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New Zealand Tablet, 17 May 1917, Page 30

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The Delegate His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate has been notified by the Cardinal Secretary of State that he is appointed Secretary to the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs—a'position once filled by the present Holy Father. Monsignor Cerretti will leave for Rome shortly. Our German Cousins The Catholic Press, referring to certain reports of the Munchausen type, says: "Surely no one would believe that a nation connected with the Anglo-Saxons, and by intermarriage with a very large section of our aristocracy, can be guilty of such a barbaric practice as the newspapers suggest." Consideration for the delicate susceptibilities of our Orange friends and their editors would prevent us from saying anything so cruel as that. They have not yet recovered from the shock they got when we gave the genealogy of the King. As far as we know the King has never thought it his duty to disown his ancestors. Will the friends of Sir Edward the friend of the Kaiser insist on his doing so? 5 Winston Churchill Although the peculiar combination of forces behind the throne have victimised Mr. Churchill, we think few men will come out of this war with a brighter reputation. When the Belgians were left alone, deserted in their heroic struggle, Winston was the one man who remembered that honor bound England to help them. If he did little he did his best; and that the best was no better was not his fault. In the days of a certain war that is now over we recall that Mr. Stead described Winston Churchill, then a young man, as the one Englishman in South Africa who could tell the truth. It was neither luck nor influence that put him, still a young man, in the high position he held until recently; and we are sure that after the war, when a man is wanted, he will find his place again. That he is not associated with Lloyd George and Carson—the equivocator and the traitor—is a matter of congratulation for Winston at present. \- Punctuation A comma is a little thing; but sometimes it is a little thing that matters much. An Oxford man who* had an antipathy to distinctive clerical dress once wrote: "I shall wear no clothes, to distinguish me from my fellow-Christians." A comma too much was the trouble there; a comma too little can be just as disastrous, as appears from the following \ advertisement: "A piano for sale * by a lady about to leave England in an oak case with carved legs.'?" The various readings of the barber's sign is an old story. The sign was: What do you think I will shave you for nothing and give you a drink." A guileless customer read it: " What do you think I will shave you

for nothing and give you a drink." When the barber had done convincing him otherwise he read it thus: What! Do you think I will shave you for nothing and give you a drink?" iii Childhood George Russell observes that as heaven lies about our.infancy so does the poet— a different sense. In the latter accept the following stories about happy childhood's golden days:—Two little London waifs were once sent for a day in the country. On being asked afterwards how they enjoyed it, the answer was: " Oh, yes, we did have a happy day. We saw two pigs killed and a gentleman buried." He was already a philosopher who, when asked if he thought he would like a hymn-book for his birthday, replied : " I think I should like a hymn-book, but I know I should like a squirt." A precocious girl wrote an essay on Civil War, stating gravely that " A Civil War is one in which the military are unnecessarily polite, often raising their helmets to each other before engaging in deadly combat." Two small boys possessed of a ha'penny each subscribed for a penny cigar. Tom was smoking proudly when Bill suggested that he was in-

terested. " Oh, shut up," says Tom, "I am the chairman of the company, and you are only a shareholder. You can spit if you wish."

The Christchurch " Sun " This paper attacked us recently. We pointed out last week that it was because we had the courage to tell the truth. It called our notices of an Orange anti-Catholic campaign of diabolical malignity, and of insulting resolutions, unprovoked sectarian attacks. We said that to do so was to champion those who made such attacks. We repeat it emphatically. The Sun does not like it : but it has shown that it hates the truth. Our defence of the rights of Ireland, our criticism of obvious calumnies against our enemies also wounded the Sun. We have the approval of those whose approval we want : and we could have no stronger testimony that we are right than the blind fury and the absence of reason the Sun has displayed. We again repeat that it is our opinion that the original attack was written by an Orange Stiggins. We abide by our exposure of English atrocities, of venal misrepresentations, and of bigoted attacks on our Church. The hysterics of the editor of the Sun have not cleared him from the . guilt of defending the campaign of hate of Elliott any more than they make a defence of the rights of small nations and a criticism of the war based on a study of impartial authorities appear sedition in the eyes of honest men. The "Sun" Shines on the Good A friend called our attention to a cutting from the Sun, stating that from a certain Orange Lodge some ninety per cent, had gone to the front—in fact, out of nearly two hundred only a dozen were left to curse the Pope at home. It is quite right for the editor of the Sun to advertise his friends. But what a help to Carson that paragraph would have been when he had to hang his head and admit that the pampered yellow pup was on the whole as ungrateful as the persecuted, hanged, robbed, murdered, and

calumniated Irishmen !: Why does the Sun tell us that the antics of an Elliott, and the . blasphemies of a L.0.L., are no provocation? Why does the Sun rage at the plain telling of what wrongs Catholic Ireland has to suffer? The editor wastes a lot of words to tell us that we are not to take an attack reeking of the L.O.L. seriously.

Father John O'Donnell At the feet of the eternal hills, by the shore of the lake, we laid him to rest on a day in the month of Mary whom he loved with the beautiful love of a child for his Mother. Around the draped bier, where lay the mortal remains of Father John Francis O'Donnell, his brother priests, who knew so well the loveliness and the simple grandeur of the man's character, and who felt like a tangible grace the mystery and the simplicity of his saintly life as a priest, celebrated the Divine Sacrifice all through the morning for the dear departed soul. From the hills and the valleys among which he had walked, with feet that knew no tiring, on his mission as a good shepherd, the people whom he loved, and who loved him, came to bid a last farewell to their own Sagart a Run. And we prayed, with thoughts too deep for tears, during the singing of the Psalms and the Mass, for the hallowed priest and sterling patriot whose death we mourned, one and all, with a sorrow that had in it the personal note of that ineffable grief for kith and kin which is a solace as well as a pain. A little while the skies wept. But the sun came out, and the mountains and the lake smiled a welcome as we laid him in his grave between them between the mountains symbolic of his strong Irish faith, and the unfathomed lake, no deeper than his love for God and man. Never did a man live more in keeping with his environment than the dead priest whose retiring life had all the magnificent greatness and grandeur of the scenes amid which he burned out his body in perfect service of God. Beannacht De la tit-anam 1 In the lap of the lonely mountains, A Sagart, we laid you down ; For the long, long day is ended, And your own, the victor's crown ! The deep lake lies below you, And the strong hills vigil keep, Sentinels serried guarding You, Sagart, in your sleep. Mo bhron ! With God you were walking And never your feet grew tired : Strong heart, that never faltered, By Christ's own Heart inspired ! Sleep, mid your own loved mountains With the garnered peace you won Sleep, Sagart, your toil is over : O faithful soul, Well Done!