New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1877. "ETHICS REDUCED TO PRACTICE."

New Zealand Tablet, 2 March 1877, Page 10

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1877. " ETHICS REDUCED TO PRACTICE."

This city is honored at present with a bright genius who gives free-thought lectures in one of the theatres on Sunday evenings ; and a very proper place a play-house is for Mr. Bbiqht's free-thought lectures. From the reports of them published from time to time in the daily papers it is fair to conclude they must be as amusing as any farce, and quite as Christian. The one delivered on last Sunday evening, and reported in the ' Evening Star ' of Mondaj, is a fierce, unprovoked, and unmeaning onslaught on the Catholic Church, Popes, Clergy, and the Bible. It is free with a vengeance. In the midst of a Christian community this literary mountebank and itinerant lecturer vilifies and blasphemes everything that Christians revere and hold most sacred. And whilst doing so he hesitates not to talk of the vices of Christians, of peace, and a brotherhood of mankind !

This free-thinker who claims and exercises the right to think as he pleases, but clearly repudiates the responsibility under which every man lies to think correctly and charitably, thus delivers himself in reference to the Great Old Catholic Church to which even he is a debtor in that he has the modicum of education he possesses: " By the end of the fifteenth century that system which had been fashioned by Constantine — and which did not deserve the name of Christianity — was at its worst, and had become a seething mass of corruption." Then it appears he treated his unfortunate hearers to some spicy pages from D'Aubkhte, ■whom, in the profundity of his ignorance, he mistakes for a historian and an authority on historical subjects. This is, of course, Christian conduct on a Sunday evening, and an honeßt effort to promote peace, ana the universal brotherhood of mankind ! This is, indeed, a striking phase of the new Christianity — a new method of promoting charity. Is it not very likely to win to free-thought all the victims of

priestcraft ? Is it not presenting; a lovely picture of th° moral qualities, mental calibre, and culture of free-thinkers ? Why the world will be enamoured of their love of truth, their spirit of forbearance, their pacific disposition, and their sensitive, tender, regard for the ideas, feelings, and principles of the hundreds of millions of men they must gain to their cause before they can hope for the grand consummation which is fast approaching, viz., "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man !"

But seriously, things must be desperate down at the Princess of Sunday evenings. It is quite evident the stimulant of a no-Popery crusade, as usual, is needed to attract a crowd. We wonder if this series of what ia facetiously called " Freethought Lectures " has enabled Mr. Bbiqht's committee to recoup the deficit of the former course. "We sympathise with them under their previous loss; but we decidedly object to be gibbeted to help them to indemnify themselves, more particularly as we Catholics find ourselves described or rather caricatured on the authority of enemies only. The lecturer does not seem to have ever read a single Catholic author. Wicklippe, Huss, Lutheb, Calyin, Paine, Gibbon, Voltaire, D'Aubione, et hoc genus omne, are his authorities — a herd of infidels, scoffero, and heretics. We object to this species of treatment. In common justice both sides ought to be heard, especially by a free-thinker, and a very free speaker. The claims of Catholics to such equitable treatment will appear to be still stronger when it is borne in mind that all that has been done to ameliorate the condition of humanity for eighteen hundred years has been mostly done by the Catholic Church. But to read what this empty-headed and flippant lecturer has been saying, one who knew no better would be inclined to believe that the greatest blessing to humanity has been in reality the greatest curse. This is shocking not only to every Christian idea and principle, but also to every man who has even the slightest tincture of scholarship, and it is an unpardonable outrage on history and truth. But it is an outrage that will pay. The great benefactors of humanity are, it appears to this lecturer, all the heretics, infidels, rebels, and revolutionists of the last four hundred years. These are the real reformers, the benefactors of the human race, the regenerators of society. First on the list of Mr. Bright comes Wicklippe, whose philosophy culminated in a wretched pantheism, and who actually formulated this proposition, viz., " An aas is God." It is not wonderful that his followers, the Lollards, soon broke into rebellion, filling the Church and nation with confusion, and bloodshed and rapine. John Huss is another, who translated the works of Wicklifpe into the Bohemian language, and accepted his teaching, even the proposition "An ass is God.' His followers, too, soon emulated the undutiful example of the Lollards, and rose in insurrection against the authorities in Church and State. Luther and Calvin come next. Mr. Bright says Luthbr had the truth on his side, and Luther himself says he learned a good deal of what he taught from the devil, in whom he firmly believed though Mr. Bright does not. Luther also taught a good deal of what Mr. Bright calls truth, "to spite the Pope." A very exalted motive, surely, in one who had truth on his side and who was a great Christian and beuefactor of humanity ! And the high moral side of his character may be estimated from his Table-talk, so lovingly preserved for the edification of after age« by his disciple 9 and coadjutors in reforming Christianity. Calvin, too, it appears, was another pure Christian and lover of liberty and free-thought, which he finely illustrated by burning Servbtus for daring to differ from him in opinion. In a previous lecture we saw that Voltaire was held up as another shining light — a great example of pure Christian morality. We were waiting to see how this was to be proved, aud we are greatly relieved to find that the lecturer has not read any elegant extracts from his works, particularly from that one which ne tells us he read for his niece, and which e<>nt»ins such choice specimens of his morality, which is such a powerful instrument, according to Mr. Bright, in ameliorating modern society.

According to Mr. Bright, Moses was blood-thirsty, the Patriarch Jacob a liar, David an uni mitigated villain ; the worthies of the Old Testament stink in the nostrils of this modern saiutof the Princess Theatre, Dunedin, who lauds Wicklifpb, Huss, Jerome of Prague, Luther, Calvin, Voltaire, Paine, Hidce, Gibbon, <fee. Words have lost their old ciitnificance, vice is now virtue, falsehood truth, the destroyers of the religion, peace, aud prosperity of nations, the greatest and best Christians, and most deserving benefactors of hu

inanity. Tbe men who established and carried to the highest perfection, the schools, universities, orphanages, asylums, who have been the sole teachers of the nations, the advocates of liberty, the framers of the glorious constitutions of the civilised world, the architects, printers, philosophers, statesmen, warriors, navigators, for fifteen hundred years and more, have, according to our modern instructor, been the bane, the curse of humanity, from whom free-thought is slowly, only slowly, but surely liberttting it. Such is the new Christianity, morality, and education, introduced into Dunedin by freethought. But we need proceed no further. Mr. GEi.Hi.ic has taken up the defence of the Bible and Christianity against the assaults of Mr. Bright, and they are foemen worthy of each other's steel.