The 'Old Sign-Post'

New Zealand Tablet, 6 September 1906, Page 9

The 'Old Sign-Post'

'•In the fourth section of his ' Tale of a Tub,' ..Dean Swift said that Lord Peter ,(tho Pope) toM his. • brothers of can old sign-post that belonged to his father, with nails and timber enough on it to build sixteen large men-of-war.' The" ' old sign-post ' is, .of course, the Cross on whioh ' the Savior died.' Some years ago we showed, in reply to an incautious Northern critic, -that . the. rare --relics -of the'

True Cross in the world are, with a few exceptions, tiny specks having far less substance than the ! head of a brass pin ; ; -that- the few • remarkable relics ' measure only, for the most part, small frac- ' tions of a square inch ;: that the ' great relic in Rome is a very small piece pf wood indeed ; and that- the history . and dimensions of every notable relic, and. of a great number of those that * are • not - classed as notable, are well known, and have been made the subject of a . curious and interesting bibliography. The last writer to repeat the old story (says the 'Aye Maria'), 'with many flippancies of his own, is Mr. F. A. Leach, in a history of WWarr r wick School. He is thus taken to., task by an English reviewer: " Thd old , sheer '__ was originated by Erasmus, and improved , successively by Calvin, Vol- £ taire, and Swift. It remained for Mr. Leach to put " forth the mos'fe- modern " : version •; he has proibjklbly * never, seen the minute particles or tiny' specks of : wood that lay claim to be relics of < the True Cross. : Had he read the bibliography- of - the .subject, such . a sentence would have been erased." In •<■ reference to another pf Mr. Leach's sneers, "100 shocking to be -qtfoted . here,! continues the * Aye Maria,' ' his critic ; remarks: " Such^ a .comment is . not .only needlessly i irreverent, but also shows • archaeological ignorance.''' ' a- ' ' h: - * - ~^-. The trunk of the, clephanfcV- will pick up a pin, or shift a log of teak. .. Prejudice- has a 1- likepower of adaptation. It * will handle any - preconceived notion, howevei great or however small, that harmonises with -its tastes and , inclinations. A sneer at a microscopic relic,- or. the wholesale impeachment of^ 260,000,000 people— both - come alike „ within it's comprehensive and elephantine grasp. And (as Basil Montague points out) it has "the singular faculty of accommodating itself to all possible varieties -of the human mind., 'Let. the mind,' said he, « foe as naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the richest abilities .of thinking ; * let it -be hot, cold, dark or light, lonely,^/or -inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with - cobwebs, and .and live like the spider where there seems nothing to live yon.'v on.' .*- - - However, the blinds, are being raised. Tlie\ .musej of history has ' a long besom, and with it she, - : ist gradually but surely the grimy -and -mat-' ted tangle of No-Popery cobwebs that so long cumbered the darker corners 'of the- mental tenement, of, our Reformed brethren. It is an Augean task. But the work goes gaily on.