Dean Power on the Hawera “Dervishes”

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 20, 18 May 1922, Page 18

Dean Power on the Hawera “Dervishes”

When the Apostolic Delegate honored Hawera by his presence, the head master of the local State school brought the children out to see the procession and to pay a mark of■> respect to the Pope’s representative. Then the Orange drum beat. The following is the Dean’s comment on the bigots: —• Dear Reader, Have you ever heard of the Dervishes? There are no fewer than 36 orders of them in the East. They are, however, generally divided into two classes; the Dancing Dervishes and. the Howling Dervishes. Originally devoted to their peculiar form of religion, they are now, in great pa-o, mere religious entertainers, if not mountebanks. Tho Dancing Dervishes work themselves into a state of frenzy; pirouetting, spinning, and whirling,' often to the verge of epilepsy, and sometimes over tho verge. Tho other class indulges in a similar frenzy, adding to it vociferous howling and shrieks to Allah. A sheik of one of these classes enjoyed, until recently, the privilege of riding over prostrate bodies in the streets of Cairo. , You may be inclined to suppose that tho tribes of Dervishes are confined to the East; but you would be wrong, if you came to any such conclusion, for they are to be found even in New Zealand. We have seen them during the past few days pirouetting, spinning, whirling, and howling in a ' mad frenzy round the headmaster of the local State school, while their sheiks were getting ready to crush his prostrate body in tho streets; and all this because ho had dared to join with all his town’s people in offering a common courtesy to the illustrious Chief of Christendom. It would have been boorish in the extreme for Mr Struck, the board inspectors, and the children of the school to remain within closed doors while the Papal Delegate was being honored with a reception that was unique in the annals of the town. There was not a private house, a shop, an office, a public or private institution along the route of the procession that did not empty itself to honor my distinguished guest. I was extremely grateful to my town’s people of all creeds, and proud of them, and I did not neglect to return them my heartfelt thanks. I thanked them also for his Excellency, at his command he had asked me to assure all the people of Hawera how he was touched to his inmost heart by their great display. It would now appear that the honor was not quite universal, since 23 individuals have taken steps to make it known that they were out of sympathy with it. A few days after the visit the school committee took exception to the master’s action. I read in the Press theft the committee had delated him to the Minister for Education for having caused the Delegate’s procession to pass by the State school, and the Delegate to address the children. That both these statements were false, I could have vouched for at the time. Emboldened, no doubt, by my silence, • those men watched for a favorable opportunity to pour the vials of their wrath hpon the master’s head, and wreak vengeance upon him. / Some few Catholics, actuated by the spirit of tho Good Samaritan, which is the spirit of Christ, rescued, or helped to rescue, the master from the slaughter; then tho committee and their backers, like howling Dervishes, rushed upon the Catholic rescuers, and in their mad determination to have their blood, outpaced the New Zealand record for sectarian hooliganism. ’ With unholy haste they convened an indignation meeting of Protestants, giving the terms of a resolution calling upon the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education to pass a penal law against Catholics. The 23 names attached to this advertisement will, I trust, be kept in perpetual memory , as an awful warning of what may happen to*men and women, otherwise estimable, who coquet with Dervishes. For the Dervish frenzy is highly contagious, and a one of its worst effects is blindness of intellect, a blindness not infrequently leading to madness. “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth 'not whither he goeth; because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.” ' This blindness of intellect makes men very poor indeed, and with a poverty of a most degraded type. ’ The poverty of the Eastern Dervishes is a vocation; and, so, far.

has something noble in it. Dervish is a Persian word, meaning in the first instance door, and then coming to mean poor, because those who make a religious vocation of poverty go from door to door begging. But our Dervishes, rejecting the religious vocation, and thinking it a disgrace to be poor in this world’s goods, think it no dsgrace to make display of an intellectual starvation that simply beggars description. The advertised resolution, which was actually proposed by Mr. Robert S. Sage, chairman of the meeting, is a gem of purest ray serene; and as a specimen of poverty of intellect, stands unrivalled in the dismal annals of bigotry. It reads thus:

“That in school districts under the Education Act, where there are established Church schools, the parents of children attending such schools bo, disfranchised in regard to the ordinary State schools.”

It should here bo mentioned that when this advertisement first appeared, the word Catholic was found before Church; its omission is a proof that in the interval a little ray of light found its way into the minds of the convenors. But now a singular thing takes place: Amongst the convenors was the Rev. Henry B. Gray, of the Presbyterian Church; the Presbyterians of New Zealand have entered upon a campaign of school building; clearly, therefore, if the disfranchisement is not to be limited to Catholics, but also extended to Presbyterians, the Reverend Air. Gray will bo in conflict with the Moderator of the General Assembly. So Mr. Gray, while justifying his position among the convenors, says he does not wish to be associated with the resolution. But his letter, which shows evidence of careful composition, indicates that it is the inopportuneness of the resolution he objects to, not its injustice, nor its outrage on nature. He further states that ho appended his signature to the advertisement “as a protest against what seems to me an altogether unwarrantable recognition of the Romish, Church.” Our good brother has probably not discovered that neither scholars nor gentlemen any longer use the word Romish as an adjective to qualify the Mother Church of Christendom. Will the kind reader note well the words in inverted commas? They show that the outburst centred round the person of the Apostolic Delegate. Now the good man who took the chair, and his male and female associates, had not sufficient intelligence to see that Horace, the old satirist, was but uttering a sarcasm when he spoke of expelling nature with a pitch-fork. And thus it came to pass that in full view of his audience, Mr. Robert S. Sage, in Quixotic fashion, but without the inspiration of the lovable Don, seized his awkward implement, and rode full tilt against nature and her eternal law. With what measure of success or discomfiture, the Press report does not permit me to say. This modern Quixote, without the inspiration of Quixote, would tax, for the support of the secular school, parents who send their children to Catholic or Presbyterian schools; would even go with hat in hand to Catholics and Presbyterians for money to spend in laying out the secular school grounds, but would give these Catholic and Presbyterian subscribers not even an indirect voice in the spending of their money., But the sad thing is that this wrecker of nature does not stand as a solitary monster, but has at least 21 others with him. Lord Camden states that “taxation and representation are morally inseparable; that this position is fohnded. on the laws of nature; nay, more, it is in itself an eternal law of nature.” . This principle is affirmed in the Great Charter and in the Bill of Rights; has been respected even by Henry VIII and Elizabeth in the most arbitrary moments , of their reigns has been upheld by Pitt, Edmund Burke, and a long line of illustrious statesmen and orators, and has always been regarded with a peculiar jealousy by the English race at home and abroad. But Robert S. Sage and his associates are, in their own estimatioh, more eminent in statesmanship, of loftier and more humane character, and of broader sympathy than the eminent men I have referred to. They will pardon me when I say that in their mad tilt against an eternal law of nature, ‘they rather resemble Howling Dervishes and sectarian hooligans. Know- , ing the power which they unfortunately wield at the present time, they wmuld compel an obsequious Government

to pass a sentence of outlawry against Catholics; they would bring about a re-enactment of a most iniquitous provision of the infamous Penal Code, feeling that the ousting of Catholics from the national life of the Dominion would be of some petty advantage to themselves. Though I knew nothing whatever about it until all was over, I was delighted beyond measure to learn that so many Catholics had joined with their decent Protestant neighbors in defence of the divine Commandment. As the question of taste has been introduced, 1 make bold to affirm, and without any fear of serious or weighty contradiction, that if the conduct of the Priest and the Levite on the road to Jericho was reprehensible and of execrable taste, that of the charitable Catholics and Protestants who acted like good Samaritans was the height of good taste. Let us all hope, even though it would be against hope, that our little town will never again witness such an outbreak of sectarian hooliganism. I have seen nothing like it during my 35 years in New Zealand; and I doubt if anything worse than it could be found outside Stamboul and Belfast. In the interests of . this hope, and for the' promotion of gentle peace, I would urge all over whom I have any influence to stamp upon the foul head of religious hate wherever it obtrudes itself. It may seem ungenerous on my part to accentuate by this letter the discomfiture that has come upon the rabid sectarians at the hands of the general public; but I could not refrain from expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the people of the town, who have made me their debtor once again. Least of all could Ido this, seeing that this horrid outburst has arisen round the exalted person of his Excellency the Apostolic Delegate, who condescended to be my guest. P. J. Power. P.S. —Since this letter was printed, I have been informed that the nature-wrecking resolution was not carried at the meeting; so that our town still retains its honor. The wreckers may now seek other climes more favorable to their schemes. —P.J.P,