Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 48, 30 November 1905, Page 1

Current Topics

The Catholic Paper ' Our predecessors,' says Pius X., speaking on behalf of the Catholic newspaper, ' blessed the swords of princes and knights m the war against evil. We, on the contrary, bless the pen, for it is the greatest weapon lor good or evil in the world to-day.'

Political Atheism The ' Ly Helton Times ' likcth not. the lessons scheme of the Bible-m-sehools party. But it agrees with them in the principle that questions of conscience may be .submitted to a. count oi noses Well, Catholics belie\e, with St. Paul, Ihal ' all power is from God.' We do not— and, as Christians, cannot— hold by the revolutionary doctime 01 the absolute omnipotence and infallibility of majorities , or that the people are completely supicine, and bound by no law or authority that does not emanate liom thomsehes, 01 that the secular order is sell-existent, independent, and self-sufficing; or that politics should be severed ironi the moral order, or that the moial ordei should be made subject to the secular power Smh Iheones aie incompatible with constitutional u;o\ eminent and "with civil and religious liberty (io\ eminent did not originate in a mere con\ention between man and man It is not of purely human origin. Theie is an authority alKne that of tho people. (Sod is the ci owned over-King of nations. Both individual!}' and collectively, the people aie bound by His law. They are limited, as King and Tsar and Kaiser aie, m the exercise ol their power by those immutable principles oi light and justice which He has established And in the ioiefiont oi these is the punciple of the inviolability of conscience The Bible-in-schools leaders ha\e claimed for majorities supreme and unlimited right to govern, and they have directly pushed this alleged ' ncht ' into the realm of conscience Here we have, by necessary implication, the pnnciples of political atheism They are thus in open conflict with the order which the Cieator established on earth. We, too, stand by inability rule— within its propei and rightful sphere We confess to an admiration for the fortitude ut a Sociates lacing, alone, the Thirty Tyiants — the '' majority ' of his day — stiong only in the justice of his cause And we contrast with the noble old pagan philosopher the ministers of the Lord who— in the name of democracy '—propose to set aside every real guarantee of civil and religious liberty. This thin pretence of our

sham democrats reminds one of the rouge and the false curls and the rose-colored curtains with which Mrs., Skewton, in ' Dombey and Son,' endeavored to conceal the hideousness of her basil complexion, and her putty head, and her old and shrivelled and wrinkled phiz.

That ' National ' Petition Here is a fragment from the ' national ' petition against Home Rule which is being engineered in New, South Wales by the Orange Association : 'We have always regarded questions affecting the Parliamentary system of the United Kingdom as beyond the legitimate province of the Australian Legislature.' This discovery, has been ' faite expres '—made just to meet the exigencies of the occasion In a Spanish bull-fight the big black and brindled four-footers from the meadows of Andalusia are warranted to be ' bicn armados '—wellarmed , that is, well-horned The authors of the ' yellow ' anti-Home Rule petition have here struck a dilemma which is exceptionally ' bien armado.' And the Sydney ' Fieeman ' diops them with sweet aplomb upon Ihe up-curved points. 'It is,' says the 'Freeman,' 'according to this precious petition, an undue interference with the Parliament of the I nited Kingdom to petition the King in favor of Home Rule, but it is perfectly pioper and constitutionally correct to petition his Majesty against granting Home Rule. Which, as Euclid would obsene, is absurd '

A Royal Snub Some time ago it was announced that King Edward VII had, with his suite, attended Mass in the bcautitul old church of Manenbad, in Bohemia. On reading this bit (of news, we expected that ' things ' would happen to his Majesty. And so it came to pass. The chrome-coloied associations that have appointed themselves the Keepers of the loyal conscience have remonstrated with the King, in their own peculiar dialect or Jabbeiwocky, [or 'dallying with the dragon,' 'truckling to Koine,' taking part in 'a Popish and idolatrous ceiemony,' and other sueh-hke enormities. Some of their resolutions of protest originated in Australia. Others emanated itom Scotland The reply to one only of these has been published It was distinctly discouraging, and ran as follows : ' Sir,— l have the honor to return herewith the resolution passed by the Dunfermhne Protestant Defence Association, and to inform you that resolutions of tins nature (more especially when they are couched in offensive language) can only be submitted through the Secretary for Scotland. — I am, sir, your obedient servant, J. M. Ponsonby.' Here was a severe

lesson in good manners. But it was not, we fear, administered to apt pupils. According to Chesterfield, the Duke of Marlborough won his way to place and power and wealth and fame through the sheer force of his exquisite good breeding. If the members of the Dunfermline ' Defence ' Association were to depend upon their manners for place and pelf, they would never, we ween, plant their hob-nails .so high as the second rung of the social ladder.

* Lan Maclaren's ' Appreciation The Rev. John Watson, D.D., has been for just a quarter of a century the minister in charge of Ihe Sefton Park Presbyterian Church. Liverpool. To Ihe world at large he is better known by his norn de guerre, ' lan Maclaren,' under which he has given to the world the series of notable works of fiction that began in 1894 with ' Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.' ' lan Maclaren ' is still far on the sunny side of sixty, in a hale and green later middle age. His Scottish education, Presbyterian up-bringing, and cultivated intellect combine to give a special value to the following: words, which he spoke some weeks ago in proposing a vote of thanks to Lady Lovat at the opening of a bazaar in Liverpool. *As a man with Catholic blood in my veins,' said he, * I should like to take this opportunity of paying my tribute of sincere respect to the high ideals and to the national patriotism of the Catholic Church m 'Scotland. I am speaking according to tradition handed down in my own family, and which is still warm, when I say there has not been in Scotland any man moie devoted, more earnest, more distinguished for his urbanity and culture and loyalty than the Scots pncst. I do not know that the 18th century in Scotland, rich although it is in scholars and ecclesiastics, produced any finer or more impressive figure than Bishop Hay, who did more than any other man of that century to establish and commend the Catholic Church in Scotland. It has seemed to me that no minister of religion has been more true and faithful to poor and suffering people through their trials, or done more to sustain the high standard of social morality, than the Irish piicst ; and no body of men in England during three centuries have made greater sacrifices for religion, or have, accoiding to their numbers, contributed more to sacred and other learning than the English Catholics My earnest prayer is that year by year prejudices, which are the heritage of an unfortunate past, may lessen until they disappear, and those who love the same Lord may come moie and more to Jive together and strne together in the cause of charity, in whose intere.sis they aie met to rescue the fallen and to shield the youns;, and to bring m the day when this city shall he filled' with peace and prosperity, with holiness and sweet contentment.'

The Ascendancy Spirit In what Cardinal Moran calls ' Ihe catacomb era ' of the Catholic Church in Australia, a condition of things prevailed which almost fitted in with the hopes and aspirations to which metrical expression was given in the old Orange song :— c The crown of the causeway in road or street, And the rebelly Papishes under my leet.' Even when those evil days had passed ' afay in de ewigkeit,' the spirit of religious ascendancy long endured. Anglicanism was in fact, though not in daw, the State religion. Catholics were forbidden to make or receive converts from any Protestant denomination, or to interfere in any way with the up-bringing of every Catholic child, supported in any State institution, in the creed of the Church of England The Government orphanages were, in lact, merely Charter Schools under cleaner management. In 1825 a further step was made towards a State Church in the mother colony In that year Royal Letters were issued directing that oneseventh of the whole territory of New South Wales

should be set apart for the promotion of the Protestant Reformed Religion, as by law then established in England and Ireland. The Royal Grant was recalled in 1831, but in the meantime 435,000 acres of public land had been alienated to the support of the dominant creed.

The ascendancy spirit is like those microbes that will stand six hours' boiling before you can be sure that they are ' fatally dead. 1 It lives long and dies hard. In these pleasanter days of religious equality established by both the State and Commonwealth Constitutions, attempts are still made to secure for Anglican prelates the exclusive use of territorial titles. Some of the Melbourne newspapers, for instance— and notably the ' Argus '—persistently bestow the title, ' Archbishop of Melbourne,' upon the newly-appointed Anglican prelate, and upon him only. The Catholic prelate is merely designated ' Archbishop Carr.' The object oE this distinction is sufficiently obvious. It is an attempt to perpetuate the old spirit of supremacy, and to belittle the Catholic faith in the interests of another religious organisation. The distinguished churchman who has for nineteen years ruled the See of Melbourne does not grudge any title, however exalted, to his Anglican conliere, but on principle he protests against this attempt to fix upon the Catholic Church a badge of inferiority in a country in which absolute religious equality is guaranteed by law. ,' You know,' said he in a recent address, ' that I rule the Archdiocese of Melbourne, and that my title was not given by any mere secular authority, but by one which, according to Macaulay, " was great and respected before the Saxons set foot in Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, and while idols were still worshipped in the Temple of Mecca." As that title has not been conferred by any secular authority, it cannot be taken away by any secular authority. I desire to join in the protest made by the proposer of the toast, and to hope that I may be called,, what I am, the Archbishop of Melbourne. And in future I will acknowledge no communication, no matter fiom what quarter it comes, in which this title is not iceognised.'

Against Swearing The Holy Name Societies (anti-swearing organisations) have lately been making impressive public demonstrations in the United States They are conducting an eager crusade against a vice that ought to have gone out with duelling and prize-fighting. ' Fabits aie soon assumed ; but when we strive To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive/ Yet history tells us that crusades in favor of clean speech have effected much good when properly pushed home. Perhaps the most noted association of this kind was that which was formed in the first half of the fifteenth centuiy by the famous Franciscan monk and preacher, St. Bcrnardinc of Siena. lie raised aloft a banner bearing the, Holy Name inscribed above a figure of the Crucified, and entered upon a campaign against the abhorrent blasphemy that was so prevalent in his day. lie succeeded everywhere in winning men to abandon those jarring expletives of passion and irreligion that are as common in our day and country The sainted Maul of Orleans imposed upon her soldiers the most stringent orders against the use of piofane language. She even succeeded in reducing to the bounds of strict decorum the language of the celebrated oath-volleying La Hire. He was a very Boanerges among the sturdy swearers of his time, who considered thunderous blasphemy as an indispensable qualification of a leader of men— just, as in these countries it is regarded by some as a necessity for the driver of the slow-paced bullockteam. Under the gentle influence of the Maid, La Hire so fai amended the style of his lingual gymnastics as to swear by nothing more sacred than his marshal's baton.

We live (as literature seems to show) in a cleanermouthed day— so far as mere vulgar profanity is concerned. It seems to us that men do not now rip out strange and nauseating oaths as freely as they did (say) in the days of the Georges. Habitual swearing nowadays fixes a man's social and moral status— and fixes it low. And so far is this statement true that the man ■who is given to promiscuous profanity and aimless condemnation of his own and other people's eyes and limbs has to show cause why his instincts should not be deemed unsound and the door of 'decent society closed in his face. And this, by itself, is a big gain. And yet, even among us here on the edge of the earth, there stil] remains a world of silly or coarse profanity to put down, and there is work galore for the operations of an active and far-reaching Holy Name Society.

The most drastic effort that we can recall to stamp out the swearing habit was made by John Smith. We do not mean the Jbhn Smith that has come to be a sort of generalised John Doe or Richard Roe, or the male counterpart of Sairey Gamp's ' Mrs. Harris.' The particular scion of the great Smith family rherc referred to is the John who assisted in founding the colony of Virginia, and who ultimately became its chief. He sailed from England in 1606 with a motley company jammed and crammed into three small vessels— one hundred and five men all told. A solid hundred of the party are roundly described as ' dissolute persons.' They were broken-down gfentry, for the most part, who had left their country for their country's good, and gone West to pick up what is now lermed ' colonial experience.' They were, in fact, early specimens of the jackeroo. The remaining five were— just so-so. But John Smith is generally voted to have been the concentrated quintessence of a sublimated brick. Ex-soldier, ex-sailor, exadventurer in a score of seas, he rose quite naturally to the surface of things in the little shanty settlement of Jamestown— the lirst British coJony on American soil. Trouble arose when the lady-fmgered jackeroos set forth, axe in hand, to lame the forest and turn it into field, that food might be raised. The axes,' says the chronicler, ' .so often blistered their tender fingers, Ihat many limes every third blow had aloud oath to drown the echo.' ' Bab ' Gilbert is responsible for Jhis statement : ' When Jack Tars growl, I believe they fctowlwith a big, big D.' IJul Jack Tar Smith, of Jamestown, was not of that kind. He determined to put down swearing in the settlement With this object in view, he contrived a plan for keeping a daily tally of each man's oaths. When'night tame, the accounts were passed in review. For every oath, a bucket of water was poured down each delinquent's sleeve. ' Under this treatment,' says Mackenzie in his ' America,' ' the evil assuaged.' Another triumph for the coldwater cure !