Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 4 January 1917, Page 21

Current Topics

—— ♦ Some'Lame Excuses ~, *' -' '"','"", Before taking up editorial work. the writer of these lines spent some happy and (to him) useful 'years, as traveller for ; the -N.Z.'Tablet* and' looking back ■;on' his experience in that capacity he would catalogue somewhat as follows the reasons alleged by -householders icr barring their doors against the Catholie paper : .. ; 1. That you have not been asked-to take it. -. / i 2, That you have little, if any, interest in Catholic •afiair's. 3. That you prefer not to be bothered with religious reading. ~' ;;.;■'■ 4. That it is merely neglect. • You haven't thought of ,it. \ 5. That you take so many papers you must economise by cutting off the best and most necessary of them. , ■6. That you will let the other fellow defend yctir religion. < ."■'., 7. That you differed;, once with the. editor and can't, forgive him, although you agreed with him in ninetynine other instances.' * ' , 8. That such money as you pay for-papers you give to dailies which occasionally insult your religion, refer to your Church as ' the Romish Church',' and bring immorality and'.scandal' into your family. Now, reader, if you are not a subscriber to a Catholic paper and belong to the Ist, 4th, sth, 7th, or bin class, you will subscribe at once. But if you belong to the 2nd, 3rd, or 6th, we can do nothing with you. . Ireland' If Mr. John Redmond's judgment can be' accepted, there are Mome faint signs that Ireland is at last beginning to recover from the trying and tragic experience through which she has been passing in the bitter mouths since Easter week. In his recent speeches he has been vigorously pushing his campaign for the immediate application of Home Rule to Ireland : and speaking at Sligo on October 29 he thus hits off present conditions and prospects in the most distressful country: ' The present state of Ireland is a serious menace to the British Empire, to a victorious ending of the war. Ireland's suspicion of British statesmen and their promises should be met with trust and Home Rule putimmediately into operation. This would do more to help the successful ending of the war than the alliance of half a dozen neutrals. Ireland is suffering from a brain-storm. A gust of passion has swept the country and a period of calm is necessary to restore a rational and sane view of the causes and the consequences of the tragedy through which Ireland has just passed. Com-mon-sense is rapidly reasserting itself and the passion is subsiding. Ireland has come to believe that she must not sacrifice the fruits of forty years of patient labor ill a moment of anger and disappointment.' How Admiral Dewey Keeps His Grip Admiral George Dewey— me cousin George,' as Mr. Dooley affectionately called him, —now in his 79th year, is described as ' a picture of ruddy vigor, unwrinkled, unshrunken, and hard as a monkey-wrench.' The reason is that he has a system for preserving his health. It seems to consist chiefly of a series of don'ts. Fred C. Kelly tells what these don'ts are in the course of a sketch published in the ,Amerterm, Magazine, and from this it appears that the Admiral who had no fear of the Spanish fleet is afraid of funerals and dinners. ', "Dinners and funerals kill more people than anything else," declares Dewey. And so he' goes ,to neither. A while ago one of his old-time friends and associates in the- navy died. The man's family expected Dewey

v " ' ." . -, ' ':-"•■ ' ■ • 10 act as one 01 the pall-bearers, out he was obliged to T .tell 'them that he adhered, strictly to -V r ~rule" against* , < . attending funerals'. "A funeral," he says, "is de- ■;> pressing, and if I went to many I would soon go to my \ *£ own." Frequently Dewey ; receives a dinner invitation ./ "" that he would like to accept...' i ;; He is tempted to V: do so. : "' i V JBut" he knows that the only way to have a rule effective " s?\ against dining out is to have it inviolate/ Otherwise, I ■' -':K one would be exciting •the animosity of. old friends for --,' ' accepting one invitation and declining another. (i There has' never yet been invented a way to; eat your cake and \ .' - • have it," says Dewey "neither can you • abuse your health and, have it." lie looks , on participation *" in ," i social activities by a person- of advanced years as an , ■ ■ abuse of health. His experience has taught him that . 3; ■ ' a fashionable dinner contains more food than one' > should eat,. of a flragrantly indigestible sort. ! Dewey ..; made up his mind to do one"'of two things: he would ) 'V: either go ahead With whatever his fancy might dictate, or he would. adhere rigidly to a flat rule against' every- : r thing that could detract in the slightest degree from •< proper health maintenance!'■ He looked about him, "-•'- ' and noted that the world was good to look upon. A ' long banquetless life appealed to . him more than a ? shorter and merrier one. He made his .choice on that>' > basis.' ; \ ■ , .' ; ', ..';. "' * . '" ' ' ' '.' .' - V;' Other examples and exponents of the art of long, living have followed precisely . the same 'maxim of . ./i; studious moderation. A quaint old recipe for attain-■ "" ing great old age runs thus: ' No pies or cakes, no pains ;.: ' or aches.' Most men dig their graves with their teeth.'. V Mr. Bradbury, a former Governor of Maine, gave the following as the secret of length of days when he was M f standing near the brink of his hundredth year: A Get, "■'._-'■ an incurable ailment in .your youth and nurse it till your death.' A somewhat similar experienceminus > the nursing — fell to the lot of the illustrious Pope, ..•-.•: Leo XIII. When nearing x his twentieth year he fell into a long-drawn and painful malady that almost ' . shrivelled up the life in him and threatened to dig him an early grave. Pain drove sleep from his pillow and in long watches of the weary night he wrote in ; Latin verse : ' Wakeful till latest night, thy limbs in vain Court needful rest: • Yet pain, when charmed by verse, Seems half allayed.' He himself felt that his coffin and grave-clothes should soon bo ready. Yet he lived far past the ordinary span of human existence and died at ninety-three with his great mind clear to the last. And ever through life he found that Against diseases here the strongest fence ,'..'.'■' '.-■■",•■ Is the defensive virtue, abstinence.' The Religious Shirker We are all familiar wijth the colorless, spineless, weak-kneed - type of character who is aptly known as the ' jelly-fish Catholic. We are also familiar, unfortunately, with the out-and-out bad Catholic —the man - who, as the, American youngster said of his father, ' is .. ~- a Christian, but he ain't working 'at it.' v We have met, too, the man and the woman who, in. their %ager-/,.-ness to make money or to gain social position, are in their secret hearts deeply sorry at having had the mis- "M fortune to bo born Catholics, and who would readily • quit their Church were it not that they lack the courage . • , to become renegades. But it is not often that we come across a man who openly and publicly proclaims that he is ashamed of his religion. ,i Such a case occurred A -• in a northern city of New Zealand the other day. : An —nominally Catholicappearing in an - official capacity in a Police Court, was met with' the . - statement that his activities. had caused dissatisfaction ,-'

amongst the public, arid that, ah .inquiry had ■'■'. been asked for regarding the number of Catholics in high 1 Government office in the city. -Whereupon* if the Press Association report of the T incident is to be relied upon, the individual in question hastened to say-that 'he knew nothing of the complaints, and hoped the court would accept his assurance that he haft not been in church for several years. He was not of a religious turn of mind, arid his wife was -a member of the Church of England.' • ' The ; court would probably have little difficulty in accepting the assurance, and ; they would have still less in \ coming to ..their own conclusion about it. It-would probably occur to them that the man who is ashamed of : his religion is likely to find that his religion is at least as heartily ashamed of 7 him. At the best, a man who professes himself ashamed of the Catholic Church—with,, her long roll of saints', and martyrs, her mighty intellects, her galaxy of illustrious names, distinguished in literature science, and* art, arid in every department of human activity—presents a pitiable and ridiculous- figure. It is not the Church who suffers by such an one's repudiation or betrayal of the Catholic name. In such■-« a connection one is reminded of Aesop's fable about the gnat which was sitting on a; bull's horn, and said to the bull: 'l'm going away now.' The bull said: ''l didn't know you were there.' All the world respects and admires com sistency. When you know where to find a man, he has one good point l at any rate; but an individual who tries to run with the .hare and hunt with the hounds gets nobody's good word. Surely when the enemy of souls sees Catholics ashamed of their religion—and the number of these religious shirkers is painfully large,-it must be as good as a play to him. He tempts genuine Christians, but he lets the others alone. He need not shoot at lame ducks : his dog can pick them up any day. „