The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1906. THOSE TEN THOUSAND 'CONVERTS'

New Zealand Tablet, 18 October 1906, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1906. THOSE TEN THOUSAND 'CONVERTS'

§ILDA, in Whiting's slum-story, 'No 5 John St., 1 • could stand a falsehood as well as anybody ', 'but she didn't like the felter as told it to pretend it was the truth '. That is just what" was the ' matter with some statistics of wholesale 'conversions" from Romanism,' ,that~;were contributed in the merry month of July, to , the' Nelson '^Evening Mail '. They were falsehoods masquerading "as" truth 1 . They give a point to the three familiar- degrees of comparison: 'Lies, thumping lies, and statistics.' They were taken at second-hand from a 'book \y a simple-minded clergyman, the Rev. John A. Bain, who has been the victim of more' statistical hallucinations or. hoaxes than any man whose'~work has ever ".come within our ken— that is, assuming that his.book was not itself "in a minor way a sample of the ' grotesque and conscious humor into which the ' brillianC but erratic Dean Swift used to break out at .intervals

* . < - A London paper, in a review of the Rev. Mr. Bain's production, wound up with this sarcastic comment : «We find it impossible' to take either.Mr. Bain, or his book, or his facts, or his figures very seril ously '. The field : of -~t< book ■ statistics has, however, been hitherto generally deemed . , to\be, more or' less sacrosanct and inviolate as regards me quips and pranks of the festive, humorist "or the simple-minded victim o£, hallucination or hoa'xr -—Hence,, sundry good people in- Nelson— and, indeed, in many ' places as well on both sides of the- Tasman Sea, found remote and depressing comfort for the triumphal progress of the Catholic Church in Australasia, in .the thought that 1 Romanism '_ is declining in lands, -that are far, far away. In otir issue of July - 19 we -.-dealt with the -Bain 'statistics' in so far as they "regarded Austria, Belgium, and the United States. ' The fairy tale" from a far-off land* declared that ' whole parishes' in Belgium had passed over during the past few - years from •Romanism' to 'the Gospel ', and that* • one Protessant body ' in that prosperous Catholic, land had received no fewer than ten thousand, converts through "the great parochial exodus from. Po pery. It seemed to us- passing strange that the" Rev. -Mr. Bam alid his Australian; and .New Zealand" "echoes "did "riot tafoe the trouble to explain how.it is' that (according to the very latest issue of. the ' Statesman's. YearVßook ' the ten thousand 'converts ' captured one. Protestant body' alone, in Belgium still left' the ' total Protestant population of the country/ at the close of last year, at only about ten thousand.. .^jivi'iere did the old-standing (and almost standstill) ten thousand Pro-

testants of Belgium vanish to?. Or did they all suddenly retire behind'" the scenes, make a lightning change, and march out' again iii front of the footlights disguised as b converts ' from Rome 1 ' ? Just about the time that • the Nelson ' Evening Mail ' was cheering - the spirits of • its readers' with -the story of the Ten Thousand and the Whole Parishes, a simple-minded clergyman in South Australia was " spinning the - same interesting tale- in the columns' of" the 1 Adelaide Advertiser '. He was promptly challenged by Father Louwyck to- ( name names'. Father Louwyck (who, by" the way, is a gjftod Belgian priest) succeeded Jm eliciting the unwilling and sweetly vague ,4, 4 information ' that the" converted 'whole parishes' were in the; ' districts * (!) of Liege, Charleroy, and Mons. Not one of the ' whole parishes ' was, of course, mentioned. But with, the meagre information dragged from his opponent, he got t o work. From the Bishop -of Liege (Dr] Rutten) he received a reply which we turn into English as follows :— 'Diocese of Liege.— No. parish in- this diocese has become Protestant. Twelve years ago, the then Bishop of Liege, Mgr. Doutrloux, appointed" a priest 1 to a newly formeld parish. People of a small hamlet of that parish called in- a- Protestant minister, but after a time the. Bishop appointed a priest for that hamlet, an-d since then all the families except one have returned to the Church. Protestant ministers ore making a great effort, .but without success. In a population of 1,100,000 there are not 15,000 Protestants and these are mostly Germans who come to workhere for a time. Every 'year about 100 Protestants are received into the Church. These are respectable people, living among Catholics ; they see the truth of our religion, and ask to be.,- admitted into the Church There are in the whole diocese 670 parishes, and it has never been known that one of these became Protestant. No priest of this diocese has become Protestant. It is a calumny and a falsehood to say the contrary. -With best wishes, etc., M. R. Rutten, Bishop of Liege. * The Dean of Oharleroy also wrote to Father Louwyck. The following is a translation of the portion of his letter which bears upon the matter under discussion :—: — 9»nnn The n P^ P » a v OIK ° f the cii V of Chilier.oy is 28,000, all Catholics except 20 who are Protestants In the whole district, among a population of 200 000 there are about 1000 Protestants, nearly all Germans who come here to work for a time. . . It is calumnious and untrue to say that Catholics are losing ChSro" * mC tO bC> etC>> CCann ° n Lalieux > °can of From other friends in Belgium' Father Louwyck has received independent testimony confirming" that given by the Bishop of Liege and the Deari of Charleroy. The Dean of Mons (Monsignor the Prince de Croy) was absent from home when,. the letter of his South Australian friend reached Belgium. Further communications are expected from him and from other distinguished Belgian ecclesiastics and laymen.

And' so endeth— in smoke— another « missionary tale.'. The whole incident furnishes fresh evidence that for a member of the Universal Church « the wide wide world > is not, after all, so very wide. Pious fabulists must go farther afield than.", Belgium for romances of wholesale 'conversion. Mexico "is no longer safe. Neither is (as we have shown)" Brazil or Bolivia or Argentina. The change of venue to Belgium was a singular ly unfortunate one. Why not try Spitsbergen or Kamchatka ? The Bairi/ statistics ' merited the sarcastic retort of the' Melbourne ' Tribune ! : «If they want to make a Catholic a .member of a Reformed creed, they must catch Win young— before the age of reason, if possible. If they get him when he is grown, it is not they wlib have caught him • he has -caught them \ ,;^, ;^ . ;..,^; MO J t