Brave Words

New Zealand Tablet, 15 October 1908, Page 10

Brave Words

There' is a fine ring in 'a defiant speech delivered a few. weeks ago by Monsignor Henry, Bishop of Grenoble' (France). He was dealing with the projected legislation which -would permit atheist teachers in French schools to corrupt, with perfect impunity and despite the protests of parents, the minds, of children frequenting the Government schools.' 'If,'.said Bishop Henry, f the Government makes its proposed new laws, it- will find us confronting it. -we are .condemned to fine, we shall pay or not pay, as the case may be. Ifwe are condemned to prison, we will undergo it; but surely on the day when a bishop is thrown into prison for having defended the souls of children, there will be something changed in France, and such an- iniquity would not intimidate me. The State pretends that • all the children belong to it. That is false. You, the parents of the children, are the masters of your offspring, because they are your blood. -There is only one case when the State can claim of you the sacrifice of that blood, and that is when the fatherland is in danger. We demand of Government to respect our right to'bring up our childien. .If it is demonstrated that the Republic and atheism are but one, we shall remember that above the ephemeral ministries there is the eternal law, and that above the Republic there is France.'

It is pleasant to learn that these brave words ' were constantly interrupted with thundering applause.' It "will be pleasanter still to hear that • not one member of the French episcopate, but a score or a hundred, has refused to pay the fine and gone to prison. Then things will begin to happen in France as they began to happen in similar ■ circumstances in Germany. The dawn of the .better day may begin, in the west as it did on the east side of the" Rhine, in the prison cell.