The Missionary Field.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 9, 27 February 1902, Page 20

The Missionary Field.

Ik the course of an address delivered at the opening of a school at Newtown his Eminence Cardinal Moran said that the effort to eliminate religion from schools dated from the French revolution at the beginning of the last century — a period which was to the churches of Christendom one of the most calamitous of the whole Christian era. Men then set themselves to devise vain things and would not be satisfied unless the very name of Christianity was crushed in the dust. And so they tried to exclude it from the schools. Governments succeeded each other in rapid succession during the first half of the last century in France, and they tried tQattain that object ; but in 1850, when the Republic proclaimed freedom in connection with schools, religious education began to be renewed, and in l<ss than a year over 100 schools adopted it. Before many years religious education triumphed throughout the length and breadth of that Catholic land. For (he next 30 years the trinmph was still more complete ; but of late a movement had been commenced against religious communities. The reason of this was that year by year the Government lyceums and publio institutions were practically abandoned by parents, who preferred sending their children to the Catholic schools. Thus the very persecution of the present day by a Freemason and infidel Government was itself a witness of the triumph of religious education throughout the fair land of France. But this temporary persecution — what was it ? It was but one of those storms to which the Church was accustomed. It was nothing new in the history of the Church and was only the presage of a brighter future. The Evil would Pass Away, and peace and calm be restored to families who for a moment had been disturbed in that land. This exclusion of religious teaching from the public schools at the beginning of the last century was only part of the great plan devised for trampling the name of Christianity in the dust. But bad it succeeded ? The Rev. Sydney Smith ventured to foretell that before the close of the last century the itame of Catholic would be forgotten. Yet it was not forgotten ; it wan never more glorious, even in London itself, than it was to-day. No doubt in the end they would have no cause to regret the present persecution, for it would only add to the stream of missionaries who would carry the blessings of religion to foreign land- In the beginning of the last century the number of missionaries, priests, and religious brothers engaged in what was known as the foreign mission fields was under a thousand. To-day at the beginning of the ne-v century the Church had no fewer than 18,000 pliesta and brothers engaged in foreign missions. One feature particularly deserved attention. At the beginning of the last century their nuns did not venture moo the mission field, but they had since achieved the grandest results in converting the natives of foreign lands. At the beginning of the century there was hardly a nun so engaged, but at its close there were no fewer than 60,000 nuns working in the foreign mission field. That number included 10,000 native Sisters connected with the native churches in China, Japan, India, and other countries. Those native women were sanctified by the religions life, and engaged in teaching the blessings of religion to their fellow-citizens. It was a great work, and showed that, so far from religion having been overcome, it had successfully met the many and fierce attacks, and had triumphed over them all, the circumstances adding lustre to its victories.