GINX’S BABY IN OTAGO.

Evening Star, Issue 2916, 24 June 1872, Page 3

GINX’S BABY IN OTAGO.

Little did the able biographer of Ginx’s baby imagine that, after he had witnessed the deadly plunge over Yauxhall Bridge, and beheld the frothy coruscations of the black waters of the Thames, that the baby would, at the antipodes of Yauxhall, be resuscitated—be raised from the dead. Yet so it is. The Eev. Father Coleman has found a baby that the Protestants have determined to rob of its faith and to proselytise ; and the Provincial Council have actually had all the correspondence regarding this baby printed under the peculiar heading of “ Correspondence relative to an alleged Violation of the Faith of Eoman Catholic Children at the Industrial School.” The capitals are not ours. We confess that, when we took up the correspondence, we expected to see a new phase of the Ginx baby fight. Briefly stated, the facts are as follow :—An orphan child, Holt, aged five years, was seat to the Industrial

School. His brother resides with a Mr M'Morran at Clyde, who is not a Catholic. Whether the brother is or is not a Catholic docs not appear. The consent of Bishop Moran to the removal of the child not being asked, the Rev. Father Coleman complains to his Honor the Superintendent. His Honor, after enquiries of the master of the Industrial School, replies to Mr Coleman that the child is sent to its brother, “who is a very deserving young man, earning good wages.” This does not satisfy Father Coloman, who demands that the child be sent back to the Industrial School. In making this request Father Coleman does not hesitate to make use of strong language. He says, “ To mo the whole affair, with all its surroundings, seems an organised system of proselytism.” . Stating the bare facts of the case is perhaps a sufficient answer to the complaint of Father Coleman, “by direction of the Bishop.” This Otago Ginx baby will, however, show what difficulty has to be met by the Government in dealing with the Education Question. A little child is sent to the Industrial School : the only friend it has in the world is its brother, aged about 16 years The brother is desirous to look after his little brother, and to have him removed from tbe Industrial School, where he may be associated with children imprisoned for crime, But keep him in the school cry the Roman Catholic clergy—there is no Roman Catholic church at Clyde, and Mr M'Morrau being a Protestant, the child will learn nothing of Catholicity ! What Catholicity a child at five or even ten years of age can learn wc confess we do not understand. One would fancy that when the child came to years of understanding, then would bo the time to ply him with the creeds of the church or churches. It may be that the Catholic clergy look upon the safety of one soul or of the soul of this baby in the same light as does an eminent Catholic divine, Dr Newman, who says “The Church hold that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation and in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin. ” Or as the same Reverend Father says in perhaps more forcible language, “ The Church would rather save the soul of one single wild bandit of Calabria or whining beggar 'of Palermo, than draw a hundred lines of railway through the length of Italy, or carry out a sanitary reform in its fullest details in every city of Sicily, except so far as these great national works tended to some spiritual good beyond them.” Perhaps as we have said the Roman Catholic clergy believe that all must be subservient to what they believe is necessary for the safety of the soul. And hence sooner than allow the young Holt to be brought up by his brother away from the teachings of priests, they would rather see him remain amongst strangers in the Industrial School. Happily for ua we have not yet admitted that the State should be secondary to the Church. Nor have we asserted, as a province or colony, that our children should be rather brought up in ignorance than lose reverence for ecclesiastical authority. These views are unfortunately held by the vast majority of the Catholic clergy, and hence our cducat'onal debates. Indeed the Dublin Review in a recent number, is not ashamed to publish these opinions in all their nakedness, eg., "If we had really to choose between two undesirable alternatives, it is indefinitely a less evil, that the Catholic gentry of England should be ever so inferior to their Protestant fellow-countrymen in mental power and cultivation, than that thej r should lose one particle of that reverence for ecclesiastical authority, which is now their noble characteristic.” The only wonder to us is that when the clergy publish such opinions sensible laymen are found remaining members of the church and supporting ecclesiastieal authority. As for our Otago Ginx-baby it remains with its brother and we agree with Mr Weldon in his remarks to the Provincial Secretary “ that it would be almost cruel to deny the child a good home, kind treatment, and the immediate guardianship of a brother, simply because Mr M'Morran is a Protestant,’.’