Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 14 March 1912, Page 34

Notes

•♦ ■ i Father Bernard Vaughan .The Jaffna Catholic Guardian in a recent issue recalled the following good story of Leo XIII. and Father Vaughan. ‘Father Bernard Vaughan/ it said, ‘is now in America. He intends visiting every large city in the United States. Being asked what he proposed to do in America, he replied: “I am going to try and create the want of God—and to supply it.” His oratory will be a surprise to many; it astonished his audience when once he preached before Pope Leo XIII. in Home. “He can’t be an Englishman,” said Cardinal Rampolla to the Pope. “ No,” said Leo XIII., with a smile. “Father Bernard was born in the crater of Vesuvius, and we only sent him to England to cool! ” ’ , ‘ . fr Dickens and Father Mathew Probably few, even of the regular readers of Dickens, are aware that Father Mathew, the famous Irish temperance apostle, is mentioned in one of the novelist’s books—not in one of his stories, but in American Notes, in which the great English author set down his impressions of young America. Here is the passage, in a description of a Father Mathew parade in Cincinnati: ‘There happened to be a great temperance convention held here on the day after our. arrival: and as the order of march brought the procession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it. . . I was particularly glad to see the Irishmen, who formed a distinct society among themselves, and mustered very strong with their scarves carrying their national harp and their j portrait of Father Mathew, high above the people’s heads. They looked as jolly and good-humored as ever; and, working the hardest for their living and doing any kind of labor that came their way, were the most independent fellows there, I thought.’ / ■ / ■ Ireland and the Faith Some short time ago we printed in these columns Mr. Birrell’s fine tribute to the unconquerable Catholic spirit of the Irish people, which had survived , and triumphed over every form of tyranny, and persecution,

Mr. Birrell's speech recalls ,a strikingly similar, utter ance made so long ago as 1845 by Lord Macaulay. In his Speech on the .Church of Ireland, made in the House of Commons in that year, Lord Macaulay said:' Two hundred and eighty-five years has this Church (the Irish Established) been at work. What could have been done for it in the way of authority, privilege, endowments, which has not been done . . . And what have we to show for all this lavish expenditure ? What but the most zealous Roman Catholic population on the face of the earth. On the great solid mass of the Roman Catholic population you have made no impression whatever. There they are, as they were ages ago, ten to one against the members of your Established Church. Explain this to me. I speak to you, the zealous. Protestants on the other side of the House. Explain this to me on Protestant principles. If I were a Roman Catholic I could easily account for the phenomenon. If I were a Roman Catholic I should content myself with saying that the mighty Hand and the outstretched Arm had been put forth according to the in defence of the unchangeable Church; that He Who, in the old time, turned into blessing the curses of Balaam, and smote the host of Sennacherib, had signally confounded the arts and the powers of heretic statesmen.' - .