A SECONDARY REASON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 183, 29 September 1876, Page 11

A SECONDARY REASON.

++ Still the changes are being rung upon the imaginary misdoings of the " Church of Eome," as they call it. "Whether we open the Protestant newspapers of the northern hemisphere or those of the southern, one theme is prominent, and the evil intentions or malevolent actions of bishops, priests, and all the members of the Catholic Church, are favored with a degree of attention that is perfectly astounding, or rather would be so, were it not for certain reasons with which we are very well acquainted, and of which some are serious, being filled with "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness," while others are of lighter dye, and chiefly tend to amuse us. "We are well aware that there is a great conspiracy prevalent throughout the world, which has for its object the •destruction of the Catholic Church, and which, in the vain hope of accomplishing this impossibility, employs without scruple calumny and falsehood of every description ; but we are also aware that frequently preachers, who are •obliged continually to discourse, are hard up for a subject whereon to hold forth, and that editors many times have cause to dread that the oft-reiterated phrase — "There's nothing in this paper" — may, with truth, be uttered of their own particular publication, and hence it arises that in the " Church of Rome " and " the Ultramontane party " they possess a valuable mine ; and we are persuaded that they would find themselves sorely at a loss, could any event deprive them of the lofty mark at which they are wont to aim their feeble though envenomed shafts. We recollect an anecdote, which, sooth to 'say, rather savours of Joe Miller, concerning a gentleman who was addicted to field sports, and who, in pursuit of his faTOrite amusement, passed day after day in discharging his fowling piece at a solitary snipe that, regardless of being fired at, frequented a marsh in the neighborhood of his dwelling, and which supplied him for years with an object of existence, until at length he invited a friend to share in his sport, and this latter, being a more skilful marksman, killed, at first shot, the inestimable bird, thereby inflicting desolation on the heart of its patient pursuer who, like Othello, lamented that his occupation was gone. "We fancy that in a similar manner, were the Catholic Church to fail them, certain of our preachers and editors would feel themselves bereaved, and oftentimes would find their articles and discourses wanting in point and pungency, whilst those who attack the Catholic cause through spleen and hatred, as many do, would be obliged, in the absence of their common foe, to turn their weapons of offence on one another, and would, therefore, be in danger of suffering the fate of the far-famed cats of Kilkenny. Meantime accusations and mis-statements come hot and fast ; it would be easy to fill our columns with them, but the subject is somewhat tiresome and not remarkably edifying, so that we shall content ourselves with one example taken at random, from a source whose title we have forgotten, but which will suffice to show our readers the amount of probability which attaches to anti-Catholic rumors. A little time ago we, somewhere or another, read a statement to the effect, that the " Ultramontane party " — a favorite nick-name for practical Catholics — in Europe were desirous that the expected war should break out, in order that the temporal power of the Pope might be reestablished. Now, in the event of this war taking place, issue would, undoubtedly, be victory for a Protestant power at least, as in the case of England, if not for one violently anti-Catholic, as in the case of Russia or Germany, and how this could favorably affect the Papacy, it would be hard to say. The statement is perfectly nonsensical, and yet it is not one whit more false or foolish than the scores of others that are circulated with the same intention — namely, that of exciting hatred against the Catholic Church, or else of supplying pabulum to the prejudices of a bigotted comuvunity, and thus giving zest to a prosy discourse, or enlivening a heavy article or newspaper correspondence.