Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 24 February 1916, Page 21

Current Topics

A New History

A few years ago Messrs. Gill and Son published A History of the Catholic Church in the. Nineteenth Century, by Rev. James MacCaffrey, S.T.L., Ph.D. The work was welcomed by the London . Tablet as a great contribution to Church history.- The Revue des Questions Historiquts pronounced it the most complete manual of its kind yet written by any Catholic pen. • Father MacCafi'rey's 'new book, The History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution, is equally important to students of Church history. The second volume; dealing with the Church . in the British Isles, is specially interesting for us, though we must not expect to find the subject as exhaustively treated as in Bellesheim's monumental work. In the first volume Father MacCaffrey deals with the Renaissance, the social and religious condition of Europe, and other causes which led to the Reformation ; with Luther and Zwingli; with Calvin; the great Catholic revival, which was the real reformation. The heresies and controversies of the age are all lucidly discussed. The work is no mere mine of information. It is a scholarly and masterly treatment of this most important period of Church history. The Unhealthy Trend of the Times When some of us were boys we regarded it as a duty to read Scott and Dickens whether we enjoyed it or not. Our college library was well stocked with novels of a lighter and more ephemeral nature, but the scornful comments of our librarian kept most of us from a surfeit of them. The much-decried ' pennyr dreadful ' is by no means the worst form of reading that can fall into a boy's or a girl's hands. Indeed, the ' penny-dreadful' is positively spiritual reading .in comparison with much of what passes for literature in the windows of New Zealand booksellers. The unhealthy trend of the times is, we think, beautifully illustrated by the following, which appeared in a number of Punch some years ago:—Two young ladies were discussing a book in front of a railway bookstall. One said: ' Yes, it is all right, but it isn't the sort of book I'd like mother to read.' In those days of the decadent novel who ever reads the fine old-fashioned stories that are real literature ? Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Disraeli, George Eliot, and Jane Austen are forgotten, while Robert Chambers and Locke flourish. And how neglected is real Catholic literature ! Father Sheehan, Doctor Barry, Monsignor Benson, and John Ayscough have attained to the very first rank of novelists among those whose opinion counts. How many of our young novel readers have read even one book by each of them? From a purely literary point of view, we think Ayscough's San Celestino and Barry's Two Standards will compare favorably with anything we have in the English language. After the War Speaking at Enniscorthy in December, Rev. Father T. Finlay, S.J., reminded his hearers of the dangers which may have to-be faced when the war is over. At present wages is higher than ever before in the memory of man. In England, skilled artisans are earning £6 to £lO a week. Market prices run 50 and 100 per cent, higher than before the war. All these things look as if money is plentiful. Working men,spend it lavishly on luxuries. A Cabinet Minister recently stated that had so many expensive pianos been imported. But it was all borrowed money. It was like wealth in the , hands of a prodigalj and an : accoubtjof -it would be demanded later. . At present the extravagance might be pleasant, but time would bring the melancholy duty of;' paying the bill. Things would 'be bad in Ireland after the war, but the outlook was worse for England. . They might expect to have two million men returning ''when trade? would I* be u disorganised and ' employment ■ scarcer He believed ..that the Government .would- be

face to face with a problem the magnitude and seriousness of . which they did not at present realise, and which they could not realise too soon or too earnestly. He would c not be surprised if Ireland had reason to rejoice that her main industry was agricultural. The Irish people would have at any rate a sufficiency of bread: They had the land, and if they choose to utilise the present sources of supply they need never starve. Every penny, that could be saved now should be put aside, and the most should be made of every acre. Father Finlay's remarks have a moral for us too. The fall that is bound to come after the present run of high prices, and the increase of taxation call for strict economy in New Zealand as well as in Ireland. The Church in Bulgaria It is more than probable that a good many Americans who discuss the religious affiliations of the belligerent European powers set Bulgaria down as a purely achismatical country (remarks the Ave Maria). That characterisation would not have been inexact a hundred years ago, for at that time the Church numbered in all Bulgaria and Roumania only one bishop and two priests. During the past century, however, things religious have improved. At present there are numerous Bulgarian Catholics, some belonging to the Latin rite, others to the Slavic. Of the former are diocese of Nicopolis, wherein the Passionist Fathers serve seventeen parishes; and the vicariate-apostolic of Philippopolisj with fifteen parishes under the direction of the Capuchin Fathers. In both districts there are also native parochial priests' To the Slavic rite belong two vicariates of the Uniat Bulgarian Church in Macedonia and Thrace, under the general jurisdiction of Mgr. Miroff, residing in Constantinople. These vicariates are equipped with seminaries, orphan asylums, colleges, boarding and day schools in charge of Sisters, hospitals, etc. Whatever be the result of the present upheaval in the Balkans, it is safe to predict that Bulgaria will come out of the war more, rather than less, Catholic than when she entered it. Invention and Progress Dr. James J. Walsh, the well-known New York author, contributes to a recent issue of America a striking article on ' Invention and Progress,- the opening sentence of which well leads up to his logical conclusion that 'we ought to hesitate about being so confident in the use of vaunting terms of praise for our wonderful progress.' He says : —' The idea of constant human progress now so practically universal, with its corollary of a comparatively near future when, as the result of progress, men are to be so happy here on earth that heaven will be quite unnecessary, has had some severe jolts from the present war with all its connotations.' After quoting Viscount Morley and John Stuart Mill, the latter of. whom said ' mechanical inventions have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number to' make fortunes,' he goes on to say:—'Literally the drudgery and imprisonment of mankind has been increased by our industrial era of which we are so jiroud. Men and women worked hard before,"but worked, as a rule, almost without exception, outside in the free air of heaven, amidst reasonably surroundings; they slept well, not in the slums created by factory conditions, and fed on simple things abundantly, and were much better off than our manufacturing populations.' ;■„ A Generous Testimony All that' is loftiest, sturdiest, strongest, and most uncompromising all that is most truly sacred in the artistic development of our people, precedes the day of Reformation.' These are not the words, of a Catholic obscurantist (remarks America). They come from the land whence the Reformation took its rise, from the University of Berlin, from a Protestant leader of., historic research, bearing witness to .Protestant '■■ readers of a truth which history cannot 4? n y They are from

the pen of Kurt Breysig and appeared in the Tag as part of an article catling upon Protestants to cast aside their prejudices and unfounded accusations against the Catholic Church and study her doctrines and practices in a sincere and friendly spirit. ' The Catholic ages of our nation represent the time of its vigorous youth, not. yet rationalistic and therefore all the stronger,' he writes, ' but the living Catholic Church is the living witness of this youth.' Advancing even farther, he thus casts a gauntlet before our materialistic age': 'He whose intellect and spirit have not yet been entirely blinded by the poverty and excessive emptiness of pur time may divine from the simplest village church that not only faith, but the might and intellect of humanity are lifted there to a height which our age could never have been able to attain of its own power, nor could any other century have reached to it unaided since the days of the. separation from the Catholic Church.' '■'•* * Such is the writer's impartial conclusion necessitated by the obvious testimony of the present and the past. Voices like his are not uncommon in our day. They express the deeper, truer thought of our age.