Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 14 July 1910, Page 1102

Notes

The King and the Pope An Irish correspondent writes to the London Tablet : 1 The late King when writing his name in the visitors’ book at Maynooth drew forth a beautiful pen, and, turning to the company, said: “This pen once belonged to Pope Leo, who gave it to my friend, Father Bernard Vaughan. He kindly sent it to me as a souvenir of his Holiness.” ’

The McCabe Visitation Mr. Joseph McCabe, ex-priest and evolutionary rationalist lecturer, is now concluding a tour of this part of the world, which he has been making in the interests of the Rationalist Press Association. At Wellington and Christchurch he intimated that in his lectures there would be no scurrilous attacks on anyone’s religious beliefs, and he appears to have kept the letter of his undertaking at least by abstaining from any direct, frontal attack on any special doctrine of the Catholic faith. But of indirect side attacks on the influence of the Church there have been many. Under the circumstances Catholic apologists have naturally felt tempted to controvert the lecturer’s misstatements in the daily press, and this was done in Wellington by one or two writers with extreme ability. It is unsatisfactory, however, partly because Mr. McCabe is almost flying through New Zealand, and interest in his utterances in any one place ceases as soon as he has left that place ; and partly—and chiefly—because the inevitable effect is to give the lectures a much-needed and welcome advertisement. The lecturer’s ‘ arguments ’—such as they are— calculated to appeal chiefly, if not exclusively, to those who are accustomed to follow private judgment in matters of faith; and of all religious denominations in the country the Catholic body is assuredly the least likely to suffer from the McCabe visitation.

Englishman and Irishman A volume of essays by. Mr. Coulson Kernahan has just been published by Jarrold and Sons under the title ‘Dreams Dead Earnest and Half Jest.’ In one of these studies Mr. Kernahan soliloquises about the Impossible Irishman,’ and the following excerpt presents one point of view: ‘ That your Englishman never knows when he is beaten is the veriest platitude. In all the world there is no nationality which can play a losing game with such desperate doggedness. I venture to think, however, that the Irishman and therein is perhaps a reason why he excels in the art of war— more resourceful, is quicker to think, and quicker to act. An Englishman, finding himself in a corner so tight that anyone else would decide at once that there was nothing for it but surrender or retreat, says: “Here I am, and here I’ll stick to be shot at, till I’m killed or till relief comes. An Irishman in the same place would say: “It’s the devil’s own hole I’m ini But, wait now! What way’ll I be getting out?” And get out the Irishman generally does.’

The Oberammergau Passion Play The first of this year’s performances of the Passion Play was given on Monday, May 16. An eye-witness of the performance telegraphed as follows to the London Daily

Mail : —■ One can only regard the whole performance, apart from its religious significance, with astonishment. The people of Oberammergau, without any outside help whatever, are responsible for the whole of it, and have brought it, through long years, to its present pitch of artistic perfection. None is allowed to take part who was not born in the village. Oberammergau has 1650 inhabitants, and about half of them are actually on the stage or in the orchestra, while most of the rest are concerned with the production in one way or another.

* But it is the acting of these villagers that is most remarkable. They seem, one and all, to have been born to it. In the scenes where the bulk of them are on the stage a wonderfully natural effect is gained by the way in which they move and talk to one another, and are never still or stiff. Of the chief characters Anton Lang feels his great part so deeply that he is beyond ordinary criticism. Johann Zwink, who takes the part of Judas for the third time, having played the Apostle John in his youth, makes his thankless part one of the most remarkable in the play. No one who has seen his suspicious aloofness, his traitor’s kiss, his dawning remorse and final despair, can ever forget them. It is no wonder that the Passion Play draws crowds to Oberammergau from all over the world. There is nothing to be seen like it anywhere else, and so say all who move out into the evening sunlight when it is over. They have sat through its scenes for over eight hours, and there are few who would not be willing to see it all over again.’