CORRESPONDENCE

New Zealand Tablet, 15 October 1908, Page 12

CORRESPONDENCE

EUCHARISTIC PROCESSIONS IN ENGLAND AND OTHER MATTERS

-TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — There are one or two matters in your last issue upon which, with your usual respect for space, you have lightly touched, but to which,' with your permission, I should like to make some further reference. In your note on the Eucharistic Congress in London you say.: ' It will be news to many of our readers to learn, that public -processions of the Blessed Sacrament have been regularly carried out in England for over sixty years." Probably it may interest some of your readers to learn in what manner one of those processions in which the writer of this letter took part was carried out recently in that country. In the summer of 1906, while staying -with one of the French Benedictines in the Isle of Wight, Mr. Edmond Harvey, of Waterford, a first cousin to the late Mr. Alfred Webb (to whom again I intend to refer), came across from Caterham, in Surrey, to see me. We arranged that I should visit him at Winterhead, in Somerset, his next stopping-place. Accordingly, after saying au rcvoir to the Benedictines at Farnborough, with whom I had spent over six months, and after receiving a blessing from the -. good Abbot Dom Cabrol, I took the first train for Winterhead, where we spent a most enjoyable week exploring the country. From Winterhead we travelled to Clevedon, where we happened to arrive on the day before the Feast of Corpus Christi. While my fellow-traveller was looking for a hotel, I set out to locate the church for the next morning, and discovered it perched on an eminence overlooking the town. well-kept lawn, with here and there beds of flowers, ran round two sides of it, while a large building, or rather a series of buildings, close by were used as a convent and schools for the children. The property belonged, as I learned afterwards, to the Franciscans. On the following morning it was announced from the altar that a public procession of the Blessed Sacrament, in which the members of tha congregation were requested to join, would take place in the afternoon through the town. Remembering what had happened in London in 1851, when, on the night of the sth of i.ovember, the effigy of Pius IX. was burned in front of Bishop Wiseman's door in Golden Square, this announcement not only astonished me, it almost took my breath away. I had no experience of the changed attitude of the nation towards the Catholic Church during the long interval between ißsi.and 1906. So I took part in the procession, fully expecting ' developments ' on the way. Long before the appointed hour for the start, an expectant crowd had assembled on the grounds and around the church, and it was evident that the function _ which was about to take place was expected to be one of unusual interest. To me it seemed marvellous that so large a number of people should leave their homes and their business to watch a ceremony that could have no intrinsic interest for them; but there they were, and a more reverent and orderly crowd it would not be easy to find. The moment the procession began to move, all anxiety on my part about it disappeared, for, as if by some preconcerted action, the sohd mass of people in front of it opened and gave way. to let it pass. It was certainly an impressive sight to see the friars in their coarse brown habits and sandals, .the nuns in their spotlessly white robes, the acolytes, the choristers, and the Children of Mary, the Sodalities of the Sacred Heart and of St. Vincent de Paul in appropriate regalia, white and blue and scarlet and enmson-fne colors of Our Lady and of the Sacred Heart— and behind it all a long procession of people in twos -and threes and fours walking with bowed heads, reciting the Litany -of the Blessed Virgin, and in reverence for the Sacred Host which was being borne along under a covered canopy by the monks in front of them ; and all this within a few miles of Exeter 1 It was a sight to be remembered for ever. All -along the line of route the streets were lined with crowds of. people, but not a murmur of dissent, not a word or a gesture of disapprobation escaped from, one of (hem, and- one of the. priests told .me afterwards that for nearly thirty years they had been holding similar processions, and they had never' once -been, insulted. "Evidently the people of England have changed their minds since the days of Lord John Russell and the Durharh Letter h -J he Pr ° teStan . church in Clevedon is a pre-Reformation . bu.ldmg, and contains many evidences of -the purpose for which it was built It is much frequented at . the present time by admirers of Hallam, the historian, who, with several of his relations and family have tablets to their memory there The

wording "of one tablet alongside his impressed me. It fan : 4 To th« memory of the last surviving daughter of Mr. Hallam.' Mr. Harvey and I parted at Clevedon, he. going on to Bristol-and Ito London. By a recent mail I received from him a copy of the last pamphlet by Mr. Alfred Webb, entitled Thoughts in Retirement; which clearly indicate that Mr. Webb's last thoughts were given to his >-ountry. Some years ago, he -wrote, as already" stated, some tracts and leaflets for the Irish Press Agency, which rendered Valuable service "to the cause at the time. It may be remembered that, after ParnelPs death, the Ulster Orangemen raised the cry that Home Rule meant Rome Rule. The pithily expressed alliteration served their purpose, iot the cry was caught up even out here. Mr. Webb, who had always been a consistent friend of the. Catholics, at once wrote to all the leading Piotestant clergymen officiating in Catholic districts throughout Ireland, and published their replies in- pamphlet form. The pamphlet silenced the cry. He shortly afterwards published The Alleged Massacre of 1641, which effectually tore away the mass of Jalsehood and misrepresentation which had gathered around that episode during the last couple of centuries or more. His most ambitious effort, however, in the field of literature was his Compendium of Irish Biography, which is regarded as a standard work. The Irish National movement has sustained a severe ' loss in the death of Mr. Webb. Mr. Joseph Devlin, in an appreciative article in the Dublin Freeman of August 1, calls him ' The Nestor .of the Movement.' - The following few excerpts taken at random from his Thoughts in Retirement may fitly close this long letter : 'The British Parliament has been likened to an elephant which, with its great trunk, can pick up a pin or tear down a forest, but so much of its attention is given to the pins that it neglects the forests.' 'If the majority in Ireland knew as well how to boycott as do the minority, they would long ago have obtained all they ask.' 'How little .open expression is given in Ireland, by emblems or otherwise, to the political opinions and aspirations that animate the majority of the people on holidays and public occasions!' 'It is difficult to estimate the real strength and sincerity of a great national demand when linked with it are minor demands tending to the material advantage of sectional interests.' ' There were as high-minded and noble men in the Fenian conspiracy as ever were connected with a revolutionary movement in any country.' ' Home Rule . will never be won by the vicarious action alone of representatives in Parliament.' 'No great change proves as beneficial as was hoped or as bad as was feared.' « A people's earnestness and smcenty ,„ a cause will be judged by the extent to which they put their hands in their own pockets to support it ' • There >s no crime more atrocious than the debasement of a people's spirit and capacities through the suppression of their nationality.' Until Great Bnta.n restores to us that of which she has robbed us-sel^overnment-her desire that we should forget the past is an lnsult to our intel%ence ., . Irdand , s « Past hi °J P r "^ t0 ° grCat easlncss of tem P<* towards daTrL T1- , " cc " hCr and hCr lsghtS -* ' IHshmen are M^ " ghSh whenever th <*. according to English ideas cr«htably d.stinguish themselves, and Ireland is denied her p X dot" XZTI" I" 6 tCrm " Great BrUain " for United Xi ! ng! tfotn. England .always sympathises with the dog that comes •uppermost out of the fight. '—Yours, etc., _________ M - NOLAN.