Address to the Bishop of Munster.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 73, 19 September 1874, Page 9

Address to the Bishop of Munster.

Duetng these last days of the month of May, the Bishop of Munster nas received another manifest token of the devotiou and affection of ~thofe who are placed under his paternal care. In a small place, Ludinghaußen by name, which has a population of about 5,000 souls, the "women and young girls have, to the number of 1,160, presented an Address to their Bishop. The Address is as follows :—: — " My Lord Bishop,—The undersigned women and young girls, following the impulse of their sentiments, presume to testify to you by means of this Address their veneration, interest, ami derated fidelity. Although we are not called upon, as the husbands of many of us are, to take an active part in the affairs which are now occupying the attention of all around us ; still, seeing the persecution which our Holy Church is at the present day undergoing, and in which your lordship, as shepherd of the same, is taking a prominent position, we cannot refrain from assuring you that we will endeavor in all things to uphold and give our support to our Holy Mother the Church as far as it lies in the weak powers of women. " We, therefore, promise your lordship most solemnly thab if ever ■ it should come to pass that the school be no longer guided by duly appointed pvieste, so that religious instruction and education should thereby suffer, we will ourselves all the more carefully instruct the little ones in the faith of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and in the love and loyalty due to our Holy Mother. " If ever that bitter time should come when our Roman Catholic priests bo hindered in the celebration of Divine Mysteries ami the preaching of God's Holy Word in the churches, our houses shall become temples dedicated to (he holy service of the Almighty. " If everything round us should tend to vilify God and His Holy -Commandments, we, with silent perseverance, will labor to bring up our young children even a3 the Christian mothers did, in the early ' centuries of Christianity, so as to be ready to seal their faith with their very blood. " Finally, if ever anything shoul-l be demanded from us which is inconsistent with the rights of the Church and her divine treadling, your lordship may rest assured that, with God's holy grace, we will choose imprisonment and banishment, nay, even death, rather than fall away from the faith of our forefathers. " Whilst, therefore, by placing our signatures to this address we solemnly bind ourselves to perform all here promised, wo further pledge ourselves thut our feeble prayers and communions shall be offered to the heavenly throne of God's mercy with redoubled fervor on behalf of your lordship. May it please your lordship to remomber us in your prayers and in the Holy Sacrifice, and to impart to us your Episcopal blessing."