Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 30 January 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

Where Do We Stand? . We read in the daily papers that a new era for civilisation is about to begin after the horrors of the great war. We are told by one political liar that he is striving to make the world safe for democracy by freeing those small nations which he is not paid by Orangemen for keeping in servitude; another tells us of the freedom of the seas to which he will agree provided that it means what he means; minor lights talk of the fleet of new ships and of the soaring airplanes, that are to link up the centres of civilisation and make the brotherhood of man a reality. And, generally speaking, there was never a time when so much utter bosh is talked right throughout the whole world. As a matter of fact where do we stand ? Have we made any progress at all? Does the fact that airplanes can fly from Wooloomooloo to Timbuctoo, and that Moritz Mond was able to become an English Minister in war time mean progress ? It is surely an idea of the decadence and the ignorance of our age that when we speak of perfection we mean the perfection of a petrol engine, and when we speak of Progress we mean some new means of putting money in some capitalist's pocket. Telephones and telegrams, airplanes and seaplanes bring men closer together and make it easier to get at one another's pockets, but itis about time we realised that civilisation is not progress of that sort. Neither robbery nor jobbery nor snobbery means advance for mankind. But it seems we are so keen on the advance of machinery that the men do not matter : as a matter of fact it is the way of the rich to regard the men as inexpensive machines and nothing more. Progress ? Do we not stand as far apart as ever? Is not the brotherhood of man a dream still? Was there ever a time that the arrogance of Governments, the hypocrisies of Lloyd Georges, the ineptitudes of Bonar Laws, the autocracy of men who have long purses created so much hatred between class and class? In what other age could a war be so bloody and so cruel and so inhuman as the war that has ended ? Was there ever so much underhand plotting, so many broken pledges, so many downright lies? At the root of all the trouble lies the lust of men for power and gold : and it is because our States to-day teach men that nothing else matters that such wars and such conduct are possible. Not only have modem Governments left the people without guiding principles but they have set them upon a wrong direction and taught them to make their lastend of things that lead inevitably to war and strife. Luxury is now a virtue, deceit and chicanery a branch of mercantile training, political economy has become a science of selfishness. The plain truth is that mankind was never as far from perfection before and that the only progress we have made is on the road to destruction. That the end of man is the love and service of God, and that he must work out his destiny here by loving his neighbor is a forgotten truth. People and Governments have no time for God: God does not pay. Instead of the stern sanction of the Ten Commandments a Minister of Education will give a sickly lecture on esprit de corps or on honor and ideals: he knows no better and the teachers who suffer his presence in their schools know no better. And that is Progress ! The plain truth is that our Government and others like it are leading men away from Christ. And unless you are ready to admit that going rapidly to the devil is Progress we are not progressing. We are doing the other thing most successfully. And foremost in the procession walks a figurehead marching pompously to the tune of "Boyne Water." God save New Zealand !

The Just Aspirations of the People In the sane suggestion as a basis of peace the Pope laid down that the arrangement to be decided by the League of Nations must take into account the just

aspirations of the people of every nation. After duly accusing the ope -of being a pro-German the British press adopted this very suggestion as soon as the ideas of the Pope had been plagiarised by President Wilson, whom, once a weakling and a pedant (according to the same British press), is now ah angel of light. ; The British Government i§ in accord with the press either because the press is the tool of the Government or because the politicians who get to the top of the greasy pole are the mannequins of the millionaires who control the press. And therefore politicians and pressmen alike display a commendable speculative anxiety for the interests of oppressed people, provided always that the oppressed people are not those oppressed by the British Government. For Poland and for Belgium Northcliffe and Lloyd George weep copiously and artistically. But for Ireland they have no tears to shed. Yet Ireland is a nation in far truer sense than Belgium or even than England. The Irish people are a nation if there is. a nation on earth to-day, as distinct from a conglomeration of all races such as may be found in America and England ; they have a unity and a solidarity that neither England nor America possess; and the best proof of their nationality is that they have fought incessantly against the tyranny of England for long centuries in defence of their national ideals. While professing to the laughing world that they are fighting for small nations the Northcliffemade Ministers are doing all in their power to kill Ireland still. The unspeakable stupidity of adding' the insult of an attempt to enforce conscription to the outrages of broken pledges and torn scraps of paper which make up the record of English misrule in Ireland is only eclipsed by the attacks made on the Irish bishops by that asinine body called the Catholic Union of England. And, as might be expected from a nation which entered into a disgraceful plot to prevent the greatest moral force in the world from having a share in promoting peace, the loyalty of the Irish Hierarchy to their native land and their bold attitude in the face of persecution brought forth once more a storm of No-Popery abuse that is the last word in AngloSaxon blindness and effrontery. Conscription was passed in Canada by wretched trickery and shameful chicanery. Australia made it clear through the voice of her brave soldiers that she would have no driven slaves in her army. South Africa set her face against militarism; and Ireland was reviled by every rag in the Empire in the pay of Northcliffe because she would not allow the Government that oppresses her in deference to the will of a bigoted Orange rabble to put its uniform on her sons. If England had given Ireland Home Rule and kept her plighted word there would have been no trouble. If a little sanity had replaced the enormous madness which has characterised the dealings of people like Lloyd George with Ireland there would have been no need to talk about conscription for Ireland. Even yet, if British statesmen attained to sanity and made a reasonable attempt to do justice to the nation they have so cruelly wronged it is quite certain that Irishmen would be found ready and willing to flock to the colors to fight for France and Belgium. It is too much to expect them ever to fight for an Empire which has taken the bit from their mouths and ground them beneath the heel of Protestant bigotry. The latest brilliant effort of the Government to infuriate Irishmen and drive them to rebellion was the declaration that the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein are dangerous societies. This move is something like the Prussianism which we have been told was practised on another small nation by , other, members of the great Saxon family. Qnos dens vult perdere ,pnus demen fat.

Stlgglns Swift explained how it was that the dignitaries of the Church of Ireland, that State institution foisted on a Catholic people by the tyranny of England, were as a rule such “characters,” in the following manner. A number of respectable, holy men were appointed, 1 and when they were wending their way across Hounslow

Heath, on their journey to Dublin, they fell in with a gang of cut-throats and highwaymen, who robbed and murdered the travellers, invested themselves in the brand new pontificals, and proceeded to Ireland, where they were consecrated by mistake. How, we 'wonder, would he explain Stiggins? From Dickens we know who Stiggins is. He is a man of side-lines. He makes a good thing out of widows and devout females who are possessed of some cash. Ostensibly he is a preacher of the Gospel, but the side-line is predominant. And as a rule the side-line that pays best in No-Popery. To define Stiggins more clearly let us say that he is a sort of hanger-on in the ministry, a sort of nondescript fringe that very often brings the good and learned ministers of the Churches in too close connection with the mud. The learned men, the zealous men, the charitable men of all Churches go quietly on their way, disgusted with Stiggins. Very many of them, from time to time, tell us (privately of course!) of their disgust and repudiation of his antics. But there he is all the same ; and when he speaks he pretends to speak even for them that tell us how they detest him. If they would only come out in public and tell all the people what they think of Stiggins it would be well done; but for some reason that we will not attempt to explore they have never been known to do that act of grace. So Stiggins flourishes, and howls amain, and tells the world that he is speaking for all Protestants. Stiggins does a lot of harm. He takes up a side-line and runs it with a magnificent ignorance, and a shameless parade of that ignorance which not unfrequently gets him into trouble. At times he displays a wild disregard for truth, and tears the Ten Commandments to scraps of paper: for instance, when he goes about calumniating dead nuns. And even then the marvellous thing about him is that those to whom he "hangs on" will not come out in public and repudiate him for his blackguardism. It is often left to a magistrate to do it. At times the brother of a girl who has been calumniated takes the law—and a horsewhipinto his own hands. Honest, God-fearing Protestant laymen will say out boldly what they think of such infamous conduct; and still the very men who are most injured by the conduct of Stiggins, the men to whom he "hangs on," have not a word to say! Stiggins is a holy terror on a platform, surrounded by weak-minded dupes. As a historical acrobat he is a wonder. He forgets as a rule that a certain Book tells us that the test of Christian sincerity is charity for our neighbors ; but he never forgets what a street-walker called Maria Monk or a renegade named Chiniquy said. In an ordinary man his statements before the footlights would be promptly dismissed as barefaced lies, for an ordinary man would not be ignorant that such things as he says have been proved false again and again. But Stiggins is ignorant: that is his rationaleignorance so crass and supine and affected that he does not know enough even to be able to tell, a lie. A man who tells a " lie states something that he knows not to be true ; but Stiggins knows nothing except that any fool who attacks Catholics is well paid. So he thrives and waxes fat, living on the fringe of the Churches which for some inexplicable reason tolerate him, little knowing the disgrace he brings upon them. Now one could easily reckon the number of Stigginses in this Dominion; but it would be a wise man who would compute how many benighted people in this Dominion are taught the creed of hate by Stiggins; it would be a wiser man who would compute how much Stiggins makes out of his tradeside-line, we mean; —and the wisest man of all would be the one who could explain why the respectable, learned, God-fearing ministers who come to us and tell us sympathetically how deeply they sympathise with us on account of the antics of Stiggins have not the courage and straightforwardness to make a public profession of their contempt for the side-line man. That explanation is still to seek. If we had it we could understand many things that we do not at present. *' : -'"

Workmen and the Church "How draw workmen to Church?" asks Vida D Scudder in the American Church Monthly. She pictures herself asking the question at a meeting of religious and social workers, and tells us that the answer would be: "The Roman Catholics do it." "Their church is on the same block with my home in Vermont; there are five Masses on Sunday. The people come pouring out, more than half of them men. Crowds of men," says one speaker. "It is the same near me,'' says another. "I hear the patter of their feet at six o'clock in the morning." As to the fact that Catholic men are the best, and practically the only, churchgoers of the male persuasion, there is no denying it. What is the reason ? The writer again pictures the assembly debating the point and offering tentative explanations. "It is the discipline," says one. "It is enforced confession," says another. "It is catching the children," 6ays another. In comment America, our efficient and worthy Catholic contemporary, says: "But what compulsion can the Church exercise over the free, intelligent, wide-awake American work-ing-man to make him accept her discipline ? Why should he sacrifice his Saturday evening as well as his Sunday morning to attend to the welfare of his soul by confessing his sins in anticipation of the Holy Communion on the morrow ? As for the children, it is one thing to catch them, and quite another to hold them when they have grown up into maturity. The mystery has only been made more insoluble for the Protestant mind. But there is a solution. And it can be no other than the fact that the Catholic Church not merely dates back historically through her unbroken line of Pontiffs, to the days of Christ and the Apostles, but that she is the only Church that has preserved intact every word of His teaching and every institution of His Divine love for man. At the stable of Bethlehem, in the workshop of Nazareth, beneath the Cross on Calvary she has learned to make her own the poor and lowly of the earth. In Christ Himself, the Carpenter of Nazareth, she has beheld the dignity of labor. The fullness of His spirit, His teachings and His Sacraments can be found with her alone." The words of our contemporary give us the ultimate reason why the Catholic Church can hold her children when they grow up, whether they be rich or p — w hy he can hold the poor especially, for it is not the humble and the lowly who desert her, but rather the rich whose eyes are blinded and who have divided their allegiance in trying to serve God and Mammon. But we are convinced that the proximate reason was indicated by one of the imaginary speakers who said, "It is catching the children." That is the real strength of the Church. At the cost of immeasurable sacrifices she has made it her aim to catch the children. When other Churches have bent their necks in State idolatry the Catholic Church has insisted that it is her duty to see that children are brought up in schools which put the last end of man in its proper perspective and teach the young folk that it will not profit a man anything to gain the whole world if he suffer the loss of his own soul. God gave to Christian parents a duty and _ a right to see that their children are brought up Christians and the Catholic Church alone has stood for that right and refuses to traffic with immortal souls. While other Churches are satisfied to allow the children to attend schools where vague ideals of Progress and Culture and poetic abstractions are put m place of the immutable laws of God which teach that sin is wrong and that vice is punished and that only by God's grace can we resist temptation, the Catholic Church has provided sohonls wherein children are impressed with the fear and love of God and taught the true philosophy of life in a little book, called the Catechism, in which the conclusions of the greatest minds of Christianity are set out in simple language such as a child may understand; and it is thus that the unlettered Catholic man or woman has the answer to the problems which baffle scientists and scholars, as well as the key to the right formation of character which infidel educationists strive for in vain. So that the Catholic child leaves

school convinced that God is above all things and that He is watching over all, that God will reward the good and punish the wicked, that to serve God by loving Him and by loving our neighbor is the' most important thing in the world, while other children go forth into the world having learned that religion is a thing of little importance, often sneered at by teachers and hardly thought worth while bothering about by the State which is the God of those teachers. And thus, from a practical point of view it is the schools that matter : v it is catching the children that fills the Catholic churches and it is neglecting them that leaves others empty. As we have more than once remarked, there are signs that the eyes of the heads of other Churches are being opened. Men who profess to bo Christian ministers are realising that they are worshipping the State as well as God.