Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 52, 28 December 1899, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Our return of the professions and trades politicians followed by the members of the new Parliaand their ment has received the compliment of being callings. textually copied (without acknowledgment, . by the way,) by a goodly section of the Press of New Zealand. This return goes to show that the two chief industries ot the country — the pastoral and the agricultural — find their due proportion of representation in the House as now constituted. The new Parliament has representatives of no fewer than 26 separate trades or callings. Among them are several who in a past day wrought with the miner's pick and rocked the ' cradle.' But oddly enough there is only one member who is now exclusively connected — and he only indirectly — with that great industry which swells our growing exports by close on £"2,000,000 a year, and which since 1853 has poured some of wealth (chiefly in golden ingots) into the lap of Europe. The case was different with the recent Queensland Parliament. There a working miner, Mr. Browne, succeeded in soaring to the dual position of Minister for Mines and Education in the recent Queensland Labour Ministry, which collapsed after a brief and troubled period of existence. The constitution of the remainder of that curious Ministry was, says the Sydney Freeman, 'unique of its kind even in the colonies. Mr. Dawson was the Premier — an enginedriver. The Home Secretary, Mr. Turley, is a wharf labourer. The Treasurer, Mr. Kidston, has deserted a stationer's business for labour politics. The Minister for Lands, Mr. Hardacre, was a clerk before he became a politician. The Minister for Railways, Mr. Fisher, is editor of a labour paper. The seven Ministers all entered Parliament together in 1893, when a party of 17 was elected as a result of the great industrial struggle which had been waged just before.'

It was only when lying wounded and dying catholic upon the battle-field — 'his battered casque nuns and plumage gone ' — that Marmion found in woman to be 'a ministering angel.' Alike war. lesson was painfully learned in like circumstances by many a non-Catholic soldier regarding the Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean campaign, in the great American Civil War, and more recently still in the brief struggle between the United States and Spain. The present war in South Africa will be the means of tearing up many a deep-rooted prejudice from the minds of non- Catholic soldiers. To learn is often slow. To unlearn is generally hard, especially when it is a question of parting with ingrained and long-standing prejudice. But the battle-field and the military hospital are stern schools where every lesson is learned with pain, if not with agony. But once learned, it is not likely to be soon forgotten. In the Matabele campaign the Dominican Nuns at Buluwayo gave soldier and settler and miner alike a noble evidence of the height and depth of the self-sacrifice and charity of Catholic Sisterhoods. The same is being done in the present war by the Sisters of Nazareth and the Sisters of the Holy Family who are tending and romforting the sick and wounded within the beleaguered lines of Mafeking and Kimberley and Ladysmith. When train after train was bringing packed loads of refugees in open trucks from Johannesburg to places of safety at the Cape or Durban or Lorenzo Marquez, the Sisters of Nazareth remained behind in the half-deserted city to tend the sick in their hospital, and to find food for the seven hundred orphans and for the helpless old people (mostly British subjects) who had none others to stand between them and the pangs of absolute starvation.

About the time that the first shot of the war was fired, Mgr. Gaughran, Vicar- Apostolic of the Orange Free State, wired to the Sisters of Nazareth at Mafeking. He gave them their

choice to remain at their posts and face the music of the Boer bullets or to leave the threatened frontier town for safer quarters farther south. The Salvation Army 'lasses' and others who might have given a helpful hand moved off southwards in the crowded passenger trains to places where bullets do not whistle nor shrapnel shells shriek and explode. But without one exception or one moment of hesitation the Sisters of Nazareth decided to remain. And they are now giving to the Briiish wounded the tender and skilful services which their dark-clad companions within the Transvaal are "rendering to the Boers. A Protestant writer in a South African paper says of the beleaguered nurses of Mafeking : « Whilst the Sisters would very probably be the very last persons in the world to desire any public commendation of their course, it seems only fair that attention should be called to their conduct. In this age of money-getting and place-hunting, such deeds as these confirm our faith in the beauty of self-sacrifice and humanity.' The same Order of Sisters and those of the Holy Family are rendering the same kind services at Kimberley and Ladysmith. At Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town their convents, schools, and hospitals are crowded with refugees from the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In one of its recent issues, the North London Advertiser editorially refers as follows to the good work which is being done by the Sisters of Nazareth in South Africa: 'England must be proud of such brave ladies, and those that slander their religion should go and do likewise instead of bearing false witness against their neighbours.' _

In South Africa as in the Crimea and the great American Civil War, it will probably take some time for the ingrained prejudice against the Catholic name and the religious habit to quite melt away. But the thaw has already well set in. Even when the Sisters of Mercy were gratuitously toiling and dying of cold and hunger and overwork and disease at their unpaid post of duty in the Crimea, there were to be found some inglorious varlets — even clergymen — who sat in guilty comfort in their easy chairs in England and in pamphlet and newspaper railed at and ridiculed their admitted devotion to the sick and wounded soldiers of the Queen. The undoubtedly valuable services of Miss Nightingale were made the theme of song and story. Those of the Sisters of Mercy were either passed over in absolute silence or coldly and thanklessly accepted as a sheer matter of course. Miss Nightingale was, however, more generous than either the clergymen or the journalists of her time. Shortly after the close of the war she wrote the following words to the Superior who had been in charge of the Sisters during the course of that sublimely blundering campaign :—: —

I do not presume to express praise or gratitude to you, Rer. Mother ; because it would look as though I thought you had done this work not unto God but unto me. You were far above me in fitness for the general superintendence in worldly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual qualifications which God values in a superior ; my being placed over you was my misfortune, not my fault. What you have done for the work no one can ever Bay. Ido not presume to give you any other tribute but my tears.

In the American Civil War of the sixties the chief glories of the hospital work were by unanimous consent accorded to the Catholic nursing Sisters — the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Sisters of the Holy Cross. At the opening of that long and deadly campaign, two circumstances combined to somewhat hamper the good work done without fee or reward by the Sisters : One was the galling suspicion and dislike of the non-Catholic private soldier ; the other was the exasperating obstacles placed in the Sisters' path by army surgeons, army officers, and other war officials who were gifted with strong and well-fed and bulky prejudices against things and persons Catholic — and especially against those strange women in strange uniforms who were known as ' Sisters,' and who were regarded as companies from the monstrous Amazonian regiments of the Man of Sin. The Sisters, however, had- no vanity to wound. They had no resentment to repay. So they

bore it all with smiling and unruffled countenances. Their day came when men swarmed the hospitals striken with campfever, and when the wounded were brought in hundreds or in thousands from the battlefields. No hand was so light, no touch so gentle, no voice so soft, no attendance so devoted and unwearied as those of the Sifters. They soon won their way to every heart. They triumphed alike over official suspicion and the vulgar prejudice of the untaught masses that fought on either side. An American author writes of them : 'As the war progressed, so did the influence of the Sisters, until at length there was scarcely a corner of the country into which a knowledge of their services did not penetrate, and there were but few homes in which their names were not mentioned with respect.' They toiled impartially and with equal charity and zeal for North and South. The Generals of the Army of the Cumberland and the Tennessee besought Archbishop Purcell to send them ' more priests and more Sisters, they were so full of devotion to their duty.' By the rani and file the Sisters soon came to be popularly known as ' angels ' and ' angels of mercy.' The famous Sister Anthony was styled ' the ministering angel of the Army of the Tennessee.' She and the other Sisters were granted a universal pass by General Bsauregard. This enabled them to go everywhere unquestioned, just like staff officers. Time and again they made use of their opportunities to pass far beyond the lines and return with loads or provisions which kept together the bodies and souls of thousands of Confederate prisoners that were lying in misery and starvation in Charleston.

Eighty Sisters attended the sick and wounded at Richmond. At Gettysburg even the youngest nuns went into the firing line to succour the wounded. Here, and elsewhere, they were brought into direct touch, and at first hand, with the fresh and palpitating horrors of war. What this means for tenderly nurtured and refined women, God alone can tell. We may, perhaps, gain some idea of it from the experience of the famous Belgian religious, Constance Tiechmann. She went out, young and fair-haired, in 1870 to nurse the wounded on the field of Saarbourg. When she rt turned from her task her hair had become white. The charity of the Sisters in the American War overcame everything. When they died from bullet or fever others were ready to take their place and — noble patriots ! — to serve their country and their neighbour without pay or reward, frequently — as at the Battle ot Gettysburg — furnishing the camp hospitals with provisions and comforts purchased at their own expense. The prejudice against the Sisters that had marked the early part of the campaign soon melted away. Its place was taken by unbounded admiration, both on the part of the officers and of the rank and file. Two wealthy Protestants who had served through the war purchased the great United States Maine Hospital at Cincinnati fo ;£ 14,000— a fraction of its original cost — and presented it to Sister Anthony. When the mighty struggle was over, the Sisters had no more whole-hearted champions than the soldiers of both armies. For instance, a non- Catholic officer who was wounded near Pensacola was nursed back to strength again by the Sisters of Mercy. ' Look here,' said he to a fellowsufferer before he left, ' I was akviys an enemy to the Catholic Church. I was led to believe by my preachers that these bisters — both nuns and priests— were all bad. But when I get out of this, I'll be everlastingly dirned if I don't knock the first man head over heels who dare* to say a word against the Sisters in my presence.'

Tha wjunded officer of the Pensacola hospital is but one instance out of many that might be cited to show how the magnificent services of the Sisters during the war broke down the barriers of prejudice against the Catholic Church. We will content ourselves with quoting the words of the distinguished lawyer, politician, and soldier, General Randall Lee Gibson. He passed away in 1892. Some tims before his death he spoke as follows in the course of a public adJress :: — >

When I was * young man, before the great struggle bit ween the North and South, I was sonaffhat prejudiced against the Citholic Church. . . . Well, the cry came, 'To Arm 3!' and I presume it is hardly necessary for me to tell an Ohio audience that I had the honour of commanding aa Ohio regiment — the 19th Volunteers. Afoer a diy's eigagemmt, in which our forces were bally beaten, I looked out from headquarters — which were located on an eminence — up in the scene of the c inflict; and through the field-glass I could see black-robed, figures going around among the wounded and dying soldiers. I immediately ordered my aide-de-camp to gi down and see wh) those blade -rab»d figures were, and report as aoou as possible to me. He hastily returned, almost breathless, and exclaimed: 'General, those figure* are Sisters of Ch irity, who are ministering to the wounded and dying soldiers.' . . . I was amazed, and concluded to make a personal investigation. I went down into the sons of the great conflict, accompanied by some of my staff officers. I didn't hare to go far before coming across a blaok-robed figure that was cold in death. This heroine of heroines died at her post. Sac was not regularly mustere 1 into the service, she received no pecuniary compensation ; but oh, what a reward will be hers ! Her companions were etill engaged in succouring the wounded aul dying. When I saw this with my

A FAREWELL PROFESSION OF FAITH.

pathos in the farewell sermon preached a few weeks ago by the Rev. Dr. Lee in the Anglican Church of All Saints, Lambeth (London), after a ministry of three-and-thirty years. Dr. Lee was notable both as a preacher and writer. But his name is, perhaps, best known in England through his efforts in the direction of the Corporate Reunion of Anglicanism with the centre of Catholic life, the Church of RotTK\ His farewell utterance included a profession of faith in many of her distinctive doctrines. Thus, ' the Incarnation,' said he, • involved the stainless Conception of the Blessed Mothsr of God, which was not set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles, nor explicitly in the Creed, though it was in substance; and it was to be regretted that that doctrine was not more faithfully considered. The propriety of prayers for the dead might likewise be deduced from the words of his text. He would advise the constant repetition of " Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women," the making the sign of the Cross, and the use by all classes of grace at meals, as a

own eyes on that eventful day, I returned thanks on bended knees to the Omnipotent God for opening my eyes to the sublime grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in America did all in her power to calm the public mind in iB6O and 1861 and to prevent the horrors of a civil war — and this at a time when, as a New York Protestant barrister said, the non -Catholic pulpits were furiously harping on their three burning themes, Popery, Slavery, War. She failed. But when the mighty struggle broke out, she did her duty right nobly to the victims of the war. A lawyer from Louisiana who had tasted the bitterness of prison life during the war, said : ' Looking back upon the war, I see that the Protestants of the North were charitable to their own side, and that the Protestants of the South were very charitable to their side ; but the Catholics were the only body of Christians who practised charity for its own sake, irrespective of politics, and who did so even when it was unpopular, if not dangerous for them to do so.' One result of the single-minded charity and patient kindness of the Sisters was the conversion of thousands of the rank and file and many of the officers of both armies during the course of the war.

Lord Wolseley has his notions. And one the celt in of them is this: that it is the destiny of the fighting Irishmen to rule the whole British Empire. line. So much he said in the course of an interview with Mr. Stead in August, 1890. • Not long ago,' said he, ' almost every Colonial Governor was an Irishman. Of the Viceroys of India, Lord Mayo, Lord Dufferin, Lord Lansdowne, and Sir Hercules Robinson were all Irishmen.' So were the holders of the greatest names in the later military history of the Empire. Lord Wolseley himself, the Commander-in-Chief of the forces, is a Dublin man. So probably was the mighty modern Thor of the Thunder Hammer, the Duke of Wellington, although some claim Dangan Castle in the County of Meath as his birth-place. That other mighty fighter, Sir Charles James Napier, was a native of Antrim. So is General White, who is holding Ladysmith against the beleaguering forces of the Boer army. Sir Eyre Coote — so distinguished for his services in India — was a Limerick 'boy.' Field- Marshal Lord Roberts is from ' magnificent Tipperary.' So is Major-General Sir William Francis Butler. General Clery is said to be a native of West Cork, and, if we mistake not, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum hails from the ' Kingdom of Kerry.' From the days of the Peninsula to the Malakand and the Afndi and the latest Soudan campaigns it seems to be the accepted tradition of the British army that most of the tough fighting falls to the share of the Irish and Scottish regiments. The present campaign in South Africa forms, thus far, no exception to the rule. It is not, however, so generally known that Ireland, in proportion to her population, not alone supplies an enormous proportion of the military talent of the British army, but that she also (still in proportion to her population) furnishes the regular army — that is, the fighting line — with 20 per cent, more troops than England and with 50 per cent, more than ' Bonnie Scotland.' Such, in effect, are the figures furnished in Mul hall's Dictionary of Statistics for the current year. ' Compared with population,' says he, ' we find that England produces five soldiers per thousand inhabitants, Scotland four, and Ireland six.' Other things being equal, we may legitimately conclude that the Green Isle suffers proportionately in good Milesian blood when the cannons roar and the rifle-fire sputters and crackles over the field of battle. The number of Irish-born soldiers in the British army in 1896 was 25,000 out of a total white force of 209,000. Great B itain has learned by a long and happy experience to lean with easy confidence on the dash and elan and unfailing gallantry of the Irish and the Scottish Celt.

There is a pathos in nearly all last things — the la^t glimpse at home, the last word of the dying, the last look at the face of the dead. And so vvis there, too, a singular

recognition of God's overruling Providence. In a pathetic peroration (says the New Era) Dr. Lee bade his friends farewell, thanked all who had helped him, forgave all who had opposed him, and urged all to see the clear issue at stake — not to be in the foggy state of many preachers whose sermons found favour in newspapers, but the aim of which it required a man of great intellect to understand — and so to live and walk here that they might join the great company of the Redeemed above.'