Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 19 January 1922, Page 14

Current Topics

Friendship he coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas, wrote Pascal long ago. In many affairs of life we are swayed more by the heart than by the head, and after events frequently ratify the judgment of the heart. Both in nature and grace love is more powerful than reason, the heart than the head, and friendship than law. As the vivid spoken word mpves us more than the dead page of print so too men have more influence on us than books. It is man that matters; God in His Wisdom became one of ourselves in-"order to win our love, and He did so because of His knowledge of human nature, of the human ■ heart, which He had made. Come to Me, spoken by the Man who ,was also God was more powerful than Thou shall , written on tables of stone. Friendship, love, was esteemed by the pagans as one of the greatest gifts a man may possess. To Our Lord Himself it was no less; and out of the Twelve there was one who was privileged to lay his head on the Sacred Heart. And were there not also Lazarus and Mary, in whose society He found rest and comfort in His human life? Nothing is more than a friend, apart from the grace of God and if the pagans had no words sufficient to laud friendship, the Scriptures and the records of the saints are not behind them in this. But there is true friendship and there is false, and eveii sacred things can be profaned. Nay, the more sacred and the more noble things are more easily profaned. To keep your friendship on the high plane you cannot do better than pay attention to the following wise advice: “Friendship must be loyal; there must be no fairweather worship, nor any friendship that allows an attack to be made unparried. A man may sit and never say a word, yet leave the room with the shame of disloyalty on him. Eats leave the sinking ship, but that is to be expected of rats. . “Friendship must be constant, for constancy is the essence of friendship. To be changeful of friends is bad for them and worse for us. Many acquaintances, vest many friends, no ! Friendship must be frank: friendship must be based on sincere confidence and trust, but this does not justify constant correction, which is an over-hasty attempt to reach the results of friendship. Friendship must be ideal: I must see my friend as he is and as he might be. It must be respectful ; for passion destroys friendship by destroying respect, and cheapens the precious signs of love.” If you can secure these qualities in your friendships life on earth will lose much of its bitterness and nearly all its loneliness. All it cannot lose, for the world remains for ever a vale of tears, and man’s soulcan never find its home here. Still burdens will weigh less heavily when we have, others to help us bear them; and the long road home will be less lonely when we are not doomed to walk it alone. As an old Irish wish has it, Bo true to-your Lord, to your country, and to your friend: . Mo ghuidhe thar gach nguidhe dhuit Do chroidhe hheith go dilis . Do’d Thir a’s do’d Thigh ear a’s do’d carad, Gan chlaonadh go brath! (My prayer beyond all prayers for thee, That your heart be true To your country, your Lord, and your friend, Unchanged for ever.) Psycho Analysis We promised a correspondent some time ago to say a word concerning the subject of psycho-analysis, concerning which so much appears in the press of late. We are fortunate in finding a brief and clear treatment of the subject from a Catholic view point in an account of an address delivered by Dr. Charles G. A. Chislett,

M. 8., Ch.B., F.F.P.S.G., in the Catholic Institute, Glasgow, before a large attendance of clergymen and Catholic doctors and medical students. " Dr. Chislett defined psycho-analysis as a method of investigating the condition of the unconscious mind of an individual. He said that the mind might be divided into the conscious and the unconscious. The former could appreciate a person’s surroundings, time, sensations from the special organ acted upon, and the resulting emotions and desires, so as to bring into play memory, will-power, reasoning and judgment. On the other hand, the unconscious mind might be likened to a cage in which are imprisoned the bogies and skeletons of the mentality of the individual. In a normal mind these unpleasant experiences are locked up and forgotten, but in the abnormal state they may break out of the cage and dominate the individual, especially when awakened by association or something which reminds him of them. Dr. Chislett then v gave several illustrations of these conditions, and especially dealt with repression of unpleasant He then referred to the methods of the psycho-analyst such as: (1) hypnosis, (2) crystal gazing, (3) association tests, (4) method of free association, and (5)- the interpretation of dreams. He believed in the value of the association tests, which he fully described. . Psycho-analysis, said Dr. Chislett, was moral and legitimate for Catholics within certain limits, but it is admitted, even by leading non-Catholic psycho-analysts, that Catholics do not need psycho-analysis so much as the non-Catholic, for the Church has made provision not so much for the unearthing of mental complexities as their repression. Every time the Catholic goes to Confession he indulges in introspection by the examination of his conscience. He does not repress his bogies into his unconscious mind, for he confesses them and the suggestion that they are for the future non-existent is so powerful that the unconscious never receives them. In the discussion that followed the chief speakers on the clerical side were Rev. Professor Hamilton, Rev C. Cooksey, S.J., Rev. J. Bullen, S.J., Rev. P. Doyle” and Rev. T. O’Connor; while on the medical side they were Dr. Colvin, Dr. Scanlon, Dr. McArdle, Dr. Henry, Dr. Maguire, and the chairman, Dr. Conway” The general opinion of the meeting was that while psycho-analysis might do good in shell-shock, or where was a sudden shock to the nervous system and also in hysteria, it would be of no value where the neurosis was the result of an early stage of an organic disease. It would not be of so much value as tonic measures where the neurosis was the result of a weak nerve capital or inherited. For the sexual pervert the best psycho-analyst was the minister of religion or the Catholic piiest. It was also the feeling of the meeting that psycho-analysis lent itself to quackery and that the professional standing and moral integrity of the psychoanalyst should be beyond reproach. 1 7 The Irish Victory Grattans Parliament is to most Irishmen more a phrase than a reality. Comparatively few understand that it was only in name an Irish Parliament. Under it Catholics were disfranchised. It was composed of the Ascendancy classes, and in fact corresponded to what we used to call, a few years ago, “The Garrison.” It was never in any sense representative of the Irish Nation; never in any sense government for the people and by the people. It was filled by men who, with a few noble exceptions, were ready to accept the bloodmoney that England paid them so lavishly for the murder of their country. Yet, bad as it was, Ireland prospered marvellously under it, which may be taken' as a proof that Campbell-Bannerman was right when he said that good government is never a substitute for self-government. When the Act of Union was carried by bribery and corruption Ireland was plunged into a mire of degradation. Under the Union several famines decimated the helpless people, and it is certain that England was in no hurry to save- the starving peasants. During the nineteenth century now and then a maddened people flamed into rebellion and flung

themselves with ineffectual bravery on the bayonets of well-fed and well-armed British armies. Mitchel, Smith O’Brien, Meagher, Kickham, O’Leary, Stephens, and Tom Clarke all arose to prove to the world that Ireland was being held down by brute force by a strong tyrant. They made the gallant gesture and apparently failed. The world) England, many Irishmen thought them mad. But were they? Did they fail? Nay, they passed down the years the sacred fire of patriotism, which in all human likelihood had been crushed ' out but for their sublime folly, as the world esteemed their rising out. The days of the long, merciless land war of the eighties once more proved that the people of Ireland only needed awakening. The farmers fought and beat the Government and won the land by united and determined- effort, just as in an earlier decade the people under O’Connell won Catholic Emancipation. Emancipation was won, the land was won, in spite of Governments that had tried to crush resistance by armed terror and by brutal force. The lesson was not lost. It remained in the subconscious soul of Ireland and only needed some impulse to bring it to the surface again. Parnell aroused it, and had he lived would have once more beaten an English Government. But Parnell died, leaving behind him one shining phrase that Ireland never forgot: "No man may set bounds to the onward march of a nation,” and he was succeeded by John Redmond who was fooled and betrayed by England, chiefly because, being a gentleman, he thought he was dealing with gentlemen. Parnell would probably have won a Home Rule Bill had he lived. John Redmond actually got one on the Statute Book. But looking back now we know that it was providential that Parnell’s Bill never came into existence and that Ulster defeated Redmond’s. For in those days people were so forgetful of their rights that, with comparatively few exceptions, they were ready to barter their birthright for a mess of potage; and a mess of potage best describes the sort of Bills that were regarded as desirable by Irishmen in the years between 1880 and 1914. About the middle nineties men and women in Ireland began to take a greater interest in their own history, to revive their own language, and to support their own industries. When the twentieth century dawned Ireland saw the school children busy over their Gaelic primers, heard them singing Gaelic songs and watched them dancing Gaelic dances. And it became a pertinent thing to ask a man where he bought his matches and who made the material for his clothes, (gradually Irish Ireland found its feet. A young generation was growing up to whom Irish ideals were a sacred heritage, to whom the great and glorious Gaelic past was more than a dream. Among that young generation was born Sinn Fein, a movement that taught self-reliance, national pride, and true patriotism. Sinn Fein got its charter from Arthur Griffith about the year 1905. It set itself to win back an Irish Ireland for the Irish people. After sixteen years it has won. The Campaign .Griffith’s idea was a passive resistance movement that would ignore the institutions of the foreign government while gradually setting up the fabric of the Nation. Hungary had won by such means and there was no reason why Ireland should not win. Many young men _ and women eagerly enrolled themselves in the movement, which was scoffed at and discouraged by the Parliamentary Party. Sinn Fein was strong, however, among the hurlers and footballers of most counties; and needless to say the young fellows who year after year fought out the national games at Croke Park were the flower of the face. A day was to come when they were to prove their mettle in a more dangerous game than we saw them at in the early years of the century. Ulster armed to crush Redmond’s Home Rule Bill. The Gaels armed too,- and England that permitted Ulster to arm was slow to refuse them a similar right. Ulster ran guns and England did not interfere. The Gaels also did their gun-running, and one fine day England showed that although prepared

to permit her Protestant favorites to arm she was .not satisfied to allow Catholics to do the same. There came the massacre of Bachelor's Walk, when, just before the War the Scottish Borderers fired into the crowds in Dublin, During the early years of the war England became more friendly to rebel Ulster and more hostile to Ireland. And the game went on until one fine day in the spring of 1916 Padraig Pearse and his comrades calmly posted up in Dublin a public notice to the effect that an Irish Republic was proclaimed. A week of fierce fighting followed. Forty thousand men with canon and with ships in the Liffey proved that they were able to beat seven hundred Irish men and bcvs armed with rifles. The world had just learned that the. leaders in this Rising were men of great talent, poets, men of letters, professors, and thinkers, when it was shocked to read that England shot them down in batches after they had surrendered, in some cases treat- - ing them with great brutality, as in the case of Jim - Connolly who was taken from his bed in hospital and tied to a chair to be shot. All the world was moved, but all Ireland was aflame with rage. In a short time the whole nation rallied round the banner that Pearse had raised, and England soon saw that Ireland meant to win her freedom. No need now to recall the events of the past few years. The murders, the destruction of homes, shops, creameries, and whole towns is fresh in our minds. No need to recall the marvellous manner in which, led by de Valera, Griffith, and Collins, Sinn Fein became stronger under persecution and in the end foiled every effort made by Machperson and Greenwood to crush the movement. In a word, Sinn Fein won out. The Government of England that so often boasted that it would have no dealings with the Sinn Feiners was beaten. The very men who asserted that they had what they called “the murder gang’' by the throat were forced to admit their failure. The Sinn Feiners were determined to fifdbt to a finish, and they were doing it so well that England at last, being in dire straits all round, invited de Valera as the chosen leader of the Irish people to go to Loudon to' discuss terms... of settlement. For -five months the discussions continued, first by letters, and later by conference. One by one the English conditions were amended until at last, on December 6, the Irish delegates said the terms were now such as they could accept without sacrificing their principles. And so the Treaty between Ireland and England was drawn up and signed by" England's and Ireland's representatives. Whatever happens it was a great victory. Let us pray that, unlike other English treaties, it may be the of a new era of peace and good will, and that the day that has dawned now may mark the opening of a great future* in which the feuds and hatreds and wrongs of the cruel past may be no more revived.