Clean-Speech Crusades .

New Zealand Tablet, 13 December 1906, Page 10

Clean-Speech Crusades .

'. ' Chesterfield ■:was a pagan, though a polished pile. He lived, 'iv a "roys teeing, hard-drinking, >, oath- ' .volleying age. "Yet—speaking merely as one who cultivated the • graces—he, roundlydenoimced swearing astho habit of "'''subalterns,-'ot people of low education.' ' That practice/ 'he" added in "a letter to his son, ' besides that it has' no one .temptation to plead, is as silly and illi<beral as it is wicked.' Landor makes Philip of Macedon ' the most religious prince -of his; age '—chiefly because 'he swore more frequently ""and. more awfully than any officer in his army. / /The' habit - is,-; v about the only- sign of religion that 'some people dis 7 play in our tune—the only profession'of religious'faith. that they-make during-long years of, their adult life; J _And the fearful prevalence of the practice of swearing is one of the very distressful-facts-of the domestic and social 'life of our day and v country. We "sorely need some organisation li»\e that of the fast-spreading Ho>ly Name Society, which' a few ■• Sundays-ago made; such impressive outdoor demonstrations' in several cities of the United States in. • favor "of clean speech. In' ' three cities of^ the Newark, diocese over twenty-five thousand Catholic men*' marched 'in solemn parade through the streets as- a protest against all forms ' of blasphemous and unclean-- 'speech. These evil habits, when well entrenched,; become, so strong' that it takes ;• a strenuous struggle to" dfllve them from their vantage \ ground. Cowpcr phrased-this truth 'under a striking figure of speech:— _;=T' :- ~ ' Habits are soon .assumed ; - but when we strive . To slrip .them off, 'tis"being flayed alive.' , • ■ The prevalence of ..the - habii- also dulls the public sense of its enormity, : au<k, thereby increases' the diffl- " culty of coping witlKit. i-Does* not 'history tell how duelling and the three-bottle' habit were-at one ttime so rooted in English society that for a: period they seemed to many to be >f the nature of things ? v% •' . . ' " '' ' But the duel is gone out of. English. life, and'the' thiree-bottle man would not_ nowadays "be. allowed* I' to ' practice the three-bottle habit at the table -of ;>-ariy; >-ariy '. respectable host. And one "day;- ;we hope, swearing will * be counted among the barbarous' habits ■ that an tad- '" vancing Christian civilisation has moulted. In ' many countries, Holy ' Name Societies - have' been flinriie - themselves against that rock-wall of - inherited* evil habit, profanity. Such crusades in favor of clean' tongues have effected much good when properly' pushed ' home. Perhaps the .most noted association of r thds kind was that wMch'was formed in the first half" of the fifteenth century *by " the, - famous - Franciscan preacher, St. Bernardine.pf Siena. He raised- aloft a banner bearing the Hqly~ Name, inscribed above * figure of the Crucified;' preached a crusade against the abhorcen* blasphemy; that > was so prevalent i a- his day and* succeeded everywhere- in /winning men to abandon those jarring expletives of passion and irreligioh' that are' now so common in these-new. countries. The Maid c-f Orleans imposed upon her soldiers the most- stiftneent" orders against, the use of profane and 'blasphemous speech. -She , even. succeeded in "reducing to the bounds of: strict decorum .toe language of the celebrated' La ,35ire. He was a very Boanerges among the sturdy • swearers of: his He even-like the hero of" a' French- comedy of, our day, ' Les Juroris de Cadillac--' - considered, thunderous -blasphemy an indispensable quali- ' fication. for -a 'leader of men-just, as in the- 'WaV .Back regions of these virgin lands it is regarded by

some as a necessity fox the. driver of the . slow-spaced -ox-team. Under the- gentle and holy influence of the La- Hire so -far. snaffled his tongue as to swear "by nothing ..else than- his marshal's baton. St;- Louis ot France, the Lollards, the "Puritans, the Quakers p,ll waged war against swearing. In the year 1700 there was, founded in England what was known as the Society- for the Reformation of manners. One of the principal objects of Its institution -waV the abiolit-ion of the flippant; and vituperative blasphemy so common in- that, loose, and unbelieving period.' "Julian Shannon tells us -that its membership roll comprised 7 / frr addition to the King Consort, a number, of persons who wero 'distinguished alike' Tor the laxity of their own morals and a tender "solicitude for „ the. welfare ' r of _. other people's. 1 They proceeded' criminally ' agaiAst blasphemers, etc. But these reformers- of 'the other fellow.' were not the sort of people to work a radical improvement in the habi,ts of a nation. After much noise and bluster, the Society for the Reformation of , 'Manners— which, had forgotten to begm by reforming its own— fell to pieces. It was merely a simmering glue^ Pot,, in a soap factory— unable either to- moderate or seriously- disguise the circumambient stench. At its passing, it left the of the time as coarse and widespread as it found it. The Holy Name Society aims to attain vastly higher ideals by widely different : and, more efficient mean's. It may- yet, with God's blessing,' do for tfo> world what the" sainted Bernardi-ne did for- Central Italy. -Floreat !— may it ga.- O w and --spread'! - There are such myriad tongues that stand in ;need of cleansing and disinfectants''!