Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 6 December 1906, Page 9

Current Topics

jLow Comedy « Logic ' Even Johimy Raw must have some knowledge ami practice befoie > he tiusted to welt a 'balmoial' or solderuuk" k tin kettle But some fine day he stumbles thiough a lectinc by the shallow plagiarist Ingeisoll, 01 the latest of the \shilling and coniiadictoiy theoiies oi t.lic Rationalist Piess, and, piesto ! he finds himself capable of deddmg the deepest mysteiies of„ time and space, of mattei, life, free-will, mind, and a,ll the rest of the nddles of 'the univeise\ All is at once as plain and open to him as "the making of a mud pie. One of the usual type of these Sir Oracles of neglected mental tiaining has recently been airing his borrowed. and misunderstood views in a Northern^contemporary- His sweeping pbsitiveness, serene ; as- .' sumption that his.bare" assertion,is on any point cient .proof, and the;- fierce indignation- with which'' resents" the gentlest % questioning these are true to type, and are a joy for ever-to such as delight in what, we may call low comedy ' logic ' or the' Humpty-Dumpty 'argument'. -■;'■■■' _' ■' ■' hj ■'■■■■.■'j ■■'*... " . • ■•.''."' Some years ■".ago. (so runneth a story told by Dr. George P. Hays) -one of the Johnny R,aw : class of infidels was tq. lecture at a" 1 little-red in Pennsylvania.; The. lecturer was young, and therefore very positive.indeed. A hard-headed old G-ermian farmer met him near -the village and ' queried : 'You de ■vyoung man vot is to schpeak dis evening? ' ' Yes, stranger'; I am.' ' Veil, vot you schpeak about? ' ' My subject is this : ''Resolved, That I will never believe .anything I do not -understand." ' ' Oh, "' my !.' exclaimed the German. ' Is dot" it ? Veil, now, you sho'ost take voir lettle example. There, you see -'dat ■ field—my •pasture-"ov.er."t'h'ere.'-' : '*" , Now" , '" ; "iiiy"* J horse, he eat' de it come up,hair/ all over he's pack ('back). :i Then my sheep,, he eat shoost de same grass, und it grow wool all over him. Und vot you tink ? My goose,"he: : eat de grass tipo, und sure's' I tell you it, conies alt over' him fedders.. You uiMerstand r 'dot ? Heigh?,' , : . : , ; J ■].< , '%" :: . The youth did .'noil ' t understand-rcveii though the .making and preserving of a'uniycrse, all things" animate and .inanimate was .no more a mystery to him:' than (as Carlyleputs it) the making :6f • an apple-"' dumpling. ' ■:' '' ; • - .• c : ■; \:. : r\.'. Home Rule Near: vfSl XI After the passing of the Act of Union, Ireland's - hope for the restoration of her traditional legislative. rights- was. : ; ; :/ ■ :-.''"^ : X '- -JM^ 'Like the bird in the story " / That;flitted'from tree unto treeWith the talisman's glittering glory '.?, ; ; L -:;.. But it looks as. if the ; oft-flitting hope is'/■■'how'-'--.'at' ; last about to settle and allow the people of the'Eme-' raid Isle to seize the. fair political jewel of self-rule which—they have beei! patiently ever '/it; was taken from them/' by force arid fraud ' more- tharia hundred years ago. ■ In a recent interview: with an American paper, Mr. ;T V !JP. O'Connor,JM.P., declares tliat Bill -'will be .presented ■to-'.thel House of and will pas's by a majority a; adds, ' pass by that, majority even W we stopped our work at this very -minutev' for the'"; Campbell-Banher-man administration is not opposing us, and recognises the justice, contentions! Premier himself has s^d'frbiu r: tbjiit Home self-government, -.for i| a better ,term. With" a majority, o| more ' ? ;t-han : \ls'6'- for the a W^;^ r to 3 say, anticipate,'?; but i'With: saying " hope-"

—that the House of Lords will realise that Hie great body 'of the English people' arcjavorable toi the selfgoveming proposition of our -"party, and will refrain fiom killing the measuie. It may be that when the Bill reaches the House of Lords it will be ''nullified by a crowd of amendments, but if public* pressure striong enough it may have a -more fortunate fate. In our fight -ior self-government, our party is assisted" by the Labor party, which within the last few .years has gained gieatly in sticngth and importance. The Labor party now has fifty-one members in the House of Commons. Wc have eighty-two, so you' see that our combined strength is quite formidable. Nearly all of the important 'labor Bills that have - during the last few years have been-.put through with our assistance* &o that when we need help- it is only natural that we should look to them for votes.' A Long; Deferred Hope~'". 1 Hitherto,'* says the ' Catholic Times,' ' sufferers from cancer have had no very bright hopes when undergoing medical treatment. The news which now comes, from Paris Avill cause all who are so afflicted to be of good\. heart.., Absolute certainty of- cure can as yet, it .is true, be- scarcely entertained~in all cases, but Dr. Doyen has cured and is curing' many. Since - June of last year a great change has come over the opinion of experls as to {he discoveier's success. A commission then held that the treatment was, not effectual. Meanwhile cures have been wrought. Twentyfour of' Dr. -tDoyen's ' cancer-patients who were despaired of in 'June, 1905, are now doing well, and*out of a total of-.-.sixty-four cases that have come-under his treatment fifty-six cases are reported to have progressed favorably. Dr. Metehnikoff. Pasteur's successor at the Institute, "is convinced that the microbe of cancer has been discovered, and Dr. Doyen was accorded most coidial leception jtt the Congress of Surgeons in Paris. 'Of all the experts present' only one, it is said, douMs the efficacy of" his reanedy. Happily it looks as 'if the faqulty are at last winning in the battle against ca'neer.'--;

-- I-tT seems to be well estafilished- that- cancer riot hereditary^;; And iiija great- w'oef this "is more small mercy- tp.be ~ thankful for.:rr7-Soiiie^ ; yiars was, we think,. in 1899) Dr. Bra, /a piipilt of thefpillusU'ious Catholic scientist Pasteur, discovered, isolated, and v cultivated the parasite whiiih gryes rise to* cancerous growths. It took" - a run scopic king of terrors to " It a- niere of tiie".greaKfiin-gus family—' a low niicrdscopic-fungus ' was description, after his long, liunt had .ended 'in: a ; v ; capture.. It is .about the thirty-milliontliV of. an infill:. v in; ' ; axameMr v ;ifeut■ Hhe name (ascX)mycetus) idling an asteroid. With cultures of tm% ; parasite, tlie fell disease has been produced, in various •animals, aM speciallyfavorable pppprturiitics thus offered to . the nature' and Vtrea]bm£ht.. of ' this "' dreaded constitutional malady. The" hope, deflerrMthat niakcth the heart sick seems now onthe verge of realisation. •; But in the and in event—patients " should kick- downstairs tlid quack Vcancer that infest various communities in this Colony/ Apar£ from the new- treatment, which,, seems, to Jbn frig withX promise, what the surgeon's knife can't cure must be/en.^ured—until .#ie better conies '""our way. " """"■. '■''■%: '..-&' Bible-in-schools Tyranny. s^ interbdurse, : ennpbkvJ by the spirit of Christian. chariiy^£, mutuaU: knowledge .v?aii-d; produces ; Q the- toleration \which sweetens public, ■.an^.prjy.a^ . 'Ground in yonder social mill', We rub eaGh other's angles down'.

Williamstown, Pennsylvania, furnishes a melancholy- ex r ample of the state sible in. a "community in whioh intellectual enlightenment, Chnstian charity, and the spirit of toleration'ai« about as conspicuously absent as they are in that legion ' East of Sue^—wheie theie ain't no Ten Commandments ' I'here exists in that afflicted town a menagerie of oiganised intoleiants—as aieit for mischief as the Victonan tiger snake; which, at the rustle of a'diy gum-leaf in Decembei, the crack of a broken~twig, the softest footfall, turns its evil yellow eyes, flattens its head, plies its forked black tongue, sounds its angiy lAos through the parched summer glass, and—if fan opportunity offeis —flings its yellow coils in headlong fury to victim with its deadly fangs Some wee\s ago we told how those banded smoothbores petitioned the School Board of Williamstown ' to the following effect . "(1) tnat the Protestant Bible be lead in the schools, and that all the children be compelled to attend- the*~~icading ! , -(2) that all the Catholic teacheis be dismissed '- ' The petitions ', says the Boston 'S H Review" of October 20, ' weie piesented by the Junioi Older of United Amencan Mechanics, the Patnotic Sons of Amenca, the Independent Older of Od4 Fellows, 'and, strange to say, Chester Post, Grand Aimy of the Republic. The School ' Boaid immediately acquiesced, the Protestant Bible was ordeied read, and all the Catholic school teachers dismissed The matter was carAed to the couits, which lefuscd to lntcrfeie ' * The sequel is told *as follows by our esteemed Boston contempoiaiy : ' Lnder these circumstances, Cath-" olic parents lefu&ed to permit "then children to attend the public schools. Foi- this they have been ariested and committed to gaol at Harnsbuig because they would not pay the fines for refusing to let their children attend what are Frotestant exercises : in-Ihe public schools. Seeing np 7 . f -aTiiicable .or just settlem-ent in sight, Father Dougherty, the pastor, has star.ted'a parish school under difficulties. • Some of the children -are" in the parlor of his own- house; othersi in the: church, pending the fitting up of the;church basement,"' "Ami now-; the! bigots threaten:. that they will forcr : the health' authorities -to - condemn . the basement for soh<>ql.purposes.' The -upshot- of the> ; arffair willbe with interest. ,'T'he whole, incident affords. an illuminating.: example of. the things that -'are ;even under : a r system of. public instr : uction--;Ahat-pluanea"ais'eli l i:o*. ;v ing, in religious matters, severely neutral. Nearerhome to, us, evidence, given ;by no^pathblic,' nesses before the Victorian Royal Commission of 1900 showed how , Catholic, -and ,' Jewish; children" may be forced into attendance at 'Reformed ' religioiis• instruc-' tion, in open, flagrant, : and -habitual violation of a ' conscience clause ■'. With us in New•Zealand, the Bible-in-schools-inov'emenb has been; And we cannot/ say- that" we/ have for it either the ; ' words that weep ' or the 'tears that speak V" Over its unmourned grave there rhay :? yet perhaps' spi'ihg up among' our separated Me6ds flower of an effort' to solve' the religions' education difficulty ,rnanner : . that may fair to ail. But no settlement: can be either permanent or possible' "in which Catholics are ig=» nored, or riot treated as; priiicipals. ",."' / ;..'J. '-\'/. :t '"".V ■' Confession Am<^^Ncfl^^^olicißf^^^^;^; ' ! ■''* The schooimasier keepsj getting abroad. -He. has by. no means .bem "to> dispel 7 air r the ignorance. that 1 is about. - But hej-h^ rations; of the. young- idea toio.rmVult v pressions. /regarding: : Catholic doctrine , discipline that ,were .long ; bone ii of the bone • and ~ flesh 'of '-• Xihd l^wh^ is .f ( :Pro;te ; stai^iSm.l i Among ''these';lb the" practice" of 'cdnfessiori. ' Evangeli-' calf! - ProtestantSr l ..:;lang;iras.saile v d.vhcorifession.;A\ l .l/h tornadoes: ;of fierce That *'sort of -thirig =is now

usually left to itinerant professional and slandcreis _who u&etl to find— sometimes find—a luciative business in making this ancient piactice of saints and sages the subject of prurient lomance of the Zola type. The fiisi Refoimers, however, recojnised the divinely given instinct of tluf, human heart to ' unbosom cuminal seciets—an instinct which has'manifested itself -down the couisc of histoiy*, fiom Cam to Eugene Aram and Richard Pigott. Luther, * for. 'instance, ' aftel, his brea/t with Rome, adhered permanently to u saciamental confession as 'the only remedy for afflicted souls ' Melancthon, m prcpaung the Angsbuig (Lutheian) Confe"ss<on of Faith, said (c xi) ' Our Churches 1 teach concerning confession, that the use of , pnvate ' ~ absolution should be maintained m the Churches. . . Confession is not to be abolished in our Churches '. According 'to Pullei's Chuich Histoiy ' (book x, p. 9) Calvin recognised' its utility. And in its Confession of Faith **(xv, 6) the Scottish Piesbytcnan ChuiGh dechues that u ' ljg that scandaAseth has biother, 01 the Chuich of Christ, ought,, to willing, by~a 'public confession, and soriow foi his sin, to declare his lepentance to those that aie offended '. • of sins' was retained by Henry Y-111. after his rupture with Rome. ' Auricular and secret confession to the piiest ' was provided for in the first ' Prayer Book of Edward VI. The practice is still retained (on ,paper) in the Book of Common Prayer,, which _ "directs 'the minister to ' move ' the sick person A.to make a special confession of his- "sms ', privately,'- if - there be anything on his conscience. The same" 'thing is provided for in the ' Order Communion r . Till the Oxford—Movement, however,' the practice of ,confession had been 'almost completely abandoned in the Church of England, rubiic of the Prayer Book and the exhortations of such men as George Ileibert, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Cosin, John Isham, and otheis. Bishop Short, in his ' History of the Chuich of England ' (Bth ed., section 309) re r fers as follows to the recommendations' of the Book of Common Prayci in regard tp l the confession - of particular sins ' : - \' So little aie we accustomed to this most scriptural duty, that these recommendations are frequently unknown and generally neglected, while scarcely a vestige remains of ecclesiastical law for the' lestraint of vice ; and though the punishment of many offences has been w'isely tiansfeired to the courts of 'Common law, yet the laxity which prevails with regard to numerous, breaches of the law of God may be well esteemed a deficiency in our national duty '. Pusey's famous work m favor of confession, as well as the Oxford Movement, gave a great impetus ,to the practice. In _our day an important and steadily increasing l body in the Church of England are committed to it, and have issued quite a body of .literature in support of what George Herbert termed ' tils an- » cient and pio.us ordinance \ * At the recent Anglican Church Congress in , Melthe Rev. Canon Wise (a delegate from South Australia), read a paper on the subject, which" was reported 'in part as -follows in the Victorian' press" :—f 1 They must realise the fact jthat certain supernatural powers were vested in the priesthood as a part of the ordination gift, * and that- they had the power-fbf the keys given by Our Lord Himself to -St.' Peter' and the Holy Apostles, and to every 'priest since. ' Wjhose sins ye forgive*- ttiey are "forgiven, and, whose sins.* ye do retain jthey are - retained'. '• '_</ ' How Was this ministry of reconciliation being >- exercised, in the cities -and towns of Australia? -Were'" sick, folks being moved to make special'confession*"* of their -sins ? . Were 'those who absented themselves from the Holy Communion advised to seek the' ministry of absolution ?i Was one of the obstacles ir to 'the Cath-'-olic religion their timidity ,and~ theirs own uncertainty ? One of the, most significant parts of the recent Ritual Commission'was that where it- 'was stated'/ that the number >of thio£c seeking this special 1 ■ confes- '

sipn anxk absolution;,-was ; steadily and ln&ritedly ~ ■ing.-JAp'pliusp-.)';-- Men,.and-.- women..must op, encouraged;;; to 'cotiie to' the: .clergy;, "and this they would,. only .do' if 'ihan lilieiihemsielyeis, •■;'lic' i! . is endowed-i with^upern'aturai'po'wM Jiisjininist^y.j-and^Jthatrhis Avas noKform, >buto> a r^al '.jendQwment r ;,O t f p.ow&r-s frqm->on ./souls, fuse -t&eir^sitt,/!^^ were Mild- lie.-might istryj ; -;qf -reconciliation, aad>:-giye absolution:arid- adyic'eu: = Whilst,ln certain : guarters llie bitterest, invectives :wci;e,';« bein^/iiurled - ' again si'■ , thisf means'/rot. grace,/."/and 'isQ.,,» term'■■ habitual' cbnfession,"'as a ;: land' "of '' •Mesopotamia^'.'' was being- used in pkiee of the Pterin : auricu laf ; conf sion • of. /"bygone:-^days,; souls. Iwewj' perishing and round ( them.for 'want .of rthis : . .spiritual.; nourishniejntl which could awaken ...them, and-save//them, >frqm>i their" r sins^\(•Applause!)' He could »ot see. how": it was : possible fe.^w:bw:ded^cities Without, this.--' ,K ' ; :' : -,,'' Was it hot, possible" lor; ■them, as a branch?-of ■••-■ th- I .* Ohurch, to,hay;e clear : j directions regarding .its use, n-and/ to":have" a regular ordeivof confessor practice was : *-rig&'(i! It was /permissible.' 'itVwas mon thing in the r Church .fo¥people:' to.go' to' ■ sion? And yet they spoke of it with bated-breath, and wondered w;hy the thousands of..\Jsplk in the towns were indifferent f t' 6 religion,'- and seemed : to have lost /the sense; of Isin. If- tir'ngs be • why J werc_-. they •/not to; /.be ■ sanctioned and regulated;.' WhatV ever was the thing, they- were afraid of ?. ■ Gould [they < wonde_r if sometimes they were accused of a want;, *£f;. backbone, and it was .'sanTof them, "They 'are-not' : Catholics* and -they ate not'' Protestants ; they -must' be r Anglicans." : (Laughter.) '•; -.. ■■■•■;-. •

We have, or have had,"upon our bookshelves,,a goodly., collection of Anglican manuals that give ..instructions . as to the manner.."of confessing. Among "these;V^re, ~;' Sacramental ./Confession ' (by.' Rev. F. fC. 1 Hints to Penitentsi ' ; "How to , Makc : a- Jaood" JDop-V fessibn ' ; ' The Prayer Book for the Youiig '"; .; : 'A. help to Repentance J ~ (published in .Hob-art) ;; and* (aniong others) the '-."well-known"■ ' Manual ' by the'. Rev, ; Vernon Staley, which devotes ''twelve.' pages to 'Sacra-, mental Confession,' and in a tone .that is singularly ,<■ Catholic." Some years" ago, ah Anglican clergyman, ' Father' Black, made himself responsible for"the "state- . ment -that fronir. twelve to - fifteen huhdre-d of his brethren in the; ministry were :"in the habrt bf' hearing; confessions in ■; England' and '; Scotland.' AV ; vhun4; . dred years ;ago,.hardly ; one,.would have dared toL'makesuch -an avowal. Well, time's, whirligig brings ; in' hisrevenges.; And.;qne of these is the. v testimony'!'now borne by 'a large 1 aftd 'growing section of the Anglican. Church to the antiquity, and usefulness of ' this most scriptural duty 'of the " confession of__gi ; ievous ; sins committed'.after Baptism. "' -