The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1908. AFTER THE CONGRESS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 12, 12 November 1908, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1908. AFTER THE CONGRESS

-■ ♦ - HE scientist discovers valuable remedies for human ills in the poisonous root oi aconite (the monk'shood of our gardens) and in the berries of the belladonna or deadly nightshade which is to be found in many a grove and fence-side in the British Isles. The Lord of science, too, draws meat out of poison, good out of evil, when to Him it seemeth good. At times He makes the very authors of evil furnish the antidote or remedy to the wrongdoing that they had intended. This has been the case with the wild and whirling clamor with which a small section of banded enthusiasts in England called for the revival of obsolete penal laws in connection with the Eucharistic Congress in London. They tied themselves into kinks of angry protest; but their very vehemence o'ervaulted its purpose ; all their thought and talk and toil served only to enhance the success of the Congress, and to hasten, in Great Britain and Ireland, the dawn of the era of perfect religious equality which it was their chief object to delay or utterly prevent. A few chief results of tha clamor may be here noted :(i) The increased extent and intensity of the attention which was directed to the Congress : from being, •in a sense, a national function, it was made international: the eyes of the world were upon it ; (2) the greatly increased attention which was devoted, both by Catholics and Protestants, to

the Church's teaching in regard to the Blessed Eucharist ; (3) the intensified devotion of Catholics to the Real Presence ; (4) the dense crowds of fervent worshippers who — to the number of some 150,000 — were drawn to 'the Westminster Cathedral to make reparation, by their presence and their devotion, for the insults offered to our Lord in the Sacrament of His love ; (5) the increased sympathy^ and generosity with which the great organs of public opinion in England treated the proceedings of the Congress, and (6) the noble manner in which they pleaded the cause of equality- of treatment for people of every form of religious faith.

' That the Eucharistic Congress in London,' says the Tablet of October 3, ' has resulted in a quickening of religious faith, and of love for the Blessed Sacrament, among the Catholics of England, seems happily beyond doubt. And vye may fairly hope also that the great and sacred pageant, which was also a' collective act of devotion, may have happy results, for our Protestant countrymen as well. . . The Congress was primarily a great act of faith. It was a public profession of belief in the Blessed Sacrament. If it was a great demonstration, it was a demonstration only of love and devotion and Catholic unity. And it must be remembered that, while during those memorable days the eyes of the world were turned towards London, the scenes enacted there were in some sort reproduced wherever in the kingdom there was a Catholic Church. By their communions and their visits to the Blessed Sacrament the Catholics of England, however sundered, were united at that time in one common" outpouring of love and devotion to the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. And so the main object of the Eucharistic Congress in London was attained.' The opposition to it was well summarised as follows by the Church Times (Anglican) : ' The outcry began from the merest hatred of a particular form of worship ; and that hatred, invoking the law, carried the day. English Protestantism has not even begun to be tolerant. It has little power to interfere, because the laws in restraint of religion have been reduced to a niere shadow of their former selves ; . but when there is any weapon available, it will fight against toleration. If Englishmen are to live up to their profession, they must strike every weapon out of its hand. They must remove from the Statute Book every appearance of " concession," and base the equal rights of positive law on the only sure foundation of natural and indestructible right.'