A BISHOP ON TOLERANCE,

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 52, 28 December 1899, Page 21

A BISHOP ON TOLERANCE,

A GIPPSLA.KD paper published a short time ago a tirade delivered against everything Catholic by a rev. chaplain of an Orange lodge. Happening to be at the time in the district the Bishop of Sale took the opportunity, when presiding at a concert, to reply to the remarks of the firebrand chaplain. He eaid : — The Gospel taught them to bleBS those who cursed them, and to pray for those who persecute or calumniate them. This was the Gospel of charity and love ; the Gospel of our Lord Jesua Christ. His Lordship believed that he could say without fear of contradiction — and he said it for the information of those who did not belong to the Church, that is, who were nob Catholicß, and he asked them to accept it — that if he found out that a priest in his diocese preached ogainst another denomination after the manner of this Orange lecturer, or who preached in any strain likely to instil into any member of his consrresration ill-feeling towards the member of any Beet, he would not allow that priest to appear on the altar, because he would be doing that which would be diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Churoh. They were told in the Holy Scriptures that they were not to bear false witness against their neighbour. That Christians are bound to believe, and anyone who brought false witness against their neighbour violated the laws of Almighty God. So he asked parents to be always prepared with good, sound, whole* some literature, because they saw that any person who calumniated them in matters of religion could be easily answered. These books parents should also put in the hands of their children. He counselled them to do good to those who differed from them in religion, to be charitable to all men, and they would thus live down the hatred and slander of those who make no account of the Divine command, whioh-says : ' Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' Circumstances compelled him to note the souldestroying utterance so pronouncedly brought before them.