Invercargill

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 12, 22 March 1906, Page 19

Invercargill

(From an occasional correspondent.)

On last Sunday his Lordship Bishop Yerdon administered the Sacrament of Confirmation Jn St. Mary's Church, Invercargill, tc a number of children of the town and suburbs. The allotted ground-floor and the galleries were closely filled by the parents and friends of the largo number of candidates. The ceremony took pLace at 2.3U p.m. The Bishop confirmed 235 candidates^-112 males and 123 females. His Lordship expressed himself as much pleased and gratified with the careful preparation aiul the knowledge of their lehgion shown by the young people. He exhorted them to keep up their religious knowledge and to go on in the gpod dispositions which now filled their minds. All this they might\ do by avoiding bad conversations, bad literature and dangerous company, and by cultivating with persistence a spirit of piety, thiough daily prayer, reading good books and papers, frequenting the sacxaments, and by that self-denial which shjauld characterise every good Christian. An act of selfdemal which he particularly, recommended to those confirmed that day, was the keeping of 'the pledge of the League of the Cross. The Bishop recited the words of the pledge and asked the children to take and keep it. He was much gratified with the unmistakable progress religion was making in the capital 'of Southland. Already the Catholic congregation was the largest in this flourishing! town, and the vast number, intelligence, and truly Catholic domcannr of those confirmed that day, were e\ ider.ee of what the future cf religion in In\ercargill was going to be. On Monday afternoon 23 children were confirmed at the Bluft.