Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 17 December 1908, Page 9

Current Topics

Free School-Books, . We live in a day when we can procure, at- sixpence per. volume, neat reprints of the masterpieces of English literature. And people' of means appear to take quite kindly to the latest form ,of devised by our Legislature — namely, the free distribution of text-books to . children of the lower standards in our public schools. It is a far cry back to the times preceding the invention of the - Catholic art of printing, when sand, the blackboard 3 and the teacher's voice were largely the substitutes for books, and when a Countess of Anjou gave two hundred sheep, and a load each of wheat, millet, and rye, for a volume of sermons written on parchment by a German monk. Christ in the School ' Say-veil and do-well end with one letter. Say-well is good, do-well is better.' From end to end of the earth, Catholics are linked together in the noble ' do-well ' work of training the hearts and wills., as well as the minds, of Christ's little ones in the schools. Thus, in Scotland they have to pay rates for the erection and maintenance of the Board Schools, which are Presbyterian denominational schools. But (says a recent circular by the Scottish Catholic Hierarchy), Catholics cannot, for reasons of conscience, take advantage of these schools. ' They have, therefore, expended over a million sterling in building schools for their own children — a saving to that extent to the rates of capital expenditure — and they do not consider that they are making an unreasonable claim in asking that, as' regards the maintenance of these schools, they should be put on the same footing as their Presbyterian fellow-citizens. The Catholic schools of Scotland represent nearly 100,000 children, or about oneninth of the whole. These children belong almost entirelyto the working classes, whose efficient training ought to be a matter of supreme importance in an industrial nation like ours. The highest efficiency cannot be reached while the schools are starved through lack of the financial aid which would enable them to be put upon a level with their rate-supported neighbors.' Domestic Science Good advice, like good medicine, is not always pleasant to take. Monsignor Falconio (Apostolic Delegate to the United States) has been giving — with some diffidence, be it said — sundry wise counsels to woman. 'I think,' said he, ' she should attend to her husband's home, and take care of her children, and see that the dinner is well cooked. If she will see to her own business and be busy in her house, she will be happy.' •'And now comes the Rev. John J. O'Keefe, a Clinton (Massachusetts) pastor, with "a big building and an Association of Domestic Science, just to show the maids and the married women and even the school-girls how to ' be busy in the house,' with cookery, millinery, art Avork, sewing, garment cutting, and sundry other feminine arts and crafts. But cookery is among manual domestic sciences what charity is among the virtues — the chief of them all. There was more of wisdom in the substance, than of courtliness in the form, of the answer given by Max O'RelFs Englishwoman to a young bride who sought counsel as to the best means of retaining the affection of her newly-wedded husband. ' Feed the brute!' quoth the experienced dame. There is even a modicum of trutli in a maxim laid" down by that fin gourmet, Brillat-Savarin, in his Physiologic dv Gout — that our comfort here, and (to some extent) "our hopes of happiness hereafter, depend upon the manner in which our food is cooked. Well, a dyspeptic and ' livery ' subject is usually in bad case on the spiritual as well as on the bodily side.But God still sends lihe food, and the devil (for his own • ends) often sends tne cook. Our convents might do much to keep his sable fingers out of the domestic pie. " Artificial Flight - Prophecy, according to George Eliot, is one of the most gratuitous forms of human error. But Marconi had some solid ground under his feet when, a few weeks ago, he took down his harp and told Ybrkers some- of the" things' which he sees in their city's future, fifty years away. ' The airship,' said he, '"is certain to come into general use, and that^ within the lifetime, of our generation; not for freight, perhaps, but for people surely. In fifty years you' of New York will be freed of the vexing problem "of rapid transit. There will "be no need for surface cars, elevated roads, subways, tunnels and ferries. The crowding, the delays, the foul air — all will be things of tie past.

One may indeed predict a purer political and financial atmosphere, for there will be no need, to steal a franchise for the use of the open highway of the clouds. With the certain advent of the airship as a means of.. transit you will toehold a New York with- thoroughfares uncongested and free of the din of vehicles wrangling- for the right of "way, and its people unf retted with pushing and- elbowing" their way about will take on a; more Christian serenity of mental . habit, and with this will come a revival of public taste and a demand for a city beautiful no less than a city luxurious.' The wonderful performances of the Wright aeroplane furnished an unquoted- text for this golden prophecy of flight achieved, for which mankind has been pining as far back as the days of the myth of Daedalus. -As ,far back as the last decade of the eighteenth century, the English . poefc and naturalist, Erasmus Darwin, sang in vague poetic numbers the triumphs of steam-traction, and, with tuned lyre, predicted, too, the coming of the day -when the same motive force would, ' On wide-waving wings expanded- bear The flying chariots oiirough the fields of air; Their crews, triumphant,' leaning from above, Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move ; Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.' Tennyson, in his LocJcsley Hall (published in 1842) ' Looked into the future far as human eye could see,' and described the aerial war of the coming time in these lines : ' Then the heavens were filled with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew, From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue.' It is doubtful that so cumbrous a mechanical contrivance aa the' steam engine could ever have achieved the conquest of the air. That has been reserved for the light, petroldriven, internal combustion engine, with its" wonderful development of horse-power in • proportion to weight. The Wright brothers' epoch-making performances have been done with the aid of comparatively heavy and clumsy motors of this kind, of their own make — much inferior to such light and delicate and beautifully finished machines as (say) the Antoinette engines. Yet, with such relatively imperfect motive force, the Wrights " ' Cast off the foolish ties That bind us to the earth, and rise And take a bird's-eye view.' They soar and dip and circle and turn, with the grace of the condor of the Andes. It seems plain that we are fairly on the track of the discovery of the- true principles of mechanical flight. And every error and failure "will serve the same purpose as the caution-marks that, negatively, help in directing the wayfarer to his destination. A ' Scandal '—and the Sequel Full many a time have we cited instances tending to illustrate the extent to which the swiftest-flowing channels of journalistic information have been captured by agencies hostile to the Catholic faith. Especially is this true in regard<to the cable agencies that deal with Catholic events\ from Rome and Paris. They are scandalously partisan ;* they are the echoes or sounding-boards of the atheistic and anti-Catholic press and faction ; they have a keen nose for allegations of clerical ' scandal ' ; a story of this kind 9 when . proved to be false and calumnious, is never corrected or withdrawn ; and repeated exposure seems to bring to them no sense of shame and no. saving lesson of caution. We have said the substance of this before. But it is biie'of the things that it is well to say often, and to. say loud enough to be heard. Such campaigns of conscious calumny are not to be met with kid gloves and lisping accents and swords , of boiled leather. "' For lack of a live cable agency of " their own, Catholics in these countries have, in the face of this ding-dong of fabricated or exaggerated scandals, to patch "their . grief with proverbs and wait, with the best ' patience they can summon, while. the truth comes lumbering along in mail-bags in the hold of a passenger steamer. So true, in this - case, is the Chinese proverb, that falsehood gets around the world while truth is drawing on her shoes. Or, as Billing quaintly phrases it,' t 'slander=is J played on a tin horn, "while truth .steals fortn like the -dying song of a lute.' ,'; - ■ -'\ ~Y V ' '*' Many of our •''readers will recall a sensational French clerical ' scandal ' that went the rounds of the secular press

of. Australia and New Zealand.' in the early . part of the . ( present year. Well} the.;' scandal ' has had the usual sequel a of those sensational anti-clerical^ stories that the snappers- . up of the Continental cable agencies, gather with such eager ( care and- send on -the- wings pf./the-.lightning to the, ends ' of the earth. - Here is the .end- of the. Ohevallier ' scandal,' as told by the Paris correspondent of the Edinburgh Catholic Herald of October 31:. 'The tribunal -of Annepy ' has- just acquitted Canon .Chevallier and M. Belleville, a sacristan/ of- a charge of embezzlement. . For more than. ; eight' months the anti-clerical press and -public have made • , bitter and venomous attacks on 1 the -accused. It-,was the. ' great scandal of the year; .related ; .in . all .the provincial "^ papers,*- and complacently, copied by the Paris journals. The enemies of 'the Church gloried ..in it, but from beginning to end the charge was- a mass of fabrications. „Now, the Court has exposed these: lies; and the Canon and the sac- - ristan have been found not guilty. . The. inventors- of the • charge should feel overwhelmed with shame and remorse if . \ they have any redeeming feature in their character, which is doubtful. In any case,, it is satisfactory to learn that certain papers are to be sued for libel.' : , , , , It is hardly necessary to state that, true- to their cus- . tomary policy in such matters, the cable, agencies, did not give so much as a hint regarding the happy termination of c bogus 'scandal 3 - which they had sa long and so strenuously exploited. - We venture the hope that responsible and respectable New Zealand secular papers that published in good faith the story of the Chevallier ' scandal ' will now give the benefit of equal publicity to its upshot -at the Annecy Court. . - R. L. Stevenson and the Church The home of Hobert Louis "Stevenson's widow in SanFrancisco has just become a convent of the ' barefooted - Carmelite' nuns. The house was saved' with great difficulty from tlie besieging flames of "the great earthquake conflagration, v^at circled it -with a- red wall of circum valla-, tion; it is henceforth to be a home of prayer and fasting, and penance for the benefit of erring humanity.' RobertLouis Stevenson's famous defence of Father ■ Damien (theapoßtle of the lepers of Molokai) from' the coarse calumnies of an easy-chair missionary of Honolulu, is a classic that should live as long as the letters of Junius. In its October number (p. 472) the \4.ve Maria"' says that Stevenson ' was at heart a Catholic. He had made up his mind,' adds the Aye, ' to join the Church, and was about, to enter upon a course of preparatory instruction when the last summons came. Peace to his gentle soul! .' We like to beli«ve that - the brave defender jof Father Damien is a share? in the " riches, rest, and glory " that must now be the heroic missionary's eternal portion. The assertion so often repeated, that Stevenson had regrets for publishing that famous open letter of his is absolutely false. Of this we hold quite satisfying proof.' , A Christian Union Society One of the signs of the- times is -the .groping of " the Reformed denominations after the Christian unity which they rent asunder during the great Teligious revolution of ■ . the sixteenth century. Some thirty years- ago the London Times hung the following label upon the endless jarring divisions of the Protestant creeds in England : ' Eight hundred religions and only one" sauce.' Full many a new sect has risen since then, and earnest and thoughtful men of • various creeds have been casting about for some remedy for those scandalous divisions which' rend the seamless robe of Christ, clog Christian prbgress-j and make a laughing-stock fbr the heathen. A report' in" the New Zealand. Herald (Auckland) of December 9 conveys the information 1 that a number of clergymen, of various Reformed "faiths" in 1 the Northern Province have formed a 'Christian Union Society, ' which shall afford to all who join it ■ opportunities for common prayer,' mutual study .and discussion," and -the cultivation of a spirit of Christian brotherhood.' • The circular convening the meeting expressed ■ 'a'' deep sense' of' 'the . dangers of the unhappy divisions which so seriously delay and obstruct the coming' of. 'Christ's kingdom on earth;' •' Canon Mac Murray appealed for union " ' because of " the 4 weakness and comparative failure of the Church, as a result ] of her. unhappy divisions.' 'It is becoming more and more clear,' added .he, 'to thinking ' Christians of ev«ry 'name, "A that the weakness and injury from '-which Christ's- kingdom ' is sufferings through, our ' unhappy divisions, "ought to be ended .' 'In the face of the trend' of events -to-day,'- said ' the Rev.. W. Gray-Dixoh, 'there is evident need of Christian unity. r . . The, forces , of Anti-Christ are marshalling at" • our very doors, "and I believe the Church should-' present a ■ United front against them.' And so on. '" • The • reformers ' threw down.. the apple of discord in Western Christendom. •We wish God-speed to every effort

of our Reformed brethren to undo the wort of disunion that was done by the Reformation. ' Cardinal Moran and State, Aid ,_,.... At the opening of the Christian Brothers' Training College at Stratlifield (near Sydney), Cardinal Moran sug-gested-a modus vivendi< which would terminate the religious difficulty in' the public schools. 'He trusted/ says a press message, ' that the- day would come when the Commonwealth would extend" to Catholic institutions the blessings of State-aided education, to. which the country was entitled. -Gibbons, head of the Catholic Church in America, had J< formulated •-a scheme of > compromise- which, , in the speaker's opinion, would be very suitable' for -Australia. It was that the State -should- appropriate- funds, so much per "capita,. to" support all denominational schools and look after their management. Examinations, tests; etc., -and . text-books on all non-religious matters should be identical with "those of the public schools. Then children attending. Catholic, Protestant, . Jewish, and other- denominational schools might "be instructed in. their" respective "religions by teachers of their own faith* By this .-system there would be no taxation without representation, and. each .would- get a just return from his' taxes in accordance with the truest principles of just government.' Crime in France A cable-message from Paris in last week's daily papers ran as follows: — ' After' discussing a proposal to abolish the death penalty, the Chamber of Deputies, in view of the increase in crimes of violence, decided by 330 to 201 votes that capital punishment should be maintained..' We commend this message to the attention of the writer of a recent letter in the Wcnujaiiul Chronicle alleging the phenomenal decrease of crime in France as evidence of the blessing of godless public instruction. We also invite his consideration to the significance of. the choice made by the (French) Academic des Sciences Morales, et Politi<iues CAcademy of the Moral _and" Political. Sciences)- for its prize essay for the -present year — ' Des Causes et des Remedes de la Criminalite croissante de I' Adolescence ' C The Causes of, and . "the Remedies for, the increasing juvenile Crime '). So much we learn from the October number of the Aye Maria (p. 570). The removal of the basis on which moral education has hitherto rested, has (says the Aye) proved disastrous to the Third Republic, and ' all Frenchmen who deserve to be classed as sane depiore the warfare against religion, and are asking themselves when will it end, and what will its results be.' Here again history~repeats itself. In his Origines de la France Contemporaine (Le Regime Moderne, vol., ii., p. 118), Tame wrote as follows regarding the results of crippling the action of those wings of Christianity, which alone enable fallen man to rise above himself : ' Always and ' everywhere, for eighteen hundred years, whenever those "wings fail or are broken, public and private morals are degraded. la Italy during the Renaissance, in England under the Restoration, in France under the National Con- - vention and the Directorate, man seemed to become as pagan as in the first century,; he became at once as he 1 was in the. times of Augustus and Tiberius, voluptuous and 1 hard-headed; he misused others and himself; "brutal or cal- ■ culating egoism regained ascendancy, cruelty and sensu- . ality were openly" paraded, and society became the abode -' of ruffians and 'the haunt of evil.'