Catholic Highlanders.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 20 February 1902, Page 15

Catholic Highlanders.

No one (says a writer in the Catholic World} who has lived among the Highlanders and studied the character of the people can fail to love and admire them. Their orninary life, occupied in quiet, pastoral avocations, induces a shyness with strangers, but under the calm exterior there is a deep fund of emotion, ready and well up when stirred by religious enthuuiasm. For their Gaelic prayers are full of poetry and abounding with unction, and are treasured up from one generation to another. Witness the beautiful hymn invoking the Blessed Trinity, St. Michael, St. Columba, and the ' golden-haired Shepherdess, Mother of the Lamb without spot,' in which the people of Benbecula and other Catholic islands publicly commend to God and the saints the welfare of their flocks and herds, as they lead them annually to the summer grazing grounds. Generous to a fault, they are ever ready to bestow upon the needy ; •taunch of purpose, they are a race given to undying friendships, even though, like all people whose affections are strong 1 , they may be slow to forgive an injury. The position of a priest in a Highland community, is, as may be imagined, one of exceptional authority- The deep reverence and enthusiastic devotion with which the people regard their faith, extends to the person of the priest, and not only in spiritual things, but even in many of the everyday affairs of life which even remotely concern his interests, his will is obeyed with childlike docility. Examples will show this better than pages of description. The writer knows one Highland priest who has often driven from the public-house, on a Saturday night, the too indulgent members of his flock, and that with a liberal use of his ' pastoral staff ' ; nor was/he over gainsaid. Again, it is still customary in some parishes for a priest to call to the altar-rails on Sunday, for public reprimand, the notorious delinquents of the past week. It is doubtful whether Buch a survival of the discipline of the early Church could be found in any other European country, except, perhaps, in some of the more secluded parishes of the kindred race in Ireland. It is not astoundiug, therefore, that the temporal interests of the priest should be regarded as the proper object of his people's care. That it is so is shown by the fact that in the country districts the rougher part of the farm work is accomplished for him by his parishioners gratuitously. Should he need any carting done, he announces from the altar the different days upon which he desires the various farmers and crofters to assist ; the whole parish again, will assemble to cut peat for fuel on the appointed ' priest's moss-day '; and so with other matters of a like nature. Brought up in such principles, the young Hghlander regards the priest's interests as his own, and is not likely to be wanting when his help is needed in things that affect religion more directly. Is there to be a special feast day — some precession of the Blessed Sacrament— the priest simply announces that help will be needed, and scores of willing hands are at his service. The writer can never forget an occasion of the kind in which he was privileged to take part, and in which the cheerful readiness with which the young men of the glen devoted themselves to the needful labor, was as edifying as their religious demeanour during the Bacred function itself. It is true that in such secluded districts as those we are now considering, the work required is very different in its nature from that so urgently needed in the cities and large towns ; but whatever assistance the Highland priest may demand, there is always abundant good-will to supply it, and that, after all, is the question at issue,