Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 48, 1 December 1904, Page 18

Notes

An ' Intolerant Majority ' When a discussion on religious questions has been wagging a voluble tongue for a week or two in a London daily, tjie probabilities are that in due course a belated) echo thereof will be heard in the columns of some New Zealand contemporary. Certain outbursts of fanaticism in the ' yellow ' districts of the North of Irel-and led bo odd spasms of qontroversy in the British metrppohtan preps. Here is an extract from a letter by a non-Catholic military officer in which he scores recriminatory charges against the ' intolerant majority ' of the population of the Green Isle :— 'So far from being an " intolerant majority " as described by a correspondent in your issue of Friday last, the Irislh Catholics are the most tolerant majority I have ever seen. For forty-seven years my father was Dean of Elphin, in the midst of a population where the Catholics were twenty to one. Neither he nor any of my family ever experienced anything but respect ; intolerance and insult were unheard of. I think I may say the same for my family in the Queen's County for 250 years. Intolerance and insult, I regret to say, come from the Protestant minority. I was quartered at Belfast on two Twelfths of July. Both times the disturbances were commenced by the Orangemen. At Ennis.killen, where 1 was quartered, it was tihe same 1 . The real grievance of Irish Protestants is that they can no longer bully their Catholic neighbors ; that the latter are tree and equal ; that the Ciatholic clergy ha,ve influence over their flocks, while the Protestant clergy have none over theirs. • F. T. WAKBURTON, Lieut.-Col. ' National Liberal Club.' King Richard and the Sawbath On Sunday last Mr. Seddon was caught in flagrant! in Dunedm riding a horse— a guaranteed heavy-weight carrier, we (presume. lie had apparently forgotten that he was in a place where many people of limited education confound Sunday, the first day of the week, with the Jewish Sunday, whiqh is Saturday, or the last day of the week. o<n Monday morning, howeiver, our roihustkyus Premier received, through the local press, a h'ot-slvot reminder that he is a Saw-bath-breaker, and that his perambulations on the weight-carrier caused sore sdandal to a portion of vhe community. \et rumor hath it that even the clergy of some of the scandalised ones have been known to go a-horseback on the Lord's day, and we have a shrewd suspicion that the writer or writers of the letter of protest against the Premier had food cooked and beds made anxfc floors swept on the Sawbath. We are once more reminded of the complaint of a worthy old dame who was horrified at seeing the late Queen Victoria driving to church from Balmoral one sunny S/umday morning. ' But/ objected a loyal subject in defence, 1 ,did not the Lord and His Apostles pluck ears of wheat and shell them on the Sabbath day.' ' Aweel, they

did,' said the uncompromising old dame, ' but I think nae better o' 'em for that.'

Reckless Assertion Uncle Eb, m Irving Baoheller's well-known story, reckoned that ' everybody's a right t' be reckless once in seventy-five year.' The President of the Bible-in-sqhoois Conference enjoys this blessed piivilcge — so far as recklessness of assertion is concerned — as often as opportunity arises or can be conveniently created. It may be a case in which the lesser knowledge makes the bolder ma-n ; or, mayhap, the enthusiastic Doctor's crop of discretion in statement was planted In a year of drought and grew up sparse and stunted. However that may be, it is certain that some uncofnsidered affirmations oi his— somje juggluigs with fact— have landed him in the throes of a triangular newspaper duel in Dunedm. In a too enthusiastic moment he described as * ifludge "'" ' the ' Evejiijng, Star'si ' assertion tUiat, while qpposiing the Bible-in-schools scheme, it had nevertheless advocated a plebiscite to end the matter. The ' Star ' has proved its assertion 'ad abundantiam,' and ihe local public are awaiting Hie fulfilment of the combative Doctor's promise that, in the event of such proof being advanced, he would witndraw and apologise. Both tha ' St)ir ' and Dr. Gibb have been saying/ to each other what they mean, and meaning it very hard, and the diplomatic courtesies which they exchange cleave the air with the whiz/z of a volley of boomerangs. In the Midshipman Easy contest, the Rev. W. Saunders monopolises the amenities of debate. In letters that are faultless in tone and temper, and in matter unanswered and unanswerable, he has successfully twitted the Bible-in-schools Conference with the vacillations and mc insistencies ot its policy with regard to the matter of ' religious ' instruction by State officials in the public schools. The Ke\ . Mr. Saunders rightly holds, with the bulk of his fellow. colonists, that it is not ' the duty of the State to meddle with the proper work of Ihe Christian Church. 1 What with the heavy clubbing done Uipon him by one of his southern antagonists and the artistic ' pinking ' executed by the other, the President of the Bible-in-schools League must feei as if he had been pole-axed and dissected. Silence is said to be golden. Talk is sometimes silvern, olten brazan. 'An allegory qn the banks* of the Nile ' wauld probably be good company if he'd only keep his mouth shut.