HEROIC POLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 111, 12 June 1875, Page 7

HEROIC POLAND.

— +-t AWFUL PERBECTJTION OF OtTE CATHOLIC BBBTHBIH— fLOQOIXq WOMEN FOB THBIB FAITH. The Catholic Union of Ireland supplies the following painful yet glorious news, showing how the mothers of future LedochowskU are now suffering for the Catholic faith : — Poor Poland still suffers for her faith, and her patriotism. The Russian despotism has relaxed nothing of its fierceness in that portion of unhappy Poland that writhes in its iron grasp, and the dungeons of the German Empire attest that it fares ,but slightly differently with the Poles that have to bear the yoke of Prussian domination. Heart-rending tidings come to us of the sufferings of the faithful in the province of Polachia. In this province there is a considerable number of the population belonging to the United Greek Church, that is, that church which, though using, by consent of the Holy See, the Greek rites and the Greek liturgy, and following in part the discipline of the Greek Church, is in commanion with Borne, and accepts certain doctrines therejection of whicl has to a great extent constituted the schism of the East. Russia is struggling with all the remorselessness of brute force to coerce the Polachians to abandon their Church, and become perverts to what is called " the orthodox" Russian faith. Up to this they have bravely resisted, and show no symptoms of dismay. But their heroism, their constancy, their noble fidelity to their paternal traditions, have not availed to soften the heaTts of their brutal masters, but have rather stirred them into more demonlike resentment, and more ruthless barbarities. With an inhumanity and & savageness that are not of recent growth in Russian administration, the bitterest blows of persecution are directed against the women, of Polachia, and so we read of doings by the Russian governors of the district that dwarf into insignificant infamy the worst excesses of the Neros of Pagan days. For all this it is impossible not to hold that the Czar is responsible before God and before the world — for he knows of it, and could have stopped it if he had wished. "We learn that in Polacia there are about three ■ hundred thousand United Greek Christians, and for years past the men amongst them have been subjected to every atrocity from the hands of the Cossack soldiery. Hitherto the women were spared, but now all sense of shame and manliness seems to have died out of the Russian ruler, and women have been decreed as fit subjects for the lash. At Parezowa the merciless punishment has begun. We are told that the women who refuse this apostasy are stripped nearly naked, tortured with long coarse scourges until, worn out with agony, and covered with blood, they become senseless and faint away. Then their tortures cease, and. the almost lifeless victims are despatched to the hospitals. " The number of the scourged," says a communication published in the ' Civilita Cattolica/ " has become so large that it has betn. found necessary to multiply the ambulances for the conveyance of the sufferers to the hospitals. The ambulances have neither nurses nor doctors attached to them, and the poor sufferers have to linger in Jtheir tortures and their blood, whilst they are being dragged along a rough road- to the hospital. The treatment in the hospital is neither skilful nor kind. They are often left utterly without attendance and without nourishment, save when an adventurous good-natured Catholic manages to effect an entrance to the hospital with food or medicine carefully hidden from official observation. Nero was not so cruel to the first Christians as is Alexander, of whose civilized humanity we hear such eulogies, to his Polachian subjects. Nero was satisfied witli butchering the Christians; Alexander is more exquisite in his cruelty. Men and women are beaten with whips, and then flung, like dogs, into ambulances ; if they die, so much the better ; if they recover, no sooner are their wounds healed up than the scourging begins again, till they shall have either died or renounced their faith. Up to this not one of them has apostatised. Honor and glory to these generous souls, who have shown their readiness' to die rather than prove faithless to Jesus Christ, and who, in' this - way, rise victorious to Imperial savagery. Let us pray for them, that God may confirm their faith and their courage by his extraordinary graces. It is said that the Czar is a Freemason and_ a Liberal, and this is confirmed by authentic statements in official journals. We can easily believe that it is so, for " Liberal" Freemasonry is capable of intense hatred and of great atrocities. The revolutionary journals show by their silence that they approye.of tliis bloodthirsty procedure j in their eyes every infamy _ is praise* worthy that contemplates the extinction of Catholicity." The above-named Sicilian journal states that it has other incidents, equally revolting, and well authenticated, of the Russian persecution in Poland, and promises to publish them. — ' Catholic Review.'

A very amusing story was told us recently by an English. Catholic lady of rank, who was converted some twenty years ago. Almost immediately after her entry into the Church, she was invited to visit some relatives in a remote part of England. She went, and much to her surprise, perceived that all the family portraits and statuet in the house were covered with green baize. Imagine her amusement when, on endeavoring to find out the cause of the extraordinary concealment of these household ornaments, she was informed that they had been thus hidden in order to avoid putting before her the temptation of " bowing down and worshipping images," which her worthy host believed was one of the habits of Catholics. Yet these good people were not one whit more ignorant and prejudiced than _the majority of Protestants who write upon Catholic subjects. The centenary of the Blessed Gregory X. will be celebrated at Piacenza, Italy, with great ceremony this year. This great Pontiff was a native of Piacenza, and was one of the most prominent men of the thirteenth century. His chief object in life was the reconciliation of the Ghielphs and Ghibelinee and the cessation of the terrible civil wars with which their quarrels constantly filled Italy. He was, indeed, a man of peace, one who frequently sacrificed his own happiness and interests in order to promote the welfare of the people.