their own aftairs ami to tiitfn this country intio a socialistic Utopia from whioh the Almighty shall be barred out. Thus -far eve;ry attempt at the forn^atioin of socialistic Utopias has ended in rank faillurc. Bj\it let that pass. In Dunedin a series of newspaper controversies gave tiie wandering socialist's lectjurijng venture the advertisement tihat s>eems to hlave been deaiieid him elsewhere. The crowtnMg puff yr&a given to tflie man's pitifully shallow vaporings by Mr. Bedford, M.IT.R., when he publicly debated with the stranger tjhe issiue : 'Is Christianity conducive tlo Or productive of conditions that tend tp secure the fcirofessed objects of socialism, or the development of

mjan ? ' On Mr. Bedford's side (tihe affirmative) the .debate,, if prtofpeirly reported, was slipshod alike in con- v, cqlptioin aju'd execution. As fior the strolling ' orator,' he singly dift not face the issue. His part in the proceedings was apparently limited to a few hollow-sound-ing Ingcrisk)Lliian mi&statements, some of the customary feaJnt of atiheistic ' hunranitariamsni ' (sio-callod)— and the fotaMng of what was probably the biggost collection th>at ho handled bincc he touched the shores of New Zealand.

' Noise proves nothing,' aays Mark Twain ; ' often a hen whidlx has merely laid a)n egg cackles as if sjie ha)d laid an asteroid.' Our foreign visitor has, to use Carlyle's phrase, ' swallowed formulas.' But lie has (not digested them. Neither has he learned that loud and vehement assertion does 'not transmute shallow sophism into sound reasoning nor misstatement into sober fact Nowadays scientific men do not caqkle over JLhq fallacies of Tom Paine nor the sneers of Voltaire nor the crude and barbarous illogicalities and cpntroei)al dislliomestics of Robert Ingersoll. They know too much for Wiat. Once upon a time a conceited and blusteririg 'P^c/nC/li gereral declared, in the presenjee of tihe elder Alexander Duina-s : ' I c-anmot form the 'Slightest cotncciptiiooi of the mysterious Being known as tihe good Gfc»d.' TVie ewemtric author of ' Monte Cn&to ' kjnockad the sneerer inside out with the following unesipoctcul answer \: ''General, I have in my house four dpgs, two apes, and a parrot, and I assure you that tlheir opinions are absolutely ana entirely identical with yours.' Dainuas' remark was by "no means so trivial either then ot now as-, at first blush, it may seem. To-day, as in this time,, t|iere is probably m)uc<h so-called atheism anjd s/neoring at religion that are merely gk in-deep and not grj'oTinded .upon serious s-tudy or investigation of the sdibse)ct. ' All rpa'ds lead to Rome.' So the saying runneth. Amd its counterpart is this : ' All the groat highways of knowledge lead to GtoU.' With unerring certaiaty the st'-udy of all matter, the whole realm of physical science, s.o long as it stands on tihe firm amd bimo griduaild fact, Te'ad back to the One Firs*, Cause, w)hiqh is (JioU. 'No system of the universe,' slays Sir Jpselph Dawsion, in his ' Modern Ideas ol Evolution,' ' can di^nemse with a First Cause, eternal a ltd selfcxislcuit ; >Liwi tins F list Cause must necesis'anly be the li\Sng CJ,'oid, Wliose amII is the ultimate foice and the brigin of natural law. 1 Fana'day was tihe vi/,ard of mjodarn scionce. In his ' Experimental Researches ' (p 40(5) he slums up, m the words of a higher revelation, the revelation which his life-lon|g study of nature made to ihim. ' I behove,' said he, ' that the invisible things of Him from tihe creation of the world are clearly seen,, beirjpg understood by the things that are m\alde, even His eternal power and Godhead.'

Tsetse 'are but samples of testimony taken at raridom from among t;hc foremost of the world's scientific men. There is 'no atheism a'bobt true science. But, of course, ■Micro lare majny who will not see. Nelson, for instopice, bn a historic oCcasiion clapped 'his 'blind eye to ttie telesioope^ anti ' did not see ' the signal which he preferred io disregard. And, fn the comedy trial in ' Pickwiok,' dM niot S|am Weller look straight up into tJlie roof of the ciolurt and, therefore, ' didn't see ' his portly fatiher sitting cons'piicuo'usly in the gallery ? Theie are tjiose whio ' do «ot see ' Go>d fn His universe becajuse He is a Personage whom tiheiy wqul'd willingly ignore. The sihalliow thiirtkeors an<l the vociferous half-eiducatc'd fa/ncy, too, that we are in another ' twilight of the gads.' But three hhmdre|d years ago Sir Francis Bacon clapped the ca(p upon their form of the atheistic £ad. A little learning, said. ,he, lcaJd's t,o atheism ; deep study leads b/ack tto faith.

Mr. Bedford, M.H.R., and the ' Romish' Church. Mr. Bedford, M.H.R., is 'probably a well-meiajni'ng if Somewhat ihespcirienced young man. He may feel t\he

nedd lof ateijng his traditions from time to .time ik> keep the blfue m/auM "off them, but he Would do well to reserve that fiuinction fior the pullpit, and to .pitch in a somewhat lioweir key some 'of thp utterances which he mates frlom t/he public platform to general alidiefrices of 'his fellow-citizen's. It wi a s, for instance, a needless offence to m/a)ny of his hearers in a "public debate on last Fn4ay in Dumetii'n to speak of the ' Romish ' Chmrclh as Ihajvijng ' fought agiai'nsit Christ ' when it opposed Luther. Mac aw lay,, referring to some of the envenomed partisan mytihs set aftaat against English Catholics in the seventeenth century, said : ' They have beeta abamd!oped by statesmen to aldermen, by aldermen to clergymen, by clergymen to old women, a-nd by old women to Sir Haroourt Lees,' Mr. Bedford sihoiilld abandon s<u€ih offensive Uheollogiqal slang as ' Romish ' to fana,tics of the tieap yellow stripe of Sir Harcourt Lees. The word has long ago pasisifld o(ut of respectable society. Its place today is practically limited to tShe gutter controversy of tihe Ordjer of the Saffron Sasih, 'and in using it Mr. Bedford cPajps inpion himself a stigma of ill-nxafolners which no cultivated man should care to bear.

En tjhe colurse of the 1 'debate Mr. Bedfond was sitnguV^rly ijinba'pfpy in his references to Luther and the ' Ilomispa ' Church. Take, for instance, his statement that Christianity overthrew slavery. Quite true. But it was not a.n abstract Christianity that b-urst the shackles of t<he slave. It was applied CJiTistiianity— Christianity at \vt>rk fn the daily lrves of mem and women. An|d it &© happens that the men and women Vv/ho achieved this were those of the ' Romish ' Ohuroh. They,, arid they alone, broke dowtu the slavery of i&e old pagan Mays*. The CMiurch's course of action was, says Bal'uffi, ' measured, not sadden or revolutionary.' So tieeip atofd ojd-stamding a social sore naturally totolk a long time to Iheal. The Churdh's work on behalf of the .slave resolved itself into three kinds : (1) She proclaimed Uhe equality and fraternity of all men in the sight of God ; (2) she raised the moral dignity of labor ; (3) 3he gave an unexampled in^petus to iihe movement [or emframiolnbjng slaves. Not alone the priesthood, but the episcopate, was open to nuajniumitted slaves in the early Cfcurcih. The noble church of St. Vitalis at Ravenna (Italy) was dedicated to the memory of a martyred slave. The Catholic monks were the pioneers of mcWern fiee industrial life. They remloved the stigma of contem)pt that attached to labor ; they worked for work's sake a'nU Uod's sake and their neighbor's sake ; they softened amd sweettened everywhere the life of the tiller of the sioil. At least ten Popes issjuod fulmiftations against the enslavement of their fellow-meJn. In over forty Coiflicils the Oatholic bishops enacted laws for the protection of slaves, for their gradual emancipation, erected schools and asyfums for them, sanctified tlheir iHajnumi&sion by solemn religious services, and exoommirnicatefd all who attempted to deprive them, of their freedom. Both in East and West the Carlholic monks em(a>nci|pated bhe slaves on land givein to fthem. Alms were- collected for their enfranchisement ; two gre.it religiiQus Orders— that of the Trinitarians and of Our Lady of Mercy— were founded for the redemiptfon cf Ohristiajns who had been enslaved by t/he Mahomedans ; mamumittfing as an act of devotion a.nd leaving slaves their liibterty by will were encouraged by tflie OKJurbh everywhere. The result is stated by the rationalist historian, Lecky : In t!ie twelfth century ' sla.ves in Eiiirjqpe were .very rare. In the fourteenth centlury slavery was almost unknown.' It had, at worst., Tjeem mitigated iJntio serfdom and Villeinage. Ajnd these, in turn, gave way to the absolute liberty of the free «aid untied worker.

When Uutflier began his revolt lie found slavery n*>nexistiemt itn Durdpe and its very memory dim and bttirred. He hastened to advocate its re-inflict Join on his 'kind. He akfviocated the mowirtg down of the reivbltod paasiajntis as if tftiey were ' hta'd dogs. 1 In one of his

sermtoms on Uhe first book of Moses, published in 1527, lie *ud : 'It was almost desirable that savants should be Subjected to a kind of slavery, jJuctti as existed ardong the Jews.' He spoke apprdvmgly of the days when mflto-sorva(nts and maid-serv'aiits wore, lijce siheep a>nd oxen, ' all personal property, and tlie owners might sell them aa flhey l«kod ; arid,' he added, 'it would verily be alm/ost best ttial this stiate of things should exist again, Jor -nobddy can control a)nd tame t*he populace in any other way. 1 In Uhe previous yoar (1&26) he wrote that nuler.s ' rmis.t drive, beat, throttle, Jiaaig, IJurh, beheald, artd t/arttire, so as to make themselves feared' and to keep ijhe people in Check. 1 Meftwictihon, Bufeer, anri other reformers gave expression to similar j/deas. Their testimony will be found in the fourth volume of Janssen's great work, the • History of the German People ' (pp. 361-9). Bond slavery of a particularly odious kind was Introduced into Dnglamd with tfce Refldrmatfon—iia aajd details can be learned from Gib'biins's or any otiher #afdd industrial history of the country. The Treaity of Utrecht gave Great Britain a n^otaopoly ol the slaive-tcaide with America. Bristol first, and afterwards Liverpool, were tfhe headquarters of the traffic in Human ahattels. Queen Elizabeth was a partner with Sir Jdhji Hawkins— the first Dnglisjhmvwi who angagejcl on a big scale in the African slave-trade. In twenty sihort years-from 1680 to 1700-Englisfi traders exported, according to Chambers, 300,000 negro slajves at*d from tpie year 1700 to 1768, ip Jamaica alone' 610,000 unhapepy Africans, with every circumstance of callous tofiiumja'nity.

In Scfofclantt slavery disappeared at a very early Ua.te. SeirPcJ/om also gradually died aw&y. But the Reformation (Shaded all that. As socVn as it hail been firmly established in tfhe oountiry, laborers, hitherto free, wore turned in Jarge numbers into slaves by the Acte of 1579 atfd 1397. The ddious faction of enslaving free man was made over to the Presbyterian Kirk SessJon. The 'Edinburgh Review' for January, 1899 Kn the course of a learnoU article on Vhc siubject sftows how » about six hundrdd little ecclesiastical courts ! were, in 1597, empowered to rflduce to perpetual slavery ' perhaps a temflh of the inhabitants of Scotland ' In the ooal and salt mines of the country slavery existed till the year 1799, w<heji it was labolishett by Act of Parliament, We have barely touched the fringe of our subject. But the little we have said we commend to the attention of our youttiFul preacher-politician It may serve him in good stead when next he couples toget/her tihe Catholic Churoh, Martin Luther, and .human slavery, ,^nd may aid him m Hhe toilful advance frbm the mental rawness which is rasih in statemant to tfce mental ripeness which is more diffident and a better Jirtlge 'of flacts and of their rig,ht place in tjhe perspective of tilings.

Miss E. Mc(Juiirtness, our talented oreAni^t 2E lleS « , ?US? U S Tinmm correspondent) is to be congratulated on the success Hhat attended he- miDils fcn-the Misses Egan, Twomey, Stuart and Ward fa daughter of SLr Josm.h Ward) oblaihed^ tihe if certifioates as pianoforte teachers. Miss E. Pitege-ald, of this tow,n also obtained a like distinction. She is a nupil 'of tjhe Dominican Convent, Dunodin.

flul v MM f l * er ' Tattersall's Hotel Buildings, OhristStpfft, 4? . SalG a gen€Tal Store i7l P^terbwry, a hotel fln Taranaki, a,n4 a hotel near Ohristohurch

e-,,i Carr ! ar^ Pamt, a nan-porous sanitary paiftit, for insude or ;ojuteMe use, is said to be very lusting a -nU is not aJffidct^ by alkali, gases, or air. Messrs. K. RamsaJ artd Co., Dfimejdm, are the stole agents.. . y Some farmers fp c l tlhat their acreage is too small to 9,t>port| profitably a modern outfit "of latetsS mtachihe^. T/his idea is often a mistaike. EvTn if the acreage is small, tihere are always neighbors to whjom e ma tHhi Can be re^ dw "«n they are not needed at borne. lin this way even a * small farmer ' can afford the blessing of an up-to-date McCormick and realise a good profit from the ownership thereof