NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 7, 18 February 1925, Page 34

NOTES

By Eileen Duggan

Dr. Marie Stopes Dr. Marie Stopes and the Catholic Church are in conflict. She sued a churchman recently for a pointed and fierce condemnation of her book of advice to young people. The book is sold in New Zealand, but it is doubtful if any Catholics here have come across it. The account of the lawsuit came to this country in a Catholic weekly. The judge, in commenting on the case, said that some people might be under, the impression that Dr. Stopes held a medical degree, whereas her degree was philosophical. He also made an amused reference to well-intentioned people who consider they could have given the Almighty points had they been consulted in the arrangement of the' Universe. The case was fought round the point of fair criticism. Dr. Stones’ ideas , are in conflict with all that the Church has taught her children down the centuries. Her sincerity was not questioned. Its result was. Sometimes the present-day world reminds one of the world in the year of Christ’s coming, with this hopeful differencea portion of it at least clings to Christianity. In the world of the Caesars the old gods were gone. Jove had lost his thunder and Pan was a dream. There was no shepherd and the flock ran wide. To-day many of the ways of the Roman Empire have returned. It' is not progress. It is retrogression. In their care for the libertv of the individual the lawmakers have forgotten the common good. Now from primitive communities .learn the value of race chastity, of respect for the marriage tie. The common good was considered ' in those primitive communities. Bead the old Roman marriage laws and marriage customs, read of the motherhood of women like Cornelia! No laxitv there! Rome rising should have warded Rome falling. Unchastity and adultery, found small favor in young Rome. And what 'of our

own New Zealand? Read that , fine old historian, Tregear, on the marriage customs of the ancient Maori; read the punishment that a Maori incurred for a breach of marriage. Read and realise that this was not decreed for the pleasure of chastisement, hut for the good of the tribe, the race. Apart from the moral grounds that should weigh with every Christian there is the instinct for race-preservation that amid the swirl of civilisation is becoming blunted or lost. It is a great, a terrible blindness that will, in its endeavor to be fair to the individual, bring'moral and physical deterioration upon the race. But to return to Dr. Stopes, who probably means well. The court was old-fashioned enough to reject her point of view. She lost the case. Old Songs St. Patrick’s night is coming again. Is it too much to hone that the singers will give us really national songs? Once upon a time as they say in the fairy stories it was firmly believed that an item of Moore’s was the only thinkable offering for St. Patrick’s night. Now one must be just to Moore. Owing to certain social gifts he was able to spread the Irish airs at a time when the original airs from which pilfered were hidden and forgotten. He took the old airs, he stole from them, in many cases he mutilated them, lest their wild Irish clangor, their fierce lamentation might shock the sluggish ear of the Regent, but at least he meant well, and by his intention he must be judged. Those same social graces made him useless as an Irishman. Like Celestino, or rather like Celestino as Dante has miswritten him, this Moore, the friend of Emmet. “made through cowardice the great refusal.”

Did he ever think of Emmet while those

old airs were being sung in London drawingrooms, of Emmet who had given his life tor the country of those songs? Yet Moore was: not the only offender. Emmet died before a great crowd who watched in utter silence.' And no man in that mighty crowd •raised, up his voice to cry a friendly word to the ■ soul about to pass, no man there raised his voice to say, “God bless you, Robert Emmet!” Did Emmet ever think of Moore in that prison of his ? Did he scorn him It is not likely. The soul that is great enough to choose death is too great to judge others. There are so many kinds of service. One is fitted for one kind, one for another, and the Almighty has but to stretch His hand and find His tool. There were others besides Moore who bad set the old songs, set them more truly, more faithfully, but Moore had a way with him, and right or wrong, his songs have reached Hit' people, that is the city people. In the country it is the originals that have held. For years they were out of fashion, ousted by the tinkling words of Moore, but with

the coming of the Celtic Renascence, they have come again. I have an old book before

me, a book of wonder. In recent years the Dominion has heard many of these old airs. To those who hold collections of them requests come, from all quarters for the loan of them. New Zealand is quick to acknowledge their beauty. Let ns name a few at random —“The Three Colored Ribbon,” “Shule Agra,” “Colleen Das Crntha na Mo,” “Draherin 0 Maehree,” “The Snowybreasted Pearl,” “O’Donnell Aboo.” “The West’s Asleep,” “Carrigdhoun,” “The Shan Van Vocht,” “The Bolls of Shaudon,” “The Memory of the Dead,” “Follow Me Up to Carlow,” “The Battle Hymn,” all Hughes’s resettings, especially “I Know Where I’m Goin’, and “The Sally Gardens,” “The Cruiskeen Lawn,” a fine rousing sporting song. One could quote many beautiful songs among the moderns. Stanford, for instance, has set Moira O’Neill’s poems to' music. Winifred Letts is similarly honored.

Then there is the new collection of national songs that these last years have brought forth. There is “Wrap the Green Flag Round \le, Boys,” “The Soldier’s Song,” “The Green, White, and Gold,” “Danny Boy,” and of course though the airs — one Polish, one Irish —are old, into this category come “The Battle Hymn,” and “The Three Colored Ribbon.” Kubelik has said that “The Londonderry Air” to which “Danny Boy” is set is the most beautiful tune in the whole world. And Darley says that there is an air in the Petrie collection that properly sung would lift the heavens. It is called “Scorching is this Love,” and he sugegsts that it be used for an Irish National . Anthem. All our searching her© has failed to find it yet, but some day it may he found and New Zealand may hear this crashing, majestic chant. With all these and many other old favorites like “The Croppy Boy,” and the “Boys of Wexford” to choose from, is there any excuse for soloists who have to fall back for every item and encore on the songs of Moore? Singers will find that to the older and grander generation these old songs will bring back

memories of evenings on the green, of turf-

fires in winter, of nights when 'up the wide old Irish chimneys went the sounds of these , V amc 8011 now threatening, now crooning, Mtnnv lamenting. It they go to the beaut, are they not . worth the learning? That is the test of all beauty— that it goes to the heart.