The New Zealand Teblet THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1911 A MUCH NEEDED CRUSADE

New Zealand Tablet, 26 January 1911, Page 155

The New Zealand Teblet THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1911 A MUCH NEEDED CRUSADE

stitigP '-—* - wjKrw HE world is growing cleaner-mouthed, as literati! t " te slloWS > and decent people do not nowadays c»/?|Pi rip out strange oaths as their ancestors used j(d=2£>T to s but there is still much too much of nauseating profanity in the way in which the «CsiiL>§!' m St SacrGcl Names are bandied in the conX J§& / versation of our workshops, fields, and street§T corners. So late as half a century ago the swearing habit appears to have been almost , universal, even in the so-called higher circles. 'Sixty years ago,' says Dean Hole, 'the conventional gentleman was as profuse in his anathemas as an Oecumenical Council or a Commination Service, but his maledictions were nob pronounced against evil and unbelief, but Against political opponents, inclement weather, forgetful servants, refractory horses, disagreeable duties, and tradesmen who wished to be paid. Those were days in which a Primate said to a Premier, 'lt may save time, my lord, if we assume before we commence our discussion that everybody and everything is damned.' The practice is in many cases largely the outcome of thoughtlessness, and the sources of its strength are to be found in habit and environment. The strength of grip which the practice takes upon those who have once thoroughly acquired the habit is well illustrated by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn. He describes young Huck Finn as being rescued from his wild life and adopted by a kind widow lady. After a brief experience of the new conditions the disconsolate Huck said to the friend of his bosom: 'Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort; I'd got to go up to the attic and rip out a while every day to get a taste in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom.' That is just it. The habit becomes a mental and physical force that, when well entrenched within the territory of our personality, it takes a strenuous struggle to drive from its vantage-ground. * The very prevalence of this evil habit dulls the public , sense of its enormity, and thereby increases the difficulty of effectively coping with it. History, however, tells us of more than one more or less successful effort-by associations or by individuals—to check the evil and to promote clean speech. Perhaps the most noted association of this kind was that which was formed in the first half of the fifteenth century by the famous Franciscan monk and preacher St Bernardine of Siena. He raised aloft a banner bearing the Holy Name inscribed above a figure of the crucified Lord, preached a crusade against the abhorrent blasphemy that was so prevalent in his day, and succeeded everywhere in winning men to abandon those jarring expletives of passion and irreligion that are now so common in these new countries. St. Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans imposed upon her soldiers the most stringent orders against the use of profane language. She even succeeded in reducing to the bounds of strict decorum the language of the celebrated oath-volleying La Hire, who was a very Boanerges among the sturdy swearers of his time, and who con-

sidered thunderous blasphemy as an indispensable qualification of a leader of men—just as it is in these new countries regarded by some as a necessity for the driver of the slow-paced ox-team. Under the gentle influence of the sainted Maid of Orleans, La Hire so far amended the style of his lingual gymnastics as to swear by nothing else than his marshal's baton. St. Louis of France, the Lollards, the Puritans, and the Quakers all waged war to the knife against swearing. A more recent effort on the Continent has aimed at checking profanity by the use of what are called 'curse cards.' People go about with the cards in their pockets, and when they hear bad language present one to the swearer to sign. The card has printed on it a pledge to abstain from swearing for a specified time, or to pay a small fine for each oath to some charity. ' Nearly 40,000 of these cards,' says a London paper, 'have been distributed in Switzerland alone.' * But by far the most successful and remarkable movement against profanity yet recorded is the magnificent crusade which is at present sweeping over the United States, and claiming the attention of the whole country. It has been instituted by the Holy Name Society— Catholic association organised expressly for the purpose of crusading against profanity and its companion evil, obscene storytelling. The success of the society has been amazing. Within the last few years it has extended its branches from the Atlantic to the Pacific— the Great Lakes to the Gulf—and there is now hardly a diocese in which it is not represented. The Apostolic Delegate, his Excellency Diomede Falconio, in a letter of April 30, 1910, has given the society his heartiest commendation. ' I recommend most heartily,' he says, ' to the venerable hierarchy and to the clergy of the United States the Society of the Holy Name, and would urge its establishment in every parish. Wherever it has been organised it has done great good by promoting clean speech and reverence for the Holy Name of God, and by the help it affords men to approach the Sacraments regularly and to attend to all their other Christian duties. Example is a powerful force for good or evil, and the example of a large body of men in a parish practising their religious duties faithfully is at once a stimulus and a help to the members to fervor and perseverance, and an inducement to others who without this example might be careless and indifferent.' It is estimated that up to the present time 500,000 Catholics have enrolled themselves under the blue and white insignia of the society, and have pledged themselves to do their utmost for the suppression of profanity and all immorality. a The principal, and certainly the most effective, means by which the society aims at influencing public opinion is by the holding of mammoth processions and parades- and the accounts of these giant demonstrations—even at this distance—make most interesting and inspiriting reading .We give a few brief specimen references, culled from our contemporary, the San Francisco Monitor :—' Newark N J., had a splendid, big Holy Name rally last Sunday afternoon, when a body of nearly twenty thousand men marched through the streets of the city, with fluttering banners and to the strains of martial music. In the ranks were veterans of the Civil War, with grey hair and faltering step. By their sides marched their sons; the rich and poor, old and young, representatives of many nationalities and men of every political belief, were represented in the ranks. A cold, drizzling rain failed to deter the marchers or dampen their enthusiasm.' Again: 'Fifty thousand earnest and determined people, headed by singing choirs instead of brass bands, marched through the streets of Pittsburg as a witness that the war is on-that profanity Z g % JT m ° re: ' lns P ired by the Right Rev Thomas F. Hickey, D.D., over 13,000 men paraded through the heart of Rochester on Sunday, carrying the blue and white insignia of the Holy Name Society, "listened to remarkable speeches by a distinguished Catholic prelate and a Supreme Court justice, in which obedience to constituted authority was exhorted and a protest voiced in behalf of millions of Catholics in America against every tendency to anarchy and lawlessness. It was the greatest parade of its kind ever held in that city.' And yet again: 'Reverence for the Holy Name, desire for the promotion of clean

speech, drew fully six thousand men into line last Sunday afternoon at Cincinnati, and as they marched over the various thoroughfares on their way to the grounds surroun mg -Holy Name Church, where special services were to be held, they offered a splendid exemplification of; the ends and aims of the Society of the Holy Name, of which they were enrolled members. It was a demonstration of which all Christians should feel proud.’ And so on. It is unmistakably evident that these parades have greatly stirred public sentiment in American cities; and the movement has won warm encomiums both from Protestant religious papers and trom the secular press.

xr There is abundant scope for the operations of the Holy ame Society, and for an anti-profanity, anti-obscenity crusade in our own Dominion. Our godless schools are busy turning out youths of the type of Huck Finn, who can find no comfort in ‘talking nice,’ but who have to rip out awhile every day. And while Catholics who are brought up under right influences have a deep and instincive reverence for the Sacred Name and the name of the Deity, and are shocked at their free and frequent and needless repetition, those of our people who are lax in the practice of their religion are easily influenced by their environment, and very readily catch the infection. As we have said, public opinion on the subject is now very far in advance of what it once was. Habitual profanity fixes a mans status and hard swearing is no longer considered an accomplishment for a gentleman, much less for a lady. The practice has, in fact, virtually gone out from the upper rungs of society. The time will come, it is to be hoped, when this coarse vice will disappear from both ends of the social ladder. And the coming of that good day would undoubtedly be hastened by the spread of associations like tlitit of liliG Holy Name.