Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 49, 8 December 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

A Flaming Controversy. The Kcv. Dr. Gibb, President of liie Biblc-in-schools Conference, strands in sore need of a course of soothing syrup. When Mr. Seddon and his team were toilful] y pulling the Referendum wagon through the House of Representatives, Dr. Gibb and his party appla/uded and passed votes of thanks to him ior having kept Jus plighted word to do so. The Doctor even ' went one better ' : he invoked high hoa\eji to bestow miore power upon the Prcmici's massive elbow. But alack ' the Upper House tossed the Referendum Bill out of the window, and silnce then Dr. Gibb and Mr. Scddom have not been playing in the same yard. For some weeks the champion of the Bible-in-schools League nursed his wrath to keep it warm. When it had reached tine temperature of ap electric furnace he hosed the Premier with its liquid fire at the Presbyterian Assembly, denounced the Referendum Bill as worthless, Mr. £>eddon as g/uilty of insincerity, promise-breaking, ' telling taradiddles ' (Dr. dbb's expression, not ours), ' fooling the Bible-in-schools party all along the line,' and other more or less B,ulg^rian atrocities. As is customary with Dr. Gibb wjien he enters the arena of controversy, he suspended the rules of polite discussion apd ' Did engage In a warfare with the remnants of a palaeozoic age.' The Premiej did not turn the other cheek. He ' retorted ' several of his antagonist's charges, accused him of garbling his quotations (an inveterate weakness of the impetuous Doctor's, as we have time and again shown), and struck back with odd bits of saicasm that smote like chunks of old red sandstone. The League President returned to the charge of insincerity in another longtwiy letter whioh turned a column of the New Zealand press into a fuming Vesuvius. The Premier threatens to ' stump the country ' against the Bible-in-schools soheme, should it ever become a ' live question.' And there, lor the time 'being, rests what may be described as ' a rale purty bit of a fight.'

The outstanding and instructive feaktre of this interesting controversy is the fierce temper and violence with which it 'has Deen fought cut by tihe chosen champion of the Bible-in-schools League. On hi& side it has been a driving squall of words — a fog-horn controversy. Search it with a microscope and you will find in it no

spock or trace of the ordinary courtesies of debate. In this respect at least, it has served as a useful lesson to the electors of New Zealand : it has enabled them to gauge the bitterness of feeling which— as we have often pointed out— would be imported by the Bible-in-schools leaders into a plebiscite, if it were ever granted, on the question of soctarianiuing the public schools^ 'We hope,' says the Wellington ' FreeiLa\nce ', ' this object-lesson is not being lost upon tihe public. It is a foretaste of the acerbity of feeling we may expect ad nauseam if c\er the Bible-in-schools party get the thin edge of drnominationahsm introduced into our State school .system. Mr. Seddon lias gone out of his way to oblige the Bible-ui-schools agitators. There has been no demand from the people for a referendum on that question. Jt was a gratuitous undertaking on his part to gnc them the means of obtaining a catch-vote on a, subject for whiah the public are not prepared. If Dr, Gibb iiad obtained pledges from members of Parliament to support it those pledges ought to be made public. Let us know where we stand. It will be time enough to debate the Bible-in-sehools seriously when the electors themselves bring it info prominence. 80 far all efforts in that direction have been confined to church conventicles, and the only noise we hear is the banging of tjhq drum ecclesiastic. T,he Premier will place himself in a false position if he mistakes this ecclesiastical clamor for the voice of the peo-ple. On their part, the people would be false to their liberal and democratic instincts if, under any specious excuse, they allowed themselves to coerce a minority on matters of religion.'

A Mean Fraud. 'It is hatfd,' says the ' Oathohc Times,' 'to acquit the French authonties of meanness and even dishonesty, if the story told by Messrs. H. Riviere and Co. in a letter to the " Times " be true, as we 'have reason to believe it is. When the Frenoh Government sent the monks adrift from the Grande Ghartrause they appointed a liquidator to arrange for tine disposal of the property. Tiie manufacture of the celebrated liqueur, it appears, aroused the covetousness of the Government., Acting on its behalf, and in virtfue of powers which he temporarily obtained, the liquidator ccfncedejd tfoe manufacture and sale of the liqueurs to a certain firm. But if t?he expression be allowable, he gave ,away .what he did not possess. The monks were not so simple as to let their enemies inUo a secret which they hajve-solong and s)o jealously guarded. WheSn they went to Tarragona in Spain they took the recipe and ttfie necessary knowledge witih them, so that tiie liqueurs now made in

France are merely imitations of those formerly produced at the Grande Chartreuse. The liquidator claimed the ri'gjhti 'of s<eizrn:g tihe trade mark and tabiel used; by the mqnks, and they are now adopted by the firm with whom he negotiated. Steps have, however, bee,n taken to expose the deception. Pn tlhis country line use of the label would be treated as fraudulent, for it was registered here (Mngland) as a trade-maik in 1*876.'

Jubilee of the Immaculate Conception. Oui issue of tliis v\eek coincides <MisjL>icio)usly with the golden jubilee of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaciulatc Conception. Fifty years ago to-day— on December 8, 1851— Pius IX., in the midst of a picturesque assembly of over two Imndrqd bisihojps from all parts of tlhe world, issued t|he following solemn definition :—: — ' To the hem or ot the Holy and Undivided Trinity, for the grace arid adornment of the Virgin Mother of (rod, for tlhe exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesjus Christ, of the Blessed Alpostles Peter and Paul, and Omr Own, We declare, pronoiiince, and define that the teaching whiojh holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by a singular grace and privilege of AlmigMy God, jn Mrtiue of the ments of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, preserved free from every, taint ot original sin, at tjhc first moment of her conception, has been revealed by (Jod, avid is therefore .strongly and constantly to be believed by all the faithful.'

Tihough de/fmod only fifty years ago as an article of faitlh, the doctrine *of the Immaculate Conception aas part of the original deposit of sacred truth left by Christ to His Churcji. 'It has always,' says a learned Jesuit theologian, ' ibeen implicitly believed in Hie Churjc'h. Thoiugh several theologians wrote against it, it is 'doubtful whether they understood tihe doctrine as now idefined ; it so, they were against tihe ancient tradition and the " sensus fidclium " ' In Mary's case, God's mercy interposed and saved her from the stai.ii of original sin which, as the daughter of a fallen race, she would oUiciwise ha\e contracted. This singular privilege was bestowed upon her fo.r the sake of Him Who wasl to be horn ot her and through ' His merits loieseen.' Long before, God held back the rushing waters of tihe Jordan go that they ahdulU not touch the Ark of tihe Covenant In like manner He stayed the flood of evil, .so that it ahould not contaminate, even fior an visitant, the soul of His Virgin Mother, of whom the Ark was a type and image. ' Christian children,' says 1 a Catholic theologian, ' are sanctified at the font ; St. John the Baptist was sanctified while still runborn ; Mary was sajictihed earlier still — vi 7 , in the first moment of her conception.' The same Christ Who redeemed 'us icdeemed her. Her high privilege came through His grace Apostrophising the Divine Saviour, Bossaiet says : ' Thou art innocent by nature, Mary only by grace , Thou by excellence, she only by privilege ; Thou as Redeemer ; she as the first fiiuit of those whom Thy Precious Blood has purified.' As far back as February 2, 1819, Pope Pius IX. had, through the encyclical ' Übi Pnrmim ', requested all the Catholic episcopate throughout the world to give frank and full expression to their views and wishes on the subject of the sinlessnesis of the Virgin Mother of Go*l and to entreat the prayers of the faithful for divme guidance. •' The definition ', says a historian of the period, ' was accepted by Galhcans as well as by Ultramontanes, for it was notorious that the whole episcopate gave full assemt to the 'doctrines of the papal Bull.'

A Protestant ' Manual of Instruction ' befo* us (by Rev. Vernon Staley) 'does not accept the doctrine of the lmrmac,ulate Conception. But it admits a belief ' that, wiitJh & view tio ,her future destiny as tihe Mother of the

Lord,,: she was|, lfrke the Propfret Jeremiah antf fMie Baptist, specially sanctified from the womb, and lived a life oi spotless innocence. How, exclaims the writer, 1 could she otherwise have been fitted for her higji and mysterious oifice as Mother of the Incarnate God ? ' The complete reasonableness of the doctrine of the sinlcssjness c 7c 7 Mary from tihe first moment of her existence finds 1 , however, easy acceptance on the part of the many Protestajnt clergymen and divines wiio come into the unity of Iflie one ti.ue Fold of Christ. One of the most brilliant and scholarly of recent converts is, undoubtedly, the Key. Dr. de Costa. In his interesting work, l Fcom Canterbiury to Rome,' tlhis cultjured divine writes in pa' lt as follows regarding his acceptance of this ancient doctrine of the Catholic fait&i :—: —

1 The Protestent reader will possibly feel sbme surprise on being told that, in approacihing the s/übject of tho Immaculate Conception, little difficulty was experieneeid, andi that tine great truth was at last joyfully ieccived. Lndeod, there came to be a feeling of wonder that what was perfectly reasonable sliomld so long have been hiXldon irom my eyes, which was all the more noticeable from the fact, that, like all the teachings of the Catholuc Chiirch, this is in accordance with the whole tenor of Holy Scripture and is moreover plainly indicated in the New Testament. For example, it was aiguod, if Jo/hn the Baptist needed sanctification from his bwth tio become a herald of the Saviour, how much more necessary was immaculate purity on the part of one appointed to be tiie Mother of the World's Redeemer, and whose flesh and blood was to be His own very Flosih and Blopd. Again, our Blessed Lord 'declared that His Flesh and Blood were the true Manna, while St. Paul said tiiat all these things were figures of things to tome. Turning therefore to the Old Testament, it was [>)U<md that the Manna appointed to be reserved was placed in an ark of incorruptible wood, being specially contained m a vase of pure goLd previously refined. The conclusion seemed irresistible. This pointed to tlie Immaculate Conception.

' Still further, in the Revelation of St. John, was seen tihe w oman clothed with the stun, abcut to give birth to a child who was to rule the nations and whom tlie dragon was vainly waiting to devour. Here again, seemod to be an illustration of that immaculate virginal punty tcUigiht "by God's Angel wlicm he saluted the Uiesisfld \ rra;in as " Full of Grace " (gratia plena), Jerome's translation of the perfect participle (kecharitomema). It was evident that the King James t/ra-n'slp-tor m attempting to pervert the authority of Jerome, by rendering the GreeK as " highly favoied," followed the example sot iji a thousand other renderings that form deliberate mutilations of God's Word iji ,the interest of Piotestantism.

' It was at last seen that the truth of tlie Immaculate Conception was one of the most anpiemt known in the world's religious thought ; and it was impossible to suppose that the Church, founded and endowed with all teaching aitd disciplinary power, had made a tremendous mistake on a point &o deep and vital.

1 The rejection of the Immaculate Conception, therefore, forms a complete rejection of the Church of Christ.'

A \eteran in the person of ex Superintendent Toohey has tomed the majority. Mr. Toohey, before his arrival in Melbourne in the early fifties, had been a member of the Koj;al Irish Constabulary. For over 20 years he was iln charge of Geelong station as seigeant, aJnd subsequently had control of Emerald Hill as sub-inspector. As {Superintendent, he supervised the Burke police district anid retired in 18fl4. In the wild days of t|he diggings' Mr. To,ohey, as sergeant, was involved in many exciting adventures with the lawless characters *ho were attracted by the gold, and who top frequent y obtained more than their fair share of the colony s latent wealth without the trouble of digging for it. D,o not be stuck for Binder Twine like last season, order early. D^aghy's Gold Medal Flax delivered at nearest station 5d per ft cash. MORROW BASSfc 1 1 AND C 0....