Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1913, Page 34

Notes

The Difference Under the caption, ‘ Puzzled,’ a writer in Ave Maria voices in verse a query that it has occurred to more than the child mind to ask: ‘Does God go homo in the Summer time?” A little girl asked one day; “ They’ve closed our church since the first of June, And the minister’s gone away.

“‘I can’t understand why God should leave In the long, dry Summer heat, When He lives all year and waits and waits In that church across the street.”

Music Halls, ‘Sporting’ Priests Mr. George Mozart, the well-known comedian, who is a convert to Catholicism, made a very practical as well as a very entertaining speech at the meeting of the London Catholic Stage Guild which was held at the Bishop’s House, Southwark, on September 27. W© are indebted for our summary to the London Letter of the Irish Catholic. Mr. Mozart began by saying that to him it seemed rather extraordinary that generally speaking the public seemed to believe that the musichall and religion were very far apart. They could not understand a music-hall artist striving to be religious. It seemed impossible to convince the ‘ man in the street ’ to the contrary. He gave an instance of this which had recently been his experience. At the beginning of the summer he took a little house at Walton-on-Thames, and, driving back with the estate agent after examining the premises, he remarked, ‘ I suppose I shall have three or four miles to walk on Sunday mornings?’ The agent replied, ‘Oh, no; the river is only twelve minutes away.’ I said, ‘ I don’t want the river; I want a church.’ ‘Oh, get along with you,’ said the agent; ‘ none of your jokes.’ ‘I am not joking; lam a Catholic.’ ‘Oh, that is different. You will be surprised to know that the Catholic church is ■ next door to you.’ Continuing, Mr. Mozart said, that because he tried to be good some of his colleagues thought he had religious mania, and when they heard where he had taken a house they pointed out to him, ‘There’s Mozart! He’s been looking all over the river for a house next door to a Catholic church.’

It was his experience that if a music-hall artist said that he was going to Mass, he was told ‘ You will catch cold, and lose your voice in a draughty church a man can be good without going to Mass.’ The ridicule against religion in the profession, he declared, was terrible for a man who was not strong-minded enough to withstand it. The ridicule soon took effect, and the artist ceased going to Mass. Mr. Mozart told the meeting that it was four years since he entered the Holy Mother Church, and he would like to see the priests get to work among the music-hall people. Of these self-sacrificing holy men some were a little too pious. They had lived too long in a Protestant country, and they nad become in consequence too narrow. Fie supposed that was why they refused his invitation to come round to the stage door to see him. When he asked them they generally assumed a deprecating look and said: * Oh, Mr. Mozart, I am afraid I would be out of. my element; people will talk.’ ‘They will talk anyway, so what does it matter?’ was his rejoinder, so come round.’ * The previous evening he was with a well-known comedian in his dressing-room, who, pointing to. a bundle of appeals to help charities, said : ‘ Why should I give them money ? They are my enemies; they want to close all theatres and music-halls. They say we are not giving the right kind of entertainment, and so on.’ When Mr. Mozart asked him what about the Catholic priests, he said : ‘ Oh, they are sports. I saw 50 or 60 Irish priests at the Grand National.’ Whether that was right or wrong, continued the speaker, that was the sort of priest that was wanted for music-hall artists —priests who were what the music-hall artists called ‘sports’; and he knew many priests, holy men, who were ‘sports.’ There was a lot of work to be done among music-halls in London, and if there was any sin behind the stage, then that was where the priest ought to be to put it right.