ALL BUT CAUGHT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 181, 15 September 1876, Page 10

ALL BUT CAUGHT.

An effort lately made to introduce religious instruction in a modified form into the godless schools of Victoria has occasioned v; no small amusement. The Colony of Victoria is a country where Catholics are encouraged. That is they are afforded every opportunity of laying aside the prejudices with which they may happen to be encumbered. A paternal government sets every inducement before them iv order to prevail upon them to free themselves from the trammels wherein it conceives them to be bound. Violent measures it does not resort to., because they would be unconstitutional. Liberty uf conscience must be attended to; a man may be a Catholic provided he will submit to be heavily taxed, overwhelmed with abuse and opprobrium, declared by every stump-orator and scurrilous scribbler to be beneath contempt in this world and anything but certain of Paradise in the next, and constantly exposed to hearing all that he holds most venerable and sacred loaded with falsehood and ribaldry. The tender government of Victoria leans to this progressive ami refined interpretation of liberty of conscience, and, while it has cleverly managed to impose the heaviest tax it could constitutionally devise upon Catholicism, it holds out a helping hand in many ways to those who variously employ their tongues in blackening all who profess the hated creed. But this government acts thus iv kindness ; it doubtless wishes to dispel the illusions under which the benighted children of the Church are supposed to be laboring ; it would gladly see them re- ; linquith their fidelity to the Sovereign Pontiff in order that