Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 17 September 1908, Page 9

Current Topics

EvvivaL Personal anniversaries are the mere funerals of empty years to the growing- race of idlers and to the lackadaisical throng ' * Who talk beneath the stars And sleep beneath the sun, And lead the life of going to do, And die with nothing done.' Poles apart from these are the anniversary years of the great and good. Pontiff who now occupies the See of St. Peter. To-morrow, fifty of them will have passed by since the happy day — September 18, JBS8 — when he received the power and the grace of the priesthood within the consecrated walls of the Duomo of Castelfranco. Those fifty years haye been, not empty time-measures, but fifty golden argosies freighted- with rich treasures of personal merit and of zealous and fruitful toil for souls. Like Goldsmith's village pastor he not alone 'allured to brighter worlds,' but 'led the way.'. Mis fifty golden years of strenuous work for God and souls brought earth and heaven nearer within the various circuits of his jurisdiction; and their myriad hours are so many steps in ' The ladder of .the vision, Whereon go To and fro, In ascension and demission, Star-flecked feet of Paradise.' The crowded years have dealt gently with • PiusT X He is seventy-three years young t his busy mind apparently as full of virile strength and activity as if he had not yet passed the medio del cammin di questa vita— the full meridian of his life. The best years of life, according to Mark Twain's experience, are those that begin at seventy. Old age, too, does not truly begin until one has acquired 'the, habit oTTooking backward. The Pope dies. The Papacy lives on, nor knows wrinkle or decay. And the habit t\ retrospection that spells old age seems, somehow," foreign to thejdea of the hard-wrought earthly Head of a Church whose future embraces all the years until the end of time. May long and heaven-blessed years yet be m store to our beloved Pontiff - ' Till like ripe fruit he drop Into his mother's lap !' And may each day of his remaining .life-span be laden and of . f -^ The Pope's Face. « v Lo "| r fellow ; loved1 oved a face that had a story to tell How different,' says he in his Hyperion, ' faces are in this particular ! Some of them speak not. They a'date^ 8 *A "s"* ° Ot l ™ ' lS Written ' sav^ P erha P« ments of vtj^t at the Counterfeit presentments of Pius X. shown in our sun-engravings amolv shows that his face is a face that spefks. g The distne spiritual with a pleasing viril ty. - The head •« Sinker bSTt He haS the a thinker.. But his eyes attract me most of all hit vet ppsg «£^ t fftss3 stand what -was meant by Cervantes when he sa?d oJ

a good man whose benevolence breathed from his countenance, that c he had a face like a benediction.' - A Mare's Nest — --— — • • - - Mare's- nests are, perhaps, valuable assets — especially if you happen. to catch the old mare sitting: The Protestant .' Defence ' Association in Australia has a large and- extremely varied assortment of this class of asset stowed away in its cellars, and from time to time it keeps adding to its stock. Its latest ' find ' relates to the~recertt Burns-Squires prize-fight, and the announcement thereof in a Melbourne' paper added t°v>r % en i ovment of l^e beyond the Tasman Sea r Mr. Batley (Grand Secretary) said that he held in his hand a picture showing . Cardinal Vaughan in America blessing Burns before entering on one of these brutal cpntesfs. Mr. Burns was a pet son of the Roman Catholic Church— so was Mr <Squires— and this occasion, as there was.no Protestant to knock out, no. blessing was given. — (Laughter.)' In the (journalistic) scene that ensued/ Tommy Burns took a hand. He struck the Grand Secretary at pretty high velocity, and you, could almost see the stars and smell the smpke of the "impact. The A?™J* assertions <he declared in the Melbourne Argus of September i) are ' notKmg more nor less than a tissue of misstatements. In the first place, I have never received a blessing before entering the "rimrrnor is such a thing ever done. Secondly, , there are no such persons m the Roman Catholic Church as pet sons, whatever may be the case with the Protestant Defence League. Thirdly, Squires is not. and does riot profess to be, a Roman Catholic, though certainly he is not a member of the Protestant Defence Leagufor which nobody is more thankful than Squires hinV self -Fourthly-but this is a small matter, evidently, in the eyes of the aforesaid Grand Secretary— Cardina Vaughan, who, by the way, blessed' the soldiers beforthey went to South Africa to fight for the British Empire against the Boers, has been dead for some time, and, as far as I can team, has never been m ofT^r ? ft > Fatl T Bernard Va^an, a brothlr of < the Cardinal, was the reverend -gentleman present on a platform with me on ene occasion in London Ih££rff TIZ tO^ c b J dittled h^' a between himself and the Grand Secretary already alluded S^lm-Srf*^ °?J ni9n °/ PCOple ° f all creeds of n <* the United Kingdom only, bufc of the world, rank as Jrt, ab -T thC Grand Secreta heretofore mentioned nonr lefe f re ? ce to sanctit V of life, charity towardsMhe P" to mention good family, intellectuality/ manliness, and courage—as man is. above the fallen angels. Burns then proceeded to detail the circum* stances under which he came into contact with Father ?f^n d i7 aUghan ' <who> < as he trul y remarks) 'is as well known among the poor of the East End of London as he is at his Farm street church, in the heart Of the aristocratic section.' A charity performance \f- v f, n o r ffanised by the clergy of SS: Mary and Michael's Catholic Church, Commercial road, Mn" onof the very poorest districts in London.' <As a public entertainer I was requested to lend my services for the cause of charity, which, as I knew it to be genuine • I gladly did.' Father Bernard Vaughan ' ffgnified his intentio. to be present, although^ was unaware of this until I entered the hall.' Burns had mana^H with considerable difficulty, to be present, ha^ingTad to come from Croydon {ten miles outside London^ and to return thither the same night in order to fulfil £s public engagements. 'J did not,' writes he to til drfl- v*? a bruta i.^ n test,.as the Grand 'SecreSskv -^ an ? rdlnar y contest, but I boxed two Pat O««S U nds T wlth . m 3J present sparring partner, ihn i? V k , no money for this, nor should I have taken it, any-more than I should in F-iwT' I SlmUar ?harit * here in Australia, and Father Vaughan, to quote his own words, " was pleased to stand on the same platform with the champion boxer of the world, a man who, by his own £w H Set ' an r mple hat ° Ur y°™Z men- shSSd - follow. He is with us to-night performing for charity

whereas he might have charged a large sum elsewhere, to show us that, while he is successful, he still remembers his poorer brethren." Father Vaughan then shook my hand heartily, as I was still in my boxing costume, and I thanked him and the spectators as best I could in a short speech for the very generous reception they accorded me.' It is thus clear that there was no Cardinal Vaughan upon the scene, no ' brutal contest,' and no ' blessing/ Burns concludes his letter by ' deploring the fact that such bigotry exists in a civilised community.' Wi' take no stock in prize-fighting, although we should like to see every youth trained in ' the noble art ' ot self-defence. - But the Burns-Batley ' knock-out ' should teach even such inapt pupils as Grands, SemjGrands, and Double-Grands this ' wisdom ' of Sancho Panza : ' Let evory man take.care what he talks, or how he writes, of other men, and not set down at random, hab-nab, higgledy-piggledy, whatever comes into his noddle.' The Eucharistic Congress A short time ago the London Daily Telegraph wrote as follows on the ' hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great English Cardinal ' (Manning) : ' The change which has taken place (in England) in the last quarter of a cerffury is symbolic of much more than the passing away of a particular controversy. The principle oi religious toleration, theoretically established long ago, has only within recent years become so much part and parcel of our accustomed mental attitude as to be accepted without complaint or demur. . . . We recognise the rights of conscience. We admit the claims of the Roman Catholic body to be guided by priests of their own persuasion. Above all, we discover that the power of "the Jesuit in our land is not so "mysterious or so all-pervasive as to threaten the stability of the English Cnurch. In this bette.mood we are able to judge with greater kindness the characters of the Churchmen whose secession to Rome' so greatly alarmed the public' This is, no doubt true. But progress is a motion compounded of many. And in the grand march ot religious toleration in England, the rearguard is still far behind, and groups of nondescript camp-followers are still glued to the spot where they sat and clamored against Catholic Emancipation in 1828. They live in another day. Ihe world has moved away from them. But their inflammability is still a ' keeping ' quality, and a little spark of circumstance may send them off in whirling Catherine-wheels of sputtering passion, as it did during the strenuous No-Popery times of the Ecclesiastical litles Act; of 1851.

During the past week this combustible element was fired by the notable measure of public attention which was attracted by the sittings, the splendid ceremonial, and the importance of the leading personnel, of the International Eucharistic Congress in London . Th* particular spark of circumstances which set them alieht was the proposal to have a Eucharistic procession in the streets adjoining the new Westminster Cathedral. Iwo arguments—each in fiery speech— were advanced against this familiar act of religious worshb ot old-time Catholic England. One was this : that it is superstitious and. idolatrous.' The ft other was practically, the argument of the horse-pond • the protesters predicted a riot— which was an indirect way of suggesting one. But, as Bacon-says, there are some people so constituted that .they are ready to ' set a house on fire an it were to roast their ee-°-« '

- <* * The appeal to the King— on -the plea that the great central act of worship .of the Christ's Eucharistic Presence is ' superstitious and idolatrous ' brings forcibly before the public mind a ' relic of barbarism ' that still disgraces the English" statute-book. - We rdfer to the foul insult which the British Sovereign is 'by law re quired to fling, on his accession, at his Catholic subjects —and at them aione, of all the varied creeds within the vast domain over which he rules.. He is called upon

to single out their worship and to fix upon it the foul stigma of ' superstitious and idolatrous.' This radical* - departure from the form and substance of the old English accession oath was introduced after the Revolution ot 1688, when William of Orange and Mary came to the throne. For the first time in history, the word Protestant ' was then inserted in the oath - The , Sovereigns promised to ' maintain the Protestant religion established by law.' By the- Bill of Rights (enacted in October, 1689) it. was provided, says Macaulay, that every English Sovereign should in full 1 arhament and at the coronation repeat and subscribe the Declaration against- Transubstantiation. This was drawn up by, the Puritan-s infi6 43 ; it was, passed by Parliament m the days of Charies 11., in 1673, in order to exGlude Catholics from every office, both civil" and military, under the Crown;, it was imposed, in an extended form, upon members of Parliament, for the same purpose, in 1678; and by the Bill of Rights it was, torced upon the wearer of the Crown TiV interest nVthis .evil relic^of the penal days is revived' by the pager read at the Eucharistic Congress by \iseount Llandaff. The oath runs as follows — t r ', , o' by , the gTacc of God > King (or Oueen) o England, Scotland, France, and Ireland Defender of the Faith, do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I do believe' that in the Sacrament -of the Lord's Supper there is not any lransubslantiation of the elements of bread and wine mto the Body and Blood of Christ at or after tne consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the invocation- or adoration of the Virein Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the AJass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous. And Ido solemnfv m the presence of God profess, testify, and dedare that I do.make this declaration, and evef 3 ' part thereof m the plan, and ordinary sense of the words rUd^nto me as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever, nnd without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope, ot any such dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking thatTam ?his Ca 3^ a< ? UlttCd bef ° rC G ° d ° r man ' or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or persons or power whatsoever, should dispense with or annul the saj or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.' ' wrS drT '"° lated ; erC *!? ink -herLiVh a W writ could diy ; a period in which articles of caoitulation were again and again violated by the Puritan Parl hament; a period whose laxit-v in 'regard to s worn promise or assertion was ' pinked ' bvSIS n , ' in the following lines of Hvdtras J? Butl<M ' ' ? ath ? I? * Ut , words > and words but wind, 100 teeble implements to bind, - • And hold with deeds proportion so, As shadows to a substance do. ' Hence the v^brd — even the oath nf th* v his Enghsh Coronation Oath) to 'multiply phraslf hat first ,0 take ftis barba,oufo al h. Q Has bTntapo^ upon every British Sovereign since her day P • < . If was taken by King Edward VII. on his acri ■sion only The strong feeling manifested against this" . rchc of barbarism ' by Catholics and fair-m£des Pro testants and by great public "bodies, throughout It Empire eel to its revision ,by a Select Commirtee In 1901. Ihe following- amended form was e^cted by

Parliament, and was, taken by the present Sovereignon his coronation day :—: — , - 1 ' Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of the United Kiagdom of Great and Ireland, and the Dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on and the respective laws and customs of the -same? 1 ' I solemnly promise to do so. ' Will you,- to your power, cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all your judgments? ' I will. ' - ' Will you, to the utmost of your power", maintain _the laws of God," the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant Reformed religion established by law? And will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine ; worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law' established in England? And will* you preserve upon the bishops. and clergy of England, and to the Church therein committed to .their charge, all such rights ard privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or to any of them? ' All this I promise to do. ' • The Seventh Edward will, we trust, be the last British Sovereign to whom an appeal will be made based upon the outrage which was inflicted upon his personal honor, as well as upon the faith and worship of twelve millions of his subjects, when he was required to ta«e that barbarous oath upon his accession day