THE CATHOLIC WORLD

New Zealand Tablet, 13 June 1918, Page 35

THE CATHOLIC WORLD

The day after the funeral at Aberdeen of its revered pastor, the Right Rev. Aeneas Chisholm, D.D., LL.D., in January, there died another Scottish Bishop, the Right Rev. George J. Smith, D.D., Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. ‘‘Probably no diocese in Scotland has a larger percentage of Catholics whose forbears’ faith did not lapse at the ‘‘Reformation,” but has been handed down in spite of innumerable persecutions.” A vast proportion o.f them, especially in the Western Isles, the Hebrides, speak only Gaelic, and there is mourning in the humble sheilings in the Isles for the ‘‘good Bishop,” as they call him. The Uruguay nation’s clergy are formed in a seminary in Montevideo, directed by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus. The republic is divided into 65 parishes, and numbers a secular clergy of 160 devoted priests, along with a goodly number of religious —Jesuits, Capuchins, Redemptorists, Salesians, Carmelites, Franciscans, Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Lazarists, Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Brothers of the . Holy Family, etc. Whole volumes might be written in praise of the religious Orders of women, to whom the country is so lastingly indebted for charitable and educational work of incalculable social value—Salesians, Teresians, and Dominicans; Sisters of Our Lady of the Garden of Olives, of the Good Shepherd, and of Mercy; Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help; Madames of - the Sacred Heart, Capuchins, Sisters of St. Joseph, etc. A little more than ten years ago a young Japanese, Leo Hatakeyama, after having fought for his country in the Russian-Japanese war, arrived in San Francisco. He was a devout Catholic and anxious to fulfil his religious duties; but not. being familiar with our language, and unable to find a priest who could understand him, he was unable to go to confession. He wrote to his Bishop in Japan, asking him what could be done under the circumstances, and to his great delight learned that one of the priests who had labored lor five years under the Bishop was at that time in France, whither he has gone on account of sickness, that he was just preparing to return to Japan, and that he, the Bishop, had written to him instructing him to visit California, on his way back to Japan. So it was that Father Albert Breton arrived in Los Angeles, in the fall of 1912. Bishop Conaty requested Father Breton to remain there and seek out the Catholic Japanese in the diocese, and organise a Japanese Mission. He consented, and proceeded with the work. Day after day he went about seeking Japanese who belonged to the Church, and finally his efforts met with success. The Prince of Wales in his recent visit to Wales was the guest of the well-known Bute family at Cardiff f Castle, where he visited the beautiful private chapel of the Marquis of Bute. He was also entertained by Lord Treowen, another Catholic, better known as Sir Ivor Herbert, and visited the munition works of the Curran firm, all the directors of which are Catholic. There he was entertained and presented with a beautiful illuminated address, the work of a Catholic artist, and the heir to the throne seemed to enjoy his surroundings and associations very much. A group of Oshkosh, Wis._, U.S.A., people took a prominent part a few weeks ago in restoring what is believed to be one of the most important historic relics in that part of the country. It is a huge wooden cross and is believed to have been erected by Father Marquette in the early part of the seventeenth century. The cross is of hewn timbers and ten inches in diameter and about twelve feet high. About two years a°-o it fell from its location, and the Oshkosh people had a new hole dug and the cross set up again. It is planned to have a concrete base made and the cross set in

such a permanent form as to preserve it for centuries to come. ’

THE CHURCH AND EDUCATION. The Catholic Church, writes William P. H. Kitchin, in a recent issue of the Irish Rosary , wp,s the first to establish gratuitous teaching and free schools. Pre-Christian educators surrounded the acquisition of knowledge with obstacles . and mysteries the schools of the philosophers were closed to the uninitiated ; the rhetoricians and grammarians exacted heavy toll for their lore. But the Church and her leaders threw open the feast of knowledge to all, she went out into the highways and byways to compel the indifferent to enter. St. John the Evangelist is said to have established a school at Ephesus, St. Polycarp one at Smyrna ; in the catacombs of St. Agnes, side by side with the chapels where the Christians prayed, were the schoolrooms where the catechumens were taught. De Rossi found in the cemetery of St. Callixtus the epitaph of a humble Mac/ister Primus; two well known martyrs, SS. Cassian and Flavian, had been schoolmasters. . . The catechetical school of Alexandria, founded by Pautaenus. made illustrious by Clement and Origen, embraced all the knowledge of all time, and was a worthy precursor of the universities still to come. As tar back as the third century free schools and libraries begin to form around each great cathedral, and churchmen spare no pains to attach to themselves promising pupils, who give indications of becoming elninent professors in mature life. Nearly every city of the Old World can point to soitie great saint, who inaugurated the reign of science in its bosom, and who, too, trained up suitable successors to carry on and propagate his work. Well, therefore as the writer adds, may the humblest Catholic teacher, whose diploma is but of yesterday , exclaim with all the enthusiasm of a great zeal in a sublime cause: “I belong to a noble company, wherein are found apostles and martyrs, pontiffs and confessors, the sublimest geniuses and the grandest heioines ; and ire have been teaching, refining, and leavening the world for the past 2000 years.” What, other teacher can say the same?