Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 24, 15 June 1905, Page 18

Notes

Not Very Enlightening

A correspondent sends us a lengthy report of a Cible-in-schools debate that took place recently at Levin. The members of the local Young Men's Christian Association flung sundry chunks of old red sandstone arguments at each other in a friendly way, and, perhaps, did as well, in the circumstances, as could be reasonably expected of amateur debaters, who usually, on such occasions, are often handicapped by youth, ana ' nerves,' and superficial acquaintance with their subject. If— through the kind offices of some of our readers— a few of the speakers had assimilated the substance of the manifestoes of our'Hierarchv on the subject, there would have been ' bone ' enough in the debate to make it be remembered in Leun.

Carnegie

In the last work that came from his pen, Max O'Rcll wrote down etvery millionaire as an impostor, and (by implication) »a fool into the bargain. Yet Carnegie may, without any Pharisaical self-conceit, lay the flatrtering unction to his soul that he is not q.uite like the rest of millionaires. He has, for instance, a goodly measure of saving common-sense, and his ideas of wealth are close akin to those which prevailed in Europe in t>reReformation days, ami which were restated in terms of much power by Leo XIII. in his Encyclical on the Condition of Labor,

' The other day,' says the ' S.II. Review,' ' it 'became known that Carnegie's niece liad married a poor coachman. " Better a poor, honest man than a worthless

duke/ commented Carnegie.' Again; one of the social (principles introduced at the Reformation, and widely prevalent ever since, was the idea of absolute ownership in property. Then, for the first time in Christian history, and in defence of the sacrosanct ' rights ' of ' proputty, proputty, proputty,' laws were passed which treated poverty and crime as indistinguishable. The old and more Christian idea regarded ownership in property as a stewardship. And such seems to be the substance of Carnegie's idea— apart from the question as to his manner of putting it into practice. His recent gift of £2,000,000 to pension American professors and teachers brings up the total of his money benefactions to some £25,000,000. To put it on the lowest ground, a man with a million pounds cannot eat or drink or multiply his wants and enjoyments a million times more than the man who has only one Dound above Bis needs. Max O'Rell expresses this bit of homely philosophy by the rough mouth of a Whitechapel toper : 'IT I was the bloomin' Dook o' Westminster, I couldn't be— more — drunk— 'n I— am.' Carnegie would give all his millions to have the hale and business-like stomach of a Scottish_ploughman. But his mountain of dollars cannot buy him good health, which, is- the best kind of wealth in Ehe physical order.

However, he has the good thought to spend his surplus shekels for the good of others. ' If/ said Leo XIII., in the Encyclical referred to above, ' the question '143 asked, How must ome's possessions be used ? the Church replies without hesitation, in the words of tlie same holy Doctor (St. Thomas) : " Man should not consider his outward possessions as his own, but as cony mon to all, so ais to share them without difficulty when others are in need." When necessity has been supplied, and one's position fairly considered, it is a, duty to give to the indigent out of that which is over. It is a duty, not of justice (except in extreme cases), but of Christian charity.'