Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 19, 9 May 1907, Page 22

Notes

In the World Our esteemed contemporary the ' Outlook ' (the Pres-b'yterdan-MetWodis'tJ-Con'gregatiO'nalist organ of New Zealand) states in its issue of last Saturday (May 4) that there are in the world about 272,000,000 Catholics and 166,000,000 Protestants. '

Bad Treatment Edmund Picard, the Belgian socialist senator, recently accorded an interview to a representative of ' XX 1 . Siecle ' (Brussels). 'At th? present moment,' said M. Picard in the course of his remarks, ' French Catholics are treated as no foreign conqueror Would ever treat them.' The Difference ' The difference between the ideals and methods of Robin Hood and John D. Rockfeller is,' says' the F'hiladolplwa ' Catholic Standard,' ' greater than some of our commentators seem to think. Sherwood Forest philanthropists robbed the rich that they might share with the poor ; Standard Oil robs the poor that it may share the swag with the rich. Moreover, Robin Hood did not attempt io tcaoh th^e Bible in (he Sunday school. This is a mrighty 'difference.' Will the modern Robin Hoods ' scoop ' our Taranaki oil-fields, or lure or lug them into the combine ? In Prussia ' The Roman Catholic Church,' says the ' Independent ' (an American non-Catholic paper), ' is slowly gainin^ on the Protestant, .as is evident from the following table of per cent, in the total population of Prussia :—: — Protestant. Catholic. 1867 65.27 33 17 1871 ; 6489 33 56 1880 , 64.62 33 74 1885 64.43 33 98 1890 6424 34 23 1895 63.89 34.35 1900 63.29 35.14 1905 62.59 35.80.' The curious explanation offered by one newspaper for these figures is ' that this increase of the Catholic clement is caused by Khz immigration of the Catholics from South Germany, while the Protestants of Prussia go to Catholic South Germany.' Manners and Morals With pleasing regularity the children in the Catholic schools receive the most complimentary reports from the State inspectors in the matter of manners. In their case, the good manners may be said to be the penumbra of good morals I —^of' the gentle and refining influences of religion that surrounds their school-life as with an atmosphere of heaven. For over thirty .years this paper has been steadily combating th'e> idea that the imparting of a knowledge of decimals or vulgar fractions, etc., is the be-all amd the end-all of school work. Without the doctrines of religion and the principles of morality, the three Ri's will serve, in many instances, only to turn school children into clever ruffians. We might with great advantage to the nation dock some of the crowded 'ologies from our school curriculum' and substitute suitable instruction in the higher and better things of life. This has been done in Canada, Germany, and various other countries in a manner that places rival creeds on an equal footing./ What other statesmen have done, those of New Zealand ought to 'be competent to .do. Unbelief and Superstition Quacks and 'quackery are live issues in Christchurch just now. A correspondent 'from that fair city writes expressing wonder at the phenomeiiHl financial success which (as shown -in our last issue) has rewarded the ' brass-faced, vociferous, voracious ' quack (as Carlyle styles Mm; in our day. The cause is not far to seek. A bold, boisterous, and gli'M-ongued impostor will always gain a hearing for a time— especially among those who are drifting, or have 'drifted from the

moorings of fixed and definite religious belief. There is what the rationalist historian Lecky, calls ' a kind of superstitious scepticism ' which has been well marked in certain periods of history. It is a sign of weakr ened faith, or of moral dry-rot, or of both. It was rampant in the pagan Roman Empire at a time when belief in the supernatural had begun to fade out of men's minds and corruption to seize upon their hearts. For a long period (says Lecky) ' numbers who denied the existence of any Divinity believed nevertheless that they could not safely appear in- public, or eat, or bathe, unless they had caiefully consulted the almanac to ascertain the position of the planet Mercury, oar how far the moon was from the Crab.' History presents us with the spectacle of a -godless pagan leader of men who passed a ,'day of his life in a frenzy of palpitating fear because he had incautiously put his right foot into the sandal before his left. But has not this abject superstition its ten thousand counterparts to-day in the hopeless feeling of impending mischief or failure that seizes the many modern slaves of the mascot who accidentally go out without their cherished fetish ? For a similar reason (namely, the passing decline of religious faitb) the eighteenth century "was the silvern, and the twentieth is the golden, age of superstition— of <j!uaoks and pythonesses and all their mongrel tribe. Infidelity and superstition, scepticism and credulity, are only apparently extremes— or they are the extremes that meet, just as too far east is said to be west. History has a knack of repeating itself. And even humanly speaking, the crude unbelief that spots so much of our time will be followed, as again and again of old, 'by the usual reaction towards faith and piety— that is, if the last great Armageddon is not coming, and the searching sound of the Archangel's trumpet. -