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New Zealand Tablet, 1 November 1917, Page 26

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Heredity Eoin Mac Neill has not lost his wit through having been imprisoned for trying to stop the Sinn Fein Rising. Speaking at Kilkenny last month he said: “A speaker in East Clare had stated that he was a Sinn Feiner because his father and grandfather were Sinn Feiners; and a brilliant member of Mr. Redmond’s Party retorted : ‘ And if your father and grandfather were fools what would you be?’ . ‘I suppose,’ replied the Sinn Feiner, ‘ I would be a member of the Irish Party.’ ” Baby Week We have • been asked to help in reminding the public of the great waste of human life due to neglect of the babies all over the world. Whilst recognising the importance of the movement we regret that those who devote themselves to it do riot go deeper. The loss of life through the neglect and the ignorance of parents is' certainly - appalling; but it is nothing compared to the loss of population due to the. crimes of parents of all classes of society. Begin with them and teach them their duty. Teach them that the man or woman who frustrates wilfully the ends for which God joined human beings in wedlock -is almost a murderer. ' Go to the Government and tell its members that they are destroying the Dominion . by. their support- of schools in

which ho Christian principles are inculcated. Get the people to drive the cowards who maintain such a system out of public life. Get at the root of the evil. Save this country from itself. At present a nurse can write from England to -say that our soldiers are suffering from the penalties of immorality in proportions far above those of any other country in the Empire. At present also New Zealand is competing with infidel France for the shame and the sin of having the lowest birth-rate in the world. In plain words New Zealand i p going to hell and the godless schools are responsible for that. Ireland George Russell is not only a mystic poet of a very high order but he is also a writer of very beautiful prose; and never does he soar so high as when inspired by the love of his native land. Here is a passage which shows how he can write and how he loves Ireland : “The inner Ireland which the visionary eye saw was the Tirnanoge, the Country of Immortal Youth, for they, peopled it only with the young and beautiful. It was th 6 Land of the Living Heart, a tender name which showed that it had become dearer than the heart of woman, and overtopped all other dreams as the last hope of the spirit, the bosom where it would rest after it had passed from the fading shelter of the world. And sure a strange beautiful land this Ireland is, with a mystic beauty which closes the eyes of the body as in sleep, and opens the eyes of the spirit as in dreams; and never a poet has lain on an Irish hillside but gentle stately figures, with hearts shining like the sun, move through his dreams, over radiant grasses as in an enchanted world of their own ; and it had become alive through every haunted rath and wood and mountain and lake, so that we can hardly think of it otherwise than as the shadow of the thought of God.” Cards Once in court it was adduced in proof of a man’s sanity that he played cards. The , opposing counsel protested that cards were primarily invented for a mad French king. Here is a note apropos from Katharine Tynan: “Cards were, I believe, devised for the unintellectual, to take the place of gossip. We used to play Nap in those days and Spoil Five ; and we often saw the daylight in. Sometimes the intellectuals took a hand. I remember Douglas Hyde being a past master at Spoil Five; but when he played Nap and went Nap he always began with a lower card, having the ace in his hand. He explained that he was sure of winning with the ace whenever he played it. Such are the limitations of the intellectual.” The London “Tablet” Many readers of the fine old English Catholic paper may not be aware that in its early days it was. as staunchly Irish in sentiment as it at one time in its career was Tory. The first editor was fearless in his fight for the rights of Irish Catholics, very much to the uneasiness of the easy-going English supporters of the paper. And so keenly did he feel the wrongs of Ireland that after the famine he removed to Dublin in order to be able to write about Irish affairs on the spot. However in those days the Irish Ix-eland movement had not won over the ecclesiastical authorities as it has in our own time, and the editor ended his life without being able to see the realisation of his dreams. As Gavan Duffy put it, he was “hamstrung by a crozier.” Then the Tablet passed into the hands of an editor who was as anti-Irish as his predecessor was Irish. Of the two it has been said that the first editor smote mercilessly the enemies of God; the second, equally mercilessly, the enemies of himself, seeming to enjoy the smiting all the more if they also happened to be friends of God. Retreats for the Laity In England and in Ireland every year the laity have opportunities of retiring from the world and making, a real retreat in the solitude of some abode of

sanctity and peace like Roscrea or Miltown Park. : It is at once a retreat and . a real rest from care. People who make a retreat without leaving their daily environment know that they cannot attain that detachment ail( that mental calmness so necessary for one who would sweep his spirit thoroughly and search the most hidden springs of the heart and people who have had the privilege of making a retreat in any of the places we have mentioned know how the surroundings are full of spiritual appeal, and how much more effective the meditations are when instead of going back to the distractions of their homes they are free to ponder calmly and peacefully on the eternal truths put before them, ouch retreats for ladies are given annually in New Zealand at Island Bay and at Timaru, and many past pupils of those convents love to return and renew their hearts year by year. This year the Dominican Sisters are inviting Catholic ladies to make a retreat at their beau lx i convent at Teschemakers. A Jesuit Father will conduct the exercises. Those who have had the happiness of seeing Teschemakers will appreciate what a privilege is offered to all who can make a retreat there Everyone needs a retreat; and they who think they have no need of it need it most. Apart from every other consideration what a blessing it is to be able to look back on even one retreat well made and to say that then at least we set ourselves right before God and turned our backs on the past with its shortcomings and its wretched failures. b Passing Notesor Forgery The following communication was made to us lately by a prominent citizen:—“A man who was at one time employed on a certain daily paper told me that it fell o him to set up the stuff of a writer who every week contributed a column alleged to be literary. On one occasion a cutting from, as far as I remember, the II estminster Budget was among the copy.- But, with the moral sense of a forger, the writer changed the words of the quotation in order to make the. Budget say what he wanted it to say, which in this case was particularly offensive to a certain class of the community. The comment made by the worker in the office of that paper on the conduct of the superior being who posed as the arbiter elegant for the Dominion was that he never knew of a more blackguardly and dirty action in the annals of journalism.”