'One Vicious Quality'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 17, 30 April 1908, Page 9

'One Vicious Quality '

It? seems a long cry to the day when Longfellow's "'. ' angel with a trumpet ' will say :—: — 1 Forever more, forever more, The reign of violence is o'er ! ' But it is a hopeful sign of the times that so conr vincetl'.aj. !Rad|Lcal as M. Henri Manet should 'have strongly protested against the brutal expulsion of the 'Augflustinian nuns by the French Government (on the pressure of their Radical-Socialist supporters) from the Parisian , hospital in which they had nursed the sick for twelve hundred years. M. Maret's article appeared in the 1 Republ'iqiue Francaise , and is translated in part as follows by a writer in the ' S.H. Review ' of March 7 : * The good Sisters had one vicious quality — they believed in God. Hence if we have liberty of conscience, it is on condition that belief in God be strictly prohibited. If you believe in God, you are undone. You can not occupy any public position, nor even receive the cross ' (the decoration of the Legiom of Honor), ' which Wtoaihlhiaive greatly surprised Jesus Christ, to Whom we are indebted for that same cross, which, our masters are pleased to trample under foot, when they do no*t wear it on their breasts. Bid not my friend Berteaux, the other day, amidst the applause of the entire C'hamjber of Deputies, declare tbiat . a man who believed in God could not! possibly be a competent civil engineer, and that a. person afflicted with 'tfcaJti absurd belief could not be admitted to care for the sick t '

•* It is ', says a writer in the ' S.H. Review ', 'a hopeful sign of the times that a radical of long date, should show by this display of mordant irony his disgust for the insane and illogical measures of the present IniMel Government. The -cruel exptulsion of am Order, whtoh for twelve centuries had cared for suffering humanity in their historic hospital, is an act most infamous, without even the plea of economy _to justify it. The Sisters received: 200 francs (£8) 'per annum, the lay nurses are paid 1,100 francs (£44), for, needless to say, much: less valuable services.'