GERALDINE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 31, 3 August 1905, Page 20

GERALDINE

His Lordship Bishop Grimes paid an episcopal visa* tation to Geraldine on Sunday, July 23. His Lordship arrived on the previous Friday, and was received by the Very Rev. Dean Bowers, There was a very large congregation present at the 10.30 o'clock Mass on Sunday, when his Lordship preached an impressive sermon on the Blessed Sacrament, which was baseS on Our Lord's miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes. In the afternoon the Bishop administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to 47 candi'daites— 2o boys and 27 girls. Prior to ,the ceremony his Lordship questioned the candidates as to their knowledge of Christian doctrine, after which he spoke on the graces received by Confirmation. After the administration of the Sacrament, again addressing the children, his Lordship said that when he first arrived in the Colony he was approached by those who had strong views on the drink question and he told them he thought it was a libel on the young New Zcalanders to say that they were addicted to the drink habit, and the longer he had lived in New Zealand the more he was convinced that what he had said was true. But it was now said that a change had come over the Colony, and young people were giving way to intoxicating drink. He sincerely hoped this was not true, and if it was, so much the worse for the Colony. He wan-ted, therefore, the young people to rise u,p and make'a sacrifice, saying, 'We are not going to be classed under that stigma.' He thought the real danger to New Zealand was the love of sport and amusement. He did not wish to condemn fiealthy recreation, but there was a limit. The danger to-day was that amusements were likely to be carried to excess and that yoaimg people would be carried away with gamboling and other evils attending the same. He wanted those who had been confirmed that day to -take the pledge mot to take intoxicating liquors until they are twenty-one. After that they could renew the pledge it they wished, or they could even now take the pledge for life. If they did this, so much the better. He had met people in the Colony who haa* taken the pledge under Father Mathew, and some who had taken it under Father Henebery at Geraldine, and had kept it ever since. His Lordship, then administered the pledge' to the children just confirmed.