HAMILTON

New Zealand Tablet, 21 May 1914, Page 17

HAMILTON

MILITARY" CAMP. ARRANGEMENTS AT "-"'%"••'*, HAUTAPU. , * An attack on the authorities in , charge of the military camp at Hautapu was made by Dean Darby in a sermon at the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Hamilton, on Sunday evening, May lu (says the Waikato limes). The preacher took as his text, There is no;power but from God ' (Rom. 13-1). He said that on Friday week he set off for the camp on a mission of peace, when ho made all arrangements for saying Mass on the following Sunday at 7.30 a.m. for the Catholic soldiers under canvas. Sunday morning again found him on the road at 6 a.m., and at 6.50 a.m. he was in camp prepared to begin Mass for 1 he Catholic soldiers at 7.30 a.m. Great was his astonishment, and deep his sorrow to find that no preparation had been maue for the celebration of the Mass, and after spending an hour there he was forced to retire, having neither said Mass nor seen the Catholic soldiers. The Catholic Church, being a Society, had her laws, and one .of the principal of these was that all Catholics were bound to hear Mass on Sundays. So stringent was this law that a Catholic may not wilfully omit his Mass under pain of grave sin, and fathers and mothers and masters, and all such persons, sin grievously if without sufficient cause they hindered those under them from hearing Mass on a Sunday. This obligation of hearing Sunday Mass was but a corollary of the Commandment of God: ' Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.' In the camp on the previous Sunday there were some 700 Catholic soldiers. All of them, by reason of their Church law, were bound to hear Mass, and all of them, because obedient to the military law, lost Mass. On one occasion the Divine Master, being asked, Is it lawful .to give tribute to Caesar or not?' demanded the coin of the realm, and, holding it up, asked, ' Whose image and inscription is this ? ' and the answer came, ' Caesar's.' Then Christ answered and said, ' Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' Surely our Lord understood what He was saying, and He made it clear that it was possible to render to Caesar the things that were Caesar's, and to God the things that were God's. So persistently did He insist on this doctrine that in the end lie laid down His life for it. When Caesar usurped the place of God, then followed a great subversion of order. How, then, ask Catholics in New Zealand to put God behind the door, to treat Him as extra, to obliterate Him? Catholic soldiers were by law forced into camp. Was the same law to be used to force them to forget their God whilst . in camp ? In answering this question, let them consider the words taken from the First Epistle of St. Peter, ch. ii. (this j>ortiou of the Sacred Scriptures was set down to be read in Catholic churches during Mass on Sunday last, the third Sunday after Easter) : ' Be ye subject, therefore, to every for God's sake, whether it be to the king as excelling or to governors as sent by him. . . For so is the will of God.' Again: ' Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the,king.' Again St. Paul, Rom. xiii., 1: 'Let every soul be subject to higher powers, for there is no power bub from God.' What, then, was the bedrock of all obedience to authority, if it be not the principle enunciated here by St. Peter and insisted upon by St. Paul: 'Obedience for God's sake?' The military authorities were to be respected and obeyed because all authority was from God. ' Be ye subject to every human. creature for God's sake.' Christianity taught subjection to authority for God's sake, whether it be to the king as excelling or to governors as sent by Him. If God were the basic principle of all authority, why was the God of Catholics, Who was the God of all Christians, made an extra in the campput behind the door —aye, turned down? Why was he, a: Catholic priest, who

made great sacrifices to get to the camp, not given the opportunity to minister to the Catholic soldiers in camp? Why was he- forced to go from the private to the lieutenant, from the lieutenant to the captain, from the captain to the colonel, to-see if Mass could not be said? Like St. Paul before ' the Athenians, he was pleading that the case of the unknown God ' be heard. Thousands of men were in camp, hundreds of Catholics were among them. Not one volunteered to befriend him, no outpost welcomed him. He was a stranger among thousands of his brothers. He went in the name of the Lord of Hosts to break the Bread of Life to his brethren, to speak to them the things of peace, but was forced to retire. If that were the military spirit, no wonder for conscience' sake some were opposed to it. No wonder, too, if in a little while tens, of thonsands would be opposed to it. Narrow-mindedness and ungentlemanly conduct were poor adjuncts to anyone, and might well be dispensed with in military camps! Already the people of this country were groaning under taxation, but if military service meant oppression of conscience, then soon they might expect an open rebellion against compulsory military training. God, said the Sacred Scriptures, had made man ' a little less than the angels,' but man wanted to make his fellow-man a little less than the brute beast. It cannot be. He was truly a great general of whom the poet-laureate wrote ' Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, . ' Nor paltered with the Eternal God for power.' Also did he tell a great truth who advised his fellowmen to remember that • ' dust thou art, to dust returnest.' This was not spoken of the soul. And 'Be not like dumb, driven cattle; be a hero in the strife. For what are men better than sheep and goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if knowing God they raise not hands of prayer both for themselves and those that call them friends.' Away then, added the Dean, with any militarv svstem that would coerce the consciences of men and so make them think and act as if no higher than the brute beasts of the field. He appealed to his congregation to stand together in a solid unit and to give Eternal God His place in the army. On the day of presenting the colors, they gave expression to the words, 'Our help is in the Name of the Lord, Who hath made heaven and earth.' May these words be not merely words, but in truth the ideal of the New Zealand army. Then would the words of the song ring with the ring of truth: ' The souls of the heroes died not in the ranks of the deathless army.' For what did men hope by banishing God ? Could it be that they wished to deaden the Catholic conscience and to make Catholics relinquish their grand old faith ? If so, they must be ignorant of history and blind to fact. If opposition was the remedy to impede Catholic progress, then the Church had withstood opposition for well-nigh nineteen centuries, and she showed no sign of decay and was more vigorous. Perhaps it was hoped to make Catholics obedient soldiers, but if God, the foundation of authority, was withdrawn, rebellion was near at hand, and out of order would come chaos. Perhaps to put God out of the army would make soldiers courageous, but it would make them barbarians. Was it courage that made Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, condemn Christ to be scourged and crucified, after He had been thrice declared innocent, and then wash his hands to show that he was ' innocent of the blood of this just man ' ? Was it courage that goaded on the rabble to scourge Christ, to spit upon Him, and crown Him with thorns in derision as a mock king; and was it courage that moved His adversaries' to nail Him to a cross and offer a last insult to Him by piercing His side with a lance as He hung on the cross? In all these atrocious acts, those who were guilty, of them gave everlasting proof of a want of courageand. today Christ the Lord was turned down, not because He had not made His case good, but because men must have courage to follow Him. One of the bedrock

reasons given by the advocates of compulsory military training for New Zealanders was that ‘ it would make them men of discipline— men but, if having been established, it made men deny .Christ the'Lord, it was turning out moral cowards, for the band of cowardice is eternally stamped on all such. Thereforq he appealed to Christians of all denominations not to be content with the formality of blessing and consecrating the colors of the regiment, but to dig deeper and to demand that the army of New Zealand will render to God its reasonable service. To Catholics in particular did he appeal, by reason of all the sacrifices they had made in the past, in , the cause of religion, that they would not be content nor relent from action till they were able to give to God the worship they knew to be His due. Let the Government of this country see that no man because of his religious views was going to be handicapped in the army, but let it be plain to all that merit, and merit alone, could win the prize of distinction, and that no class distinction nor machinations of secret societies could alter this rule. In our parliamentar} 7 life any man who had the ability might become the Premier of the Dominion ; so let it be in the army that any soldier may, if he had the ability, become the general of the army.