Return of Bishop Cleary

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 25, 28 June 1923, Page 45

Return of Bishop Cleary

Public Reception at Auckland Town Hall (From our own correspondent, concluded from last week.) i On Tuesday, the 12th inst.. Dr. Cleary entertained all the clergy of the diocese to dinner at the Bishop’s House, Ponsonby. • When Dr. Cleary, accompanied by Dr. Liston, entered the Town Hall, on Tuesday evening, June 12, the pupils of the Sisters’ and Brothers’ schools whole-heartedly sang “Ecce Sacerdos Magnus,” under the direction of the Rev. Brother Fidelis, and accompanied on the organ by Mr. Harry Hiscocks. The children’s fine singing, their pleasing appearance, and their estimable conduct, were the subjects of much comment during the evening. After the “Ecce Sacerdos,” Mr. J. P. Lonergan sang “The Floral Dance” in such a manner as to . demand an encore, to which he responded with “Shipmates O’ Mine.” Miss Alva Skinner, the possessor of a very pleasing voice, sang “Rosebuds,” Miss Jessie Smith gave a beautiful rendering of “A Thanksgiving Song”— a very appropriate one for the occasion. _ Miss Nonie Griffin, who contributed a piano solo, delighted the vast audience with her masterly performance of a selection from “Lucia di Lammermoor” (for left hand only). Signor Constantini, whose first item was “L’Ebreo Fi Guerrieri Apolloni” was encored, again, again, and again, and but for the intervention of the chairman, would not then have been allowed to leave the stage, so aroused and charmed were his hearers.

THE RAINBOW AND THE GOLD. Dr. Cleary addressed the gathering as follows: In the far-off days when I was a small boy, we children sometimes succeeded in getting a dear old nurse to deliver her budget of thirteen Irish fairy tales: “the baker’s dozen, she called them. At the end of the twelfth, she spoke this unvarying formula: ‘Now, boys and girls, I’ve tould you twelve fairy tales. Every one of ’em is God’s truth but the dickens a word of a lie at all in the on© I’m going to tell you now.’ The story that followed was about a little boy that chased rainbows. He chased the fleeting colors, not for the love of the chase, but for the crock of gold that— all the world knows— to bo found by digging where the rainbow ends. And ‘ the dickens a word of a lie’ is there in that: for it is a truth told in parable, and not all a fairy tale.

“Most of us have chased our rainbowshave followed iridescent hopes or visions. Many of us have found the real gold of things worth while for time or after-time. Some have gathered only fairy gold, and in their hands it turned into dust and withered leaves. I found the end of my rainbow in this fair province and City of Auckland. I dug down into its religious life, and into its civic life,, and— much lesser degree—in its social life. And I found something infinitely more precious than crocks of gold. I found souls of pearl, and friendships more prized by me than the diamonds of the Rand. And I gathered the priceless treasure and stored it in the strong-room of my heart; and there it will remain for always, and always, and always.

The Most Beautiful Scenes.

I return with joy to my rainbow land. I come back among you from the valley of death, still on the brighter side of —the side that looks towards the setting sun. It has been my fortune to travel far afield and in many lands., I love the hills and streams—even the blades of grass of the dear old martyr land that ga**e me birth. But, both as Bishop and as citizen, I am bound by still more precious ties to the land of my civic manhood, the land of. my most sacred interests, and labors. .Longfellow called the Rhine “the most beautiful river on this beautiful earth. Returning last week from far-off lands, the most beautiful scenes for me on this beautiful earth were these four:, the.sight of Rangitoto from the sea; Auckland City, crowned like a queen and radiant in the sun; the faces of my own beloved people; and those of my friends and fellow-citizens of other faiths. When I last moved out from, here, I left my heart in the place and with the people. On my return, they are the most precious pictures.

I ever wish to see, Until my Master calls me to step into the barque and sail out onto the west.

Co-operation in Trying Times. It is, perhaps, hardly possible— any rate, hardly desirable —for one occupying the position of a religious leader, to remain outside the current of our civic life. A religious leader’s work forces him into contact with the city’s life at a hundred points it makes him, in a restricted sense, a public man. And, as such, I have ever found great happiness in doing work for the general community as lay within the power of one that labored long under the disability of much physical suffering. I speak here this evening as a citizen to a gathering containing many of my fellow-citizens of various faiths and of every political hue. There are many things that make me rejoice in being enabled, once more, to resume my place in Auckland’s life. One of these is the unusually fine civic spirit of the people. Another is the wide prevalence of friendly (or, at least, tolerant) relations between different creeds and different forms of political and economic thought. A third is Auckland’s magnificent reserve of civic and social strength. I refer here more particularly to the sustained and unsurpassable courage and devotion and charity which all sections of the people mnifested in favor of the sick and wounded in the war, and for the relief of Catholic Belgium, and during the plague that ravaged this city in 1918. I refer, further, to the manifestations of this fine spirit on two occasions, when our Catholic orphanages went up in smoke and flame. Here are facts and qualities of our citizenship which have filled me with admiration and affection and gratitude—as long as life and as strong as death.

In the days of sorrow and bitter trial my people, my religious, my clergy, and I were with our fellow-citizens to the limit. We gave joyfully of our best. To the limit, we stand ever ready to be with them again and yet again. And if there was healing in our united hands, and magic m their touch, it was because kindness overflowed from our united hearts; it was because there was love for the sufferers; it was because all of us together cheerfully risked our lives for them, no matter where or how they passed their Sundays.

Personal Grounds.

“On personal grounds, your great manifestation of this evening clamps my heart all the more firmly, to Auckland and its people. There are many people here from every point of the religious and political compasses. But we come together as we did in dark and evil days. You welcome me back from the’ dim valley that lies between life and death; and you show me your kind hearts with the lid off. The.great botanist, Linnaeus, once came to a bend in a Scottish road. There he suddenly saw before him the purple glory of a mountain of heather in full bloom. And he fell on his knees and thanked God. I bend the knees of my soul to God, Who has spread a royal purple mantle of kindness and goodwill and citizens worth over so many hearts in this Queen City of the North.

The Tailors of Laputa. The trying times of the last nine yearswar, pestilence, destroying flame—have drawn, the'- segments of our city’s life close together. They have brought us close enough to -see into one another’s minds and to feel the friendly glow of, one another’s hearts. 1 Public need threw one Grafton Bridge across a city ravine. Public calamities have thrown many a Grafton Bridge across many a social cnasm in our city. They have disclosed a wide range of interests in which we all can do community work together—can strive together for the common goodand make our little local world the better that we have passed this way. Our co-operation, in days of anguish, has, I believe, engraved in our minds many of those practical truths that make for good citizenship. One such truth is’this: That, whatever section of the community we belong to, ,we felt! at least for the time, that we should' “brothers be for a’ that.” Another is this: That, in the course of our work, we found very few people in our community with either horns or’ cloven hoofs or a double dose of original sin. Our years of work together have, I hope, also taught us this further lesson of mutual' forbearance: That widely different (even , antagonistic) , beliefs and political and eco-

nomic opinions may be held, with complete honesty and good faith. In a give-and-take world we should allow a generous margin for honest error, ■'■■■* “The tailors of ' Laputa stood afar-off from their customers and measured them with a theodolite. The “fits” they produced may well have been, at times, fits of apoplexy. In our social and commercial and industrial life, we act, far too frequently, the part of the tailors of Laputa. And it is largely due to this aloofness that bad faith is far too readily assumed, and discussion so often evolves much more heat than light. “And thus men rise and fall, and live and die, Not understood.” Thus, too, discord and anger, sting at times through our national life to an extent that is in some measure avoidable; and charity and peace are wounded, and real social and industrial adjustments are delayed. 4 “Get Together” ! I am not so simple-minded as to imagine that the practice of getting together will, by itself alone, lead us into a new Utopia, or turn New Zealand into a Tom Tiddler’s 1 ground. But I do believe that things will move ahead when the various sections of our citizenship start co-operating, in these brighter times, in the fine spirit in which they co-operated when troubles wrapped our city like a pall of poisoned fog. I hold that a new spirit will stir when employers and employees will draw nearer to each ’ other both in and out of their daily work; and when reasonable leaders on every side will bury the Laputan theodolite and acquire the habit of getting together. If there were ten times as many such fraternisings and busy round-tables, one class of our laws' might, perhaps, be advantageously halved in bulk, and our peace and progress might be multiplied by two. Our New Zealand poet, Bracken, wrote well: ‘ 0 God! That men would draw a little nearer To one another, they’d be nearer Thee ■- And understood.’ * Nearer Thee, and understood.’ For all sound and enduring understandings must be based on a moral law; all real human values are moral values; and £ unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.’ The Westward Star. “So, with all my heart, I welcome the portent of this great gathering. It is one of the things that bring us nearer and make us more understanding. The personal purpose ' of this meeting touches me greatly. I am deeply moved, too, by the presence of so many of other faiths. It is like a practice in the old maxim of the long pull, the strong pull, and the pull all together, for the common good —for the progress of our city, of our province, of our Dominion. For all three I foresee a noble destiny in the years to come. A poet of a past day had a dream that was not all a dream. It said: ‘Westward the star of empire takes‘its way.’ The centre of gravity of the world’s great international in- - terests seems to be slowly, but surely, swinging from- the Atlantic towards the Pacific. The snowfall of time is white on the heads of, many of us here to-night. We can hardly hope to see the rising star well on its western way. That will, perhaps, be given to you here who are of the younger generation. And then our New Zealand —with its climate and its rich and varied resources, and its capacity for a vast population—will cease to be a side-current; it will move majestically into the main Gulf Stream of the world’s culture and progress; and, in this southern hemisphere, it , will become N ‘ First flower of the earth and first gent of the sea.’ ” - After the Bishop’s address, children and audience in a whole-hearted manner sang “All Praise to St. ’ Patrick.” Mr. Harry Hiscocks’ accompaniments were those of an artist. ’ "