WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 179, 1 September 1876, Page 15

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

A quarrel which arose at a Warden Court between the English Warden of the North and Sir John Carmichael, keeper of Liddesdale, in Scotland, led to a coldness between Queen Elizabeth and the Regent. Several English "barons, with three hundred men, were carried prisoners to Morton at Dalkeith. So grievous an outrage exasperated Elizabeth. She raged and stormed in the style of her august parent. Her loud scolding was not communicated to the Regent in all its terrors. Her ambassadors, neverthless, gave him to understand that their royal mistress was offended, and that it was necessary to come to an accommodation. All differences were arranged accordingly, and Morton not only dismissed his prisoners, but loaded them with presents. He even humbled himself so far as to send Carmichael to London to beg pardon of his haughty patroness. Among the presents which this envoy was the bearer of, were some trained falcons, and this gave rise to a saying among the boarderers, who, in alluding to the death of Sir John Heron, who was slain in the recent border quarrel, remarked that the Regent, for once, had lost by his bargain. "He had given live hawks for dead Herons." Father Tom Burke, 0.P., said sometime since in Glasgow : — There was a great discovery made a few years ago in Ireland — a most wonderful discovery. What do you think they discovered ?—? — that St. Patrick was a Protestant. I remember meeting a Protestant parson, a very nice man, a respectable sort of a man, in a railway carriage between Kingstown and Dublin, and we began to talk, as usual upon religion, and he said to me, " Well, you know, of course you will acknowledge that what St. Patrick taught the Irish people is what we call Protestantism to-day." I looked at him, " Oh, yes, of course," I said, " that's a fact." " I hear," said I, " that Oliver Cromwell and Lot's wife were at his first sermoH." " Oh," said he, " that cannot be ; that's impossible." " Well," said I, "It is just as likely as that St. Patrick was a Protestant." " Sir," said I, " he was a Protestant bishop?" " Yes," said he, "he •was that." " I read," said I, "of his going up the Hill of Tara, but I didn't read of his wife accompanying- him on that occasion." Moreover, the first thing he told the Irish chieftain was that it was the Pope that sent him ; and he did not come up there in a car-riage-and-f our — he walked vp — and he told them that they would have to go to mass every Sunday, and he began by saying mass for them ; and he told them they would have to pray for the dead ; and he told them that whenever they mentioned the name of the Mother of God they were always to call her the Blessed Virgin. "Now," said I, "no Protestant bishop ever preaches these things." And in truth, my friends, that is precisely what St. Patrick taught our fathers. We have in our possession mass-books, the missals from the very time of St. Patrick j and before St. Patrick died he called the Irish priests and bishops around him, and this was one of his last instructions to them — "Whenever," said he, "there is any dispute amongst you, you must select two or three holy, good, wise priests, and send them to Rome to consult the Pope, the same as a child would consult his father or mother." Behold, then, Ireland's faith. The 'Month' states that the following bequests have been made in honor of our Lady : — Sheffield : In 1485 a bridge of three arches was erected across the River Don ; it was called St. Mary's Bridge, from a convent dedicated to our Blessed Lady which was near it. Here was a chapel of our Lady of the Bridge. George, Earl of Shrewsbury, K.G., Lord Steward of the King's Household, in his will, dated August 21, 1537, says : — I will that three priests, for the space of twenty years next after my decease, shall sing for my soul ; whereof two in the parish church of Sheffield at the altar where Lady Anne, late my wife, lieth, and the other in the chapel of our Blessed Lady of the Bridge, in Sheffield, and that everyone of them have xiii marks yearly." At Sowerby (near Halifax) Richard Lassels, by a will dated April sth, 1472, left xiiis. Hid. to the support of our Layde. Here there was, it is stated, a house called Ladye Well; a considerable part of the property in the I neighborhood at that period went by the name of Ladyland. At Shirburn-in-Elmet (Sherburn near Leeds), Eufemie, Lady Langton, widow of Sir John Langton, by her will dated August 26th, 1463, left to the altar of the Blessed Virgin Marye, below the cemetery of the parish church of Sherburn-in-Elmet, an image of the Blessed Virgin in alabaster, with a collar of SS. gilt, part of silver and part of gold, also a chain of gold, one with three pearls and one ruby set in it j and two fillets of pearls, which were never to be taken away from the said image, but to remain with it for ever. The Holy Father, iv addressing the President and Associates of the Circle of St. Ambrose, Milan, used the following impressive words : — " Although the children of the world are wiser than the sons of light, their craft and their violence would nevertheless meet with less success if, among those who bear the name of Catholic, a great number did not extend to them a friendly hand. Yes, alas ! there are those who, as if acting in concert with our enemies, are endeavoring to establish an alliance between light and darkness, between justice and iniquity, by means of those doctrines which they term liberal Catholic; doctrines which — based as they are on pernicious principles — approve the lay power when it invades spiritual things, -aud induce men to respect, or at least to tolerate, the most iniquitous laws, absolutely as if it had not been written 'no man can serve two masters. 1 Therefore, these men are more dangerous and injurious than declared enemies ; both because they second the efforts of the former without being noticed, even without expressing their judgment; and also because, holding themselves, as it were, on the limit of condemned opinions, they have an appearance of soundness and stainless doctrine, which allures the thoughtless lovers of conciliation, and deceives virtuous men, who would, were it not for them, firmly oppose manifest error. Thus they separate iniuds, dissever unity, and weaken the forces which should be united, and should act iv concert against the enemy. How-

•ver, you may easily avoid their snares, if you keep before your eyes the Divine maxim, 'By their fruits you shall know them ;' if you observe that they display their animosity against everything which indicates prompt, entire, absolute obedience to the decrees and warnings of the Holy See ; that they speak of that See with disdain, calling it ' Roman Curia ;' that they accuse all its acts of being imprudent and inopportune ; that they apply the names ' Ultramontane ' and ' Jesuit ' to the most zealous and obedient Sons of the Church ; in fine, that, overflowing with pride, they esteem themselves wiser than the Church, to whom has been promised, specially and eternally, Divine assistance." Longfellow, a Protestant, gives vivid pictures of the two opposite methods adopted to convert the Indians — the one by the Protestant Pilgrim Fathers, the other by the Jesuit missionaries. Here are the quotations : — Alden laughed as lie Wrote, and still the captain continued : " Look ! you can see from this window tay brazen howitzer planted,'. High on the roof of the church— a. preacher who speaks to the purpose, Steady, straightforward, and strong with irresistible logio, Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of the heathen." Miles Standish. Thither they turned their steeds, and behind a spur of the mountains, Just as the suu went down, they heard a murmur of voices. And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river, Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission, Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the village, Knelt the Black Robe Chief with his children. A Crucifix fastened High in the trunk of a tree, aud overshadowed by grapevines, Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it. Svangelitu: A Chinese essayist on opium-smoking says :— " Three years ago I saw an Englishman go to the hospital at Kolangsu to get himself cured of opium-smoking. I was told that this man -was in a good position in life, and had excellent abilities — yet he fell like this. It seems to me that it would be difficult for this man, if pressed at some future day by weariness and exhaustion, to avoid again having resort to the criminal indulgence, and just as hard to prevent his leading his companions to do the same. If, in this little Amoy, Englishmen have been seen smoking opium, how are we to be sure that in other places there are no Englishmen that smoke opium ? Further, how are we to be sure that at some future day such men will not lead others to smoke opium ? China formerly called herself a country of literary enlightenment ; but since opium came lo abound in China, she bas come near to a tottering and helpless condition. At present England, although she is a famous nation, having among her people a certain number of opium-smokers, secretly leading others astray, if she does not stop the traffic by prohibition, will find it difficult to prevent the mischief from spreading over the entire country/ When the Mormon leader, Smith, first* 'went to Utah, the land was a howling wilderness. "With splendid comprehension and great patience, the strange polygamistic people sunk deep wells and dug trenches throughout the waste. They turned the course of distant hill-streams toward the settlement ; and in a few years the face of the country was rich in verdure and fruit. In 1858, a French engineer began boring the first deep well in the desert of Sahara j and since that time over eighty artesian wells have been sunk in the desert. The change has been almost magical. Each well yields about 1,000 gallons a minute. The wilderness is losing its old features, and in a few more years will have forgotten its former misery. In 1872, two new villages had sprung up in the midst of the former solitude, and 150,000 palm trees had been planted in more than 1,000 new gardens. So we may justly make special notice of the sinking of an artesian well. In St. Louis, Louisville, Philadelphia, and Charleston there are remarkably deep and generous wells. In Iroquois County, 111., there are 200 artesian wells withiu a radius of twenty miles ; and though their average depth is only seventy feet, their daily yield is estimated at 53,400,000 gallons of pure water. In Pennsylvania the artesian wells are sunk for petroleum, and the world is plentifully supplied with a new and valuable material. No wonder that the best light of science should be turned on the means of well-boring, and that the face of the modern cutting-iron or drill should be armed with diamonds. In ancient times the man who dug a well or planted a tree -was honored by his fellows ; and in our day we should feel grateful to the man or company that bores an artesian well. — ' Pilot.'