Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 48, 29 November 1900, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Some time ago it became our duty to flay the the Otago Educational Institute for its cool and rongahere deliberate breach of a promise to give ' moral CASK again, and material support ' to Miss Annett and to teachers who, like her, should be made to suffer financial loss or serious inconvenience through the pressure of bigotry. Our readers are aware of the series of outrages directed against Miss Annett — solely because of her profession of the Catholic faith — by a menagerie of raging fanatics in sleepy Rongahere. The criminal persecution of the young lady culminated in the destruction ot her house and effects by the hands of an incendiary, and in threats which compelled her to resign her position and seek safety in a civilised district where bigots cease from troubling and the assailants ot unprotected women do not enjoy the consideration and protection extended to the white savages who have branded with an indelible disgrace the name of Rongahere. When the time came for giving Miss Annett the ' material ' support which her losses demanded, the Institute boldly ran away from its magniloquent undertaking of a few months before. The Institute's promises were like lover's oaths, or those of which Ralpho reasons in Hudibras :—: — Oaths are but words, and words but wind. Too feeble implements to bind, And hold with deeds proportion, so, As shadows to a substance do. Miss Annett received neither the material nor moral support so loftily decreed. Her case was almost contemptuously dismissed from further consideration ; the police ' could find no clue ' in the face of a local conspiracy of silence to shield the criminals ; and the putrescent ' Rongahere incident ' was consigned to the grave. • » « But it has risen again, like the ghost of murdered Banquo. Last week it, so to speak, stalked into the meeting of the Otago Education Board, and the attempt to ' lay ' it resulted in the passing of the following resolution, on the motion of Mr. Mackenzie : ' That the Board should consider the propriety of adequately compensating Miss Annett for the loss she suffered through the dastardly actions of certain disreputable persons at Rongahere, and that the Government be recommended to place £6o on the Estimates for that purpose.' Mr. Mackenzie detailed the circumstances under which Miss Annett—' a gifted girl of irreproachable character and considerable scholastic attainments '—was compelled to shake oft her feet the dust of Rongahere. The local intolerants, he declared, 1 would not dare to have treated a man in such a way. The Board should not permit such dastardly acts to be inflicted on a sensitive lady without doing something to compensate her for the pecuniary loss she had sustained. A great principle was involved in the case. Surely in free Otago it should be possible for them to send a lady to any school in the district and feel that she was safe from being molested. The highest and most refined civilisation in any country was marked by the freedom from insult enjoyed by women and children when following their daily avocations, and when any departure was

made from that standard — as in the case of Miss Annett — the participators of such an outrage should be made to feel that not only the whole voice and power of the Board, but also that of the Government, was against them. 1

In summing up the first of the cases of the stok.e common assault alleged to have been comcase. mitted by Brother Kilian at the Stoke Orphanage, Mr. Justice Edwards (as reported by the N.Z. Times and the Otago Daily Times) said it was beyond doubt that at the time in question ' there was a strong spirit of insubordination in the school,' and that if obedience in the specific matter before him, out of which the alleged assault was stated to have arisen, had not been enforced, ' there would have been an end to all discipline in the school, and the staff might as well have packed up their portmanteaux and left the establishment to " these young gentlemen "' ; that ' two of the Crown witnesses swore one thing and two another on this point ' ; that ' one of the great evils at the present time was the growing evil ot insubordination among the young, of which our criminal courts offered only too many instances. It was shocking,' he continued, 'sometimes to look at the calendar and see the number of persons charged with crimes who had New Zealand set down as their place of birth. This unfortunate state of things, in his humble opinion, was very largely due to the fact that the necessary discipline was no longer enforced as it should be, and a spirit of insubordination was growing up among the youth which was dangerous to the whole community.' Brother Kilian was acquitted on two charges of common assault. Further reference to the Stoke cases will be lound in our news columns

London Tablet of October 20, gives the still they names and addresses of 24 Anglican clergyc ome. men who have been received into the Catholic Church since the publication of the Bull Apostoliccc Curce, on Anglican Orders, in September, 1896. The list is partial and incomplete. It comprises one rector, three chaplains (one a Navy chaplain), six vicars, nine curates, and two members of the Cowley Community. The most notable among the list of converts is Kather "Maturin, lately of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford.

It is, perhaps, the usual experience to find a \obik deed, that — in the words of the Spanish proverb — ' another's care han^s by a hair.' But the spirit of divine charity breathes wheresoever it wills. And thus from time to time we meet with records of touching kindness among the clergy of the separated Churches. We have, for instance, a pleasant memory of the grave face and dignified bearing of a pious Anglican clergyman who was instrumental in securing the benefit of our ministrations to a stricken Catholic tramp who had ' humped his bluey ' for the last time, and lay gasping by the mystic door that opens through ' the leaning wall of life ' to the great soul-world that lies Beyond. A touching story of a similar golden deed romes to us in the columns of the Michigan Catholic. The scene is near Durand in the State of Michigan. A collision had occurred on the Grand Trunk Railway, and Thomas Hamlin, a well-known engineer, had been crushed and ripped in a way that was fearful to see. He —or most

of him — was extricated from beneath the ruins of his battered engine. 'It was seen,' says our Michigan contemporary, 'that he was in a dying condition, and as he implored those about him to call a priest, and there being no Catholic clergyman residing at the place, some kind-hearted person hastily summoned a Methodist minister, the Rev. Mr. Roedel, of Durand. Mr. Roedel hastened immediately to the scene of the accident. Mr. Hamhn saw at once that he was not a priest, and courteously declining- his proffered services the injured man asked him to send for a priest. The nearest priost, tVio Rfv v Opopfrp O'Suilivan, r^siHeH M Gninfs vvhirh was six miles distant, and there was no way of reaching him except by driving across the country. The brave engineer was each moment growing weaker and weaker, and the attempt to reach Father O'Sullivan and convey him back to Durand before the man had breathed his last was deemed hopeless. However, Rev. Mr. Roedel (God reward him for his noble act ') hurried to his own house, hitched up his horse and djjove over to Games and returned as fast as his horse could be driven to Durand with the priest.' * * * ' Poor Hamlin,' says the Catholic, 'died just five minutes before Father O'Sullivan's arrival. Rev. Mr. Roedel's part in the sad tragedy is worthy of the highest praise, and Christians of ali denominations cannot but admire his noble charity and generosity.' We lift our hat to Brother Roedel. If 'the wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel ' for others, the Methodist divine of Durand is plainly one of dear Charity's millionaires.

And we are best of all led to consistency A Men's principles by what they do. jewel. Uncle Sam's principles and his practice are eating each other vp — like Kilkenny cats. Article XIII. of the Constitution of the United States, which has been part of the supreme law of the land since 1865, runneth thus : 'Article XII L, Section I.— Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' But article X. of the treaty with the yellow Sultan of Sulu Archipelago recognises slavery as an established institution, acknowledges the right of ownership of human beings as chattels, and in express terms regards the slave as having a market value, like a horse or an ox. Article 111. of the treaty recognises polygamy as one of the rights of the much-married Sultan and his Datos, because it is a part of their religion. But the New York Freeman points out that 'a Mormon — although polygamy was also a part of his religion — was (recently expelled from the Senate because he had three wives.' Great is the Sultan of Sulu ! And Uncle Sam — like 'Soapy Sam ' Wilberforce — has been spoiling his ' agreeabihty ' somewhat in this Sulu mess by his ' palpable inconsistency.'

It was stated some years ago in the North A curious American Review that people in the Philipsi rviv\l. pines get so accustomed to earthquakes that they pay no particular attention to them : they expect the ' quakes ' and are perfectly satisfied when the houses begin to stagger like drunken men and the solid earth to roll like the long swell of the Pacific. In a somewhat similar way Knglish Protestants have here and there resigned themselves to the survival of certain distinctively Catholic practices of pre- Reformation times. Thomas Cromwell, for instance — Henry VIII.s lay-vicar-general — forbade the ringing of the Angelus bell. He ordered that 'the knolling of the Ayes, which,' he said, ' has been brought in and begun by the pretence of the Bishop of Rome's pardon, henceforth be omitted.' But the Angelus bell continued, none the less, to ring out from many a spire and tower — knolling for departed days, and ' Reformed ' officials and clergy and laity learned to tolerate this reminder of doctrines and devotions which had been placed under the ban of the law. As late as 1886 a Protestant antiquarian, Mr. Bubb, protested vigorously against the proposed discontinuance of the ringing of ' the eight-o'-clock bell ' (the old Angelus bell) at Minster, in the Isle of Thanet, oil the coast of Kent. The bell is still rung out thrice a day — at morning, noon, and evening — from many a Lutheran church in the Scandinavian countries : a iar-oft memory of the faith that was spread over those lands in the days when St. F.nc wore the royal crown in Sweden, St. Canute in Denmark, and St. Olave in Norway.

But one of the most curious survivals of the pre-Reforma-tion days is the old Catholic common seal which is still in use in the Puritan town of Rye. 'It is not a little curious,' says a writer in the J/tntiuqs Observer, 'that Rye's town seal should be, of all municipal corporations, perhaps the most Papal in the whole kingdom. It is composed of .tn enshrined figure of the Madonna and Child, around which .ire the words : Aye Maria plena gratia Domains tetum. 1 mentioned to a well known Hi^n Church clergyman in Hastings the fact that

through centuries of hard and fast Protestantism, Rye's town council has been using this seal, when the reply came : " Well, poor people, it didn't hurt them. We may well suppose they didn't understand it." lam not prepared to endorse this, as it may appear to some readers, cynical observation. I merely mention it as a strange fact that while, through generations, the ancient town should be condemning what it called " Mariolatry," in all its shapes and forms, it nevertheless, on its every important legal document, had impressed the figure ot the Mother of God encircled with the invocation : " Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thoe " The local historian may by-and-bye have something to say on this point.'

1 Clai>per-cla\ving ' is the comparatively clerical mild term with which Samuel Butler used to ci-liba(y. express the tornadoes and waterspouts of vituperation that used to be directed by certain controversialists against the celibacy of the Catholic clergy. This suggestive form of abuse is now happily left to impostors of the Slattery add Ruthven type and to such-like scavengers and camp-tollowers of the clerical profession. For many years past thoughtful Protestants have been experiencing a gradual change of mind and heart with regard to what Hallam, in his Constitutional History, terms this ' most ancient and universal rule of discipline.' A leading article in the Melbourne Argus of March 11, 1896, urged the Anglican Bishop Goe to 'in future let the young unmarried men be selected for the wilds instead of the married ones. They don't want parsonages or furniture,' continued the writer; ' a bicycle and a portmanteau would constitute all their belongings, and fresh young enthusiastic workers would do more good and infuse more energy into a district in a few months than could be accomplished in as many years by an elderly gentleman encumbered with wife and children — to say nothing of the horse.' Which is a mild plea for a young celibate clergy on the ground both of energy and economy.

But thus far the benefits of temporary or perpetual clerical celibacy have been best realised by our separated brethren as an article for export. It is chiefly in connection with the foreign mission-field that they realise the force of St. Paul's words : ' He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is divided ' (1. Cor. vii., 33-34). Dr. Robert Needham Cust — who devoted himself for over fifty years to work in connection with various Protestant missionfields — plies his whip and scorpion against the average missionary for his early and ' reckless marrying." It indicates, he maintains (in his Missionary Methods), a lack of ' self-denial ' and 'self-consecration.' He would let no male missionary marry till he has had ten years' service in the field,' and would strongly • encourage Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods.' After the cruel murder of the Stewarts and other Protestant missionaries in China in 1895, Mr. Labouchere wrote in his paper, Truth : ' If really it is deemed desirable to make an effort to convert the Chinese in provinces where we cannot protect our citizens, the task should be placed in the hands of men wifeless and childless, ready to live in poverty, and to die, if needed, as martyrs; but, above all things, of approved intelligence and discretion. A person should not f^o into missionary work as a profession in which he can keep himself and his family. It was not in this way that Christianity first made its way.' Married missionaries often undoubtedly display great zeal and earnestness in their work. But the presence of a wife and little children is not exactly the sort of thing that naturally makes for heroism when famine or bubonic plague sets about devouring the massed populations of the East, or the Pagan begins to rage and thirst for the blood of the ' Western devil ' in his diabolical way. In a remarkable article in the National Review for December, 1897, R ev - H. Hensley Henson (an Anglican clergyman) says that the wedded missionary cannot, • save in the rarest cases, be conceived in the heroic category. The true missionary,' he adds, ' is normally unmarried, unprofessional, heroic' Of the Catholic missionaries he says : ' Nowhere does the Roman Church wear so noble and Christian an aspect as in the mission-field. This is the reluctant admission of her foes, as well as the legitimate pride of her members.'

No courage ' mounteth with occasion ' so spontaneously as that which arises from a sense of duty to God and love of neighbor. And it is least trammelled when one stands alone, like Pietro della Miccia — without tearful wife and scared children tugging at one's heart-strings. In connection with a similar subject the Aye Mafia retells a very apropos incident related by Father Girod, a missionary from Tonkin. It occurred when Father Girod was in the Foreign Missions' Seminary, Paris. 'He was,' says the Aye, 'on duty one day in the " Martyrs' Hall," giving to the different visitors infor* mation as to the various paintings and other objects that constitute the seminary's missionary museum. In one group of callers was a young man of about 20 years of age, an extreme type of the Parisian dude, who had glanced rather superciliously

at some of the pictures and curiosities, and entirely ignored others. Approaching Father Girod when the other visitors had left the hall, this youth looked the priest squarely in the face, and asked : " Bi?t, after all, Monsieur I'Abbe, I should like to know why Catholic priests don't marry.' Father Girod simply turned toward an Anamite picture representing the awful agony of Blessed Cornay, whom the executioners were cutting into pieces, and replied -. " Look there, young man, and tell me ■whether, when one has a wife and children, one is apt to have a taste for that kind of life and death." The dandy did look, and then, respectfully asking permiss ; on to <-Mk»* t^e orient '<; hand, wished him good luck and retired.'