Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 18 June 1914, Page 34

Notes

Bible.in-Schools Movement We direct attention to the article on this subject on page 22 of this issue, which lias been published as a Catholic Federation leaflet. It nutshells in admirably effective form the principal objections to the Bible in State Schools proposals; and readers who desire to keep themselves well informed and well equipped on the question will find it well worthy of careful perusal.

♦ Volunteers '

There are, apparently, different kinds of volunteers. It is alleged (says the Irish Press Agency) that in Belfast, the ‘ volunteers ’ are paid three shillings a day; that, in Derry, where there is a mounted regiment, the horses are lent at five shillings a day ; and that, in Tyrone, the ‘ volunteers ’ are paid four shillings a day. The statement is made, on good authority, that the other Saturday evening, the ‘ adjutant’ of the local ‘volunteers’ was hissed by a number of them for whom their pay was not forthcoming, and that, in the same district, intimidation is exercised to compel farmers to join the movement. ‘Volunteers’ of this sort are not likely” to be very dependable if the time for action ever came. The Roads to Rome Our Presbyterian contemporary, the Outlook, in its latest issue remarks that ‘ one of the most arresting facts in religious history is the wonderful attraction that Roman Catholicism has for multitudes who have not been brought up in its communion,’ and it indulges in some speculation as to the explanation of the way in which the Catholic Church lays its spell upon the hearts of men. Perhaps the following, contributed to the Catholic Standard and Times by Father Elliott, C.S.P., himself a convert and a maker of converts, may furnish our contemporary with food for thought on the subject; and may help to bring out the fact that the reasons for conversions are as diverse and varied as the natures and temperaments of men, and that in the spiritual far more than it ever was in the material sense it is the case that ‘ all roads lead to Rome.’ Men join the Catholic Church.’ writes Father Elliott, * from the most diverse and sometimes seemingly contradictory reasons. One class is drawn to her by her beauty, attracted by the sweetness of her music and the eloquence of her ritual; some, like Overbeck, paint themselves into Catholicity, or build themselves

into her spiritual temple like Pugin. St. Peter’s, at Romo, has made many converts. Multitudes are made Catholics by studying history, some by scientific study of nature; multitudes again, by the plain words of Scripture. Not a few are attracted by Catholic charity. “Why do you want to be baptised?” inquired a chaplain in a Catholic hospital of a dying tramp who had asked for baptism. “Because I want to die in the same religion as that woman with the big white ‘bonnet, that’s been nursing me.” ■»

' 1 once met a sailor who, though he could not read or write, had argued himself into the Church and had been a fervent convert for several days. " What made you a Catholic?" 1 asked him. ,r Oh, sailing all about the world,'' was his answer—a sailor's way of acquiring the idea of the universal. 1 once received a. hard-headed old Yankee into the Church who affirmed that he had been converted by -reading the lianton Pilot. Some come in to do penance, driven by the sense of guilt into refuges like La Trappe. But 1 know men who have joined the Church from consciousness of innocence, revolting from the Protestant doctrine of total depravity : the innocence of childhood is happy in the Catholic Church. Meantime not a few philosophers become Catholics, like Brownson and Ward. Father Jlecker once told me that the study of the social problems started him from religious scepticism toward Catholic faith. Frederick Lucas affirmed that he became a Catholic because .he was a logical Quaker.'