VAIN EVIDENCES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 209, 6 April 1877, Page 10

VAIN EVIDENCES.

Are denial of self and devotion to the welfare of othen^ sufficient to convince the world that they who practise then} are workers in a good cause ? We believe not, and we ait not wanting in reliable data on which to base our belief. It is true that, in particular instances, the heroism of individuals will occasionally prm'uca good effects. We havi^ for example, heard just conditions drawn by a military

officer, the son of an Anglican clergyman and himself a Protestant, from the self-denying and devoted conduct pursued by a certain Catholic priest during the Indian mutiny ; and the ardour of a volunteer follower of Garibaldi was, to our

knowledge, damped considerably towards that " hero," by the tender care given to the wounds of an enemy of her Order by Sister of Mercy. But to soften the world in general, or even to obtain for any particular body immunity, not to say reverence, the most exalted surrender of all that is ordinarily considered to make life so much as endurable appears to be impotent. A glance at the religious orders is sufficient to show any one of understanding, how completely they have resigned the pursuit of self-interest, and how fully prepared they are to encounter hardship, sickness, or death, in the fulfilment of their voluntarily undertaken duties. Yet it is very far from being conceded to them general \y, that they are engaged in the service of God. On the contrary, they are commonly overwhelmed with abuse, and the fact of having persecuted them, has been sufficient to gain for the Governments of Victor Emmautjel and Bismarck the sympathies of multitudes professing themselves to be biased by philanthropy. So it is now, and so it has been for ages. Far from their devotion having availed generally to gain for them adherents, or to convince an erring world of the excellence of their cause, it has not sufficed to shield them from the worst of ill-usage and the most scandalous abuse. Examples of this may easily be found, but let us be content to seek one in the history of the Society of Jesus, perhaps the most calumniated of all the Orders in the Church, and from whose very title, sacred though it be in its origin, an adjective expressive of evil has been unscrupulously framed. Who has not heard of the contest of Jesuit and Jansenist, a necessary conflict that followed on the learning of the one being enlisted to subdue the heresy of the other ? Between these two adversaries a trial of constancy wa* called for ; one not, indeed, proposed by man, but elected of God, and which, in the terrible plague that broke out at Marseilles towards the beginning of the last century, was destined to prove the stability of the contending parties. The Jansenists fled before the ordeal, but the Jesuits poured into the infected town, and spent themselves in attendance upon the stricken people, leaving seven of their number dead there of the pestilence, and martyrs to their holy cause. Yet Jansenism and its kindred rebellion are to-day applauded by many, who stigmatise the principles from which, these Jesuits derived their strength of mind.