WOMEN AND PRIESTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5071, 25 June 1877, Page 3

WOMEN AND PRIESTS.

(From the World.) In the current number of the periodical whoso nativity was cast in the “ roaring morn of daffodil and crocus ” there is an ingenious and interesting discussion, conducted by several eminent persons, on the relations between religion and morality—the conclusion which is likely to be drawn when the debate is summed up not being on the whole too favorable to relh'ion. Th it Christianity has immensely elevated the aspirations and ideas of mankind, and that it has generated, as Lord Solborne says, an increased respect for human life, for women, for marriage, cannot be denied. On the other hand it may be contended, and probably will be in the sequel of the controversy, that Christianity is not calculated to promote the purely human virtues of citizenship and patriotism. Men, it may be said, are not quite as likely, in most instances, to face death for their country or their State if they dwell too much on the retributive doctrines embodied in the Christian conception of an after-life. The early Christians were, in their way, communists, and communism according to modem ideas is the bane of citizenship. But if it in required to point out a crucial mstance of the tendency to caricature and discredit Christianity, it is certainly to its more enthusiastic feminine professors that one must turn This, perhaps, is nothing more than might he expected. Uuchivalrous cynics, who say that one of the chief functions of women is to exaggerate, and thus to ridicule the tastes, fashions, aud prejudices of their age, have unquestionably reason on their side. It is an lesthetic age, and what a fair epitome of absurdity and affectation is tlie aesthetic woman! It is an age of political fussiness, aud we know who are the petticoated champions of femile rights. It is a age, and what sort of development is the she infidel ? What women do in these matters they do also in the particular matter of religion. The spirit animating them may bo a spark of pure celestial fire Directly they begin to parade their principles, they run a grievous risk of forfeitj, K , the respect which is their duo as women. In°heroic times they may acquire the titular prentice of sainthood ; in unhermc times they arc content with notoriety ; they aim at nothin" more, and the excitement which the neglect of the plainer duties of life seems to carry witli it is reward enough.

In the case of women religion and duty are seldom identical terms. It is scarcely necessary to say that the women hero chiefly spoken of are not virtuous cottagers, nor the simple wives of socially unaspiring husbands. Nor do our remarks specially apply to those ladies, married or unmarried, whose religious exercises principally consist of the regular attendance at Divine service, the decoration of the ecclesiastical fabric at Christmas, and the manufacture of clerical slippers all the year round. What is called priestcraft is hardly au intelligible influence at all, except when it begins to operate in distinct opposition to the dictates of social duty. The object of the Church’s professional teachers, whether Anglican or Koman, is not to improve women in their social and domestic capacities, but to make them truer aud more profitable servants of the Church. It is precisely the same with the apostles of Evangelicalism and Dissent. Duty in its heavenward bearings is exalted ; duty as an affair of human obligation is ignored or depreciated. Several years ago a clever novel was written by Sir Aithur Elton, iu which this idea was 'incidentally illustrated, even if it was nut of set purpose worked out. The experience of past ages, as well as the experience of the present day, goes to show that tire tendencies of purely ecclesiastical teachers, and of the advocates of commonplace social obligations, are not the same. Probably the large popularity winch Lord Beacoufield's last novel enjoyed was attributable iu some degree to tire fact that this was its central idea, exemplified in a variety of diverse and airy ways. Priestcraft, iu its feminine products, is by no means confined to Itoman sacerdotalism. ’File priestcraft of Littte Bethel and the ultraRitualist section of the Establishment is quite as real and a good deal more aggressive. There is at least this to be said of the ascendancy which clever Catholic priests succeed in establishing over women: the priests themselves are for the most part consummate men of the world, and members of the most admir-ably-disciplined organisation which the earth ever knew. Loose-tougued scandal there may be, but the case is rare indeed iu which the fraction of au inch of ground can be discovered on which that scandal can rest. Further, the confessional and its sacramental attributes are safeguards against a host of evils. The relations between women and those priests who are merely Anglo-Catholics or Ritualists is quite a different matter. Here the priestly influence is fenced round by none of those guarantees which exist in the Homan Communion ; aud the privsts themselves are absolutely wanting iu that discipline, that ingrained habit of social circumspection, which causes their Papal rivals to guard for the most part against the appearance of scandal. The difference cannot perhaps be petter put than by saying that iu Anglican families the priest in attendance is resented as a mischievous incubus, while in Roman Catholic families he is tolerated as a social evil indispensable for ultimate salvation. Further, priestcraft iu its social aspects is one of the traditions of the Koman Catholic Church, and the Homan Catholic priest is generally an accomplished social personage ; the Anglican priest is for the most part a gawky angular ueophyte in the priestly office. Priests have probably acquired as much power iu society as they are likely to obtain. Whether Koman or Anglican, they have succeeded in making themselves the custodians of countless feminine consciences, aud in plunging thousands of households into disturbance aud anarchy. They have provided ladies of fashion with the means of social distraction when no other opportunity of distraction is forthcoming, and they have accumulated for themselves money and social influence in return. As fertile opinion entertained of them in the draw-ing-rooms they affect, they ought certainly to be the best judges themselves ; but it is probable that they occasionally overrate the esteem in which they are held. Fortified by the consciousness that they have resisted in the past, and the conviction that they will be able to resist in the future, some of the most perilous blandishments and allurements which can be lavished on a man, they affect to believe, shrewd and astute observers though they are, that they owe their personal popularity to the growing authority of their priestly office. The modern ecclesiastic, to whatever division of Christianity he may belong, who wishes to make his way, knows that he must have agreeable manners, and if possible fine eyes. But he likes to think that there is something iu his sacred office which acts as a charm upon the social imagination. With some few exceptions no idea could be a grosser delusion, and it is much to be regretted that divines of this order do not exactly estimate the nature and causes of success in appreciative drawing-rooms. They are proof against being snared by women ; but they arc not proof against, they are perhaps not conscious of, the character and motive of the panegyrics passed upon them behiud their back. It is just possible that a nobler aud more beneficent future may await the representatives of priestcraft, whatever their variety of faith. It is possible that the time is coming when they will not merely profess, and mechanically declare, that human duty and religion go hand iu hand, and that nothing which is not socially righteous can commend itself to the Supreme tribunal. But before they do this they must make up their minds to a certain degree of self-effacement as a distinctive order, aud the analogies of secular life show us how generally the traditions and prejudices of a profession dominate the personal conduct of its professors.