Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 23 March 1911, Page 517

Current Topics

*An “ Auld Licht ” Idyll V The Presbyterian ‘Auld Liclits ’ —so interestingly depicted in Barrie’s Auld Licht Idylls— are passing fast, but they are not yet extinct. In witness whereofas the legal documents say—we present our readers with the following ‘ gem of purest ray serene,’ gathered from a sermon preached by the Rev. W. Scorgie, at Mornington Presbyterian Church, on January 29, in the year of grace and enlightenment, 1911: ‘So with Romanism and responsibility —it will take your burden, but it will paralyse your soul. That is one of the growing dangers in these colonies. The Romish Church is making a determined effort for place, power, and compensation for her schools. Give it to -her. Let her become supreme through the ignorance and indifference of our growing generation, and the result will be in these young colonies as in those old Empires and decay on those who yield to her, persecution and extermination for those who oppose her. (The italics are ours.) Already, it is whispered, we are largely ruled by the Papists, the publicans, and the carpet-bag politicians.’ * There stands forth, naked and unashamed, the hidebound bigot. That is, apparently, the sort of ‘Gospel’ that is considered good enough for Mornington Presbyterians. Some of the ‘ auld lichts ’ present seem to have enjoyed the utterance, for it is said to be ‘ published by request of those who heard it ’; but the more broad-minded and cultured clients of the Outlook must have read it both with sorrow and with anger. The Rev. W. Scorgie, if we remember rightly, is the same gentleman who, a few years ago, had to eat humble pie, and publicly apologise, for grossly offensive and intemperate language used on a public platform in Dunedin. Evidently the disease jg, with him, too deep-seated to bo easily cured. If it may be permitted to us to preach at a preacher, we would, however, remind Mr. Scorgie of the verse in St. James, which we quote as it appears in Mr. Scorgie’s own version; ‘lf any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.’ Needless to say, we do not propose to take any detailed notice of this ill-mannered and grossly offensive preachment. There is sound sense and practical wisdom in the modern saw: ‘lf a donkey brays at you, don’t bray at him.’ That Alleged ‘ Neutrality ’ That Dr. Cleary is neither new-fangled nor singular in his contention, that there is no such thing as ‘neutrality’ in regard to religion where it is a question of education, and that our New Zealand system is essentially ‘ sectarian ’ or ‘ denominational,’ admits of easy demonstration. Taking the last point first, it will be seen by reference to an extract published in another column from the N.Z. Tablet of nearly forty years ago —that is, even before our so-called ‘ national ’ system was introduced this aspect of any purely secular system has been insisted on by Catholic apologists from the very first. The extract is an excerpt from a N.Z. Tablet leader of date June 14, 1873, which, after dwelling on the secularising™ tendency of the proposed changes in some of the Provincial systems, concludes with characteristic bluntness: ‘ Are not the schools secular at least in name, and are not the secularists a denomination ?’ With regard to the former pointthe absolute impossibility of maintaining real religious ‘neutrality’ in any education system—we find interesting and striking confirmation of Dr. Cleary’s position in the pages of one of the most brilliant of American weeklies. ‘An honest, earnest attempt,’ says America, of December 31 last, ‘to rule out all religious bias and to establish a course wholly uncolored by religious views or principles may be praiseworthy when made for the sake of respecting the religious susceptibilities of the patrons of a State school; but, regardless of the motive, objective neutrality in all that concerns religious instruction is as impossible as a square circle. If there were question of some particular branch of so-called secular instruction, it might be successfully introduced or excluded; as, for example, needlework for boys, vocal music or drawing. The reason is plain, for these or similar matters do not necessarily enter into the life of every child, even though a knowledge of them might be desirable; but religious (or irreligious) views and practices are a part of the everyday existence of all persons that have reached the ordinary use of their faculties.’ * As to the way in which the affected neutrality of the French schools, for exampleto which brief reference was made in our last week’s issue working out in actual practice, we are no longer left in any manner pf doubt. fl

Here is the latest utterance of M. Viviani, the erstwhile Minister of Public Worship: ‘ It is now time to say that school neutrality has never been more than a diplomatic lie. We appealed to it for the sake of closing the mouths of the timid and the scrupulous; but as that is not necessary now, we play an open game. We have never had any other design than to produce an anti-religious youth, and antireligious in an active, militant and combative way.’ Presumably this is one of the ways in which ‘ the Continent of Europe ’ —as Professor Mackenzie admiringly tells us —‘ is teaching us how to deal with irreconcilables in politics and religion.’ Our Friend the Outlook Our esteemed contemporary and neighbor, the Presbyterian Outlook, attempts this week a courteous, but in every other respect, we are bound to say, anything but impressive defence of the ‘calm’ Mr. Corkey and the Belfast Witness. We will give our contemporary’s defence in his own words. We had rallied him on the simple faith with which he had accepted a certain fiery and hot-headed version as ‘ The True Story of the McCann Case,’ merely oh the authority of a Belfast Presbyterian paper, which, as most people know, is the very last place in which to look for ‘ the exact, literal, unexaggerated truth regarding the Catholic Church and Catholic happenings.’ To this last sentence our contemporary replies: ‘ Precisely, but, unfortunately for the Tablet’s reasoning, the McCann case 'is a Presbyterian happening, the marriage between Mr. and Mrs. McCann having been celebrated by a Presbyterian minister in a Presbyterian Church, and Mrs. McCann, having gone for succour and assistance to the Rev. W. Corkey, when her home was broken up and her children ' taken from her at the instance of a Catholic priest. It is altogether beside the question, therefore, for the Tablet to remark that ‘ The true story as reproduced in our Dunedin contemporary is wholly ex parte and second-hand, being told not by the man or woman concerned, but by one Rev. W. Corkey, M.A., a hot-headed zealot whose very bigotryeven if he were in possession of the true version—disqualifies him from making an impartial presentment of the facts.’ Our esteemed contemporary is not thinking clearly. The McCann case is partly a Presbyterian, and partly a Catholic happening. The actual marriage was a Presbyterian happening; and no one has questioned the competency even of Mr. Corkey to give testimony on that point. The withdrawal of the husband from marital relations, the alleged spiriting away of the children, the alleged concealment of McCann, so far as they are happenings at all, are Catholic happenings. It was around these that the fountain of Corkey eloquence let itself loose; and it is precisely on these points that we maintain that both Mr. Corkey and the Belfast Witness — reason of engrained and incurable —are incapable of making an impartial statement of the facts. * Our contemporary next briefly refers to the ‘ profound political significance of the decree Ne Tern ere, especially in its relation to the prospects of Home Rule; and once again he cites as his chief authorityan Ulster Protestant! This time it is that brilliant journalist, Mr. James Douglas, who has addressed a lengthy letter to London Opinion.’ We give a couple of specimens of the wild and misdirected rhetoric which this ‘ brilliant journalist ’ has permitted himself. The question,’ he says, ‘ is whether the Vatican has any right to annul a Protestant marriage and to bastardize the children.’ The question, of course, is nothing of the kind —the Vatican claims no right whatever over the marriages of Protestants. The question simply is: Has the Catholic Church the right to say whether, in her view and in her interpretation of the law of Christ, certain unions contracted by her children are or are not valid Christian marriage. The Church which does not claim this elementary right at once gives up its claim to be consideredeven in the most attenuated sense of the expression—a messenger of God. We believe we are correct in saying that the Church now represented by the Outlook, itself, at one time loudly claimed this right, and absolutely refused to recognise marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, even when such marriages were freely permitted by the State law. Let us hearken once more to our brilliant journalist: ‘The Vatican does not want Home Rule, for it dreads the Irish democracy. Is it not possible that this decree, not enforced in Germany, is being astutely enforced in Ireland in order to make Home Rule impossible?’ In other words, it is solemnly suggested that the Holy Father has changed the Catholic marriage law in England, Scotland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, all ‘ in order to make Home Ride impossible.’ Thus does the Ulster-Protestant bacillus reduce even the ‘ brilliant journalist ’ to bathos and imbeciility. As a matter of fact, from the Protestant authorities cited in the Outlook alone, the whole McCann case can be very simply resolved. There are two points in issue: (1) The principle involved;

and (2) the question of culpability for the abandonment of the woman without leaving her any means of support. As regards the former, the Outlook presumably no longer questions the principle underlying the decree, ' since it has quoted with approval the British Weekly’s endorsement of the Catholic doctrine, which that paper describes also as ‘ sound Protestant doctrine.’ With regard to the second point, Mr. James Douglas himself says: ‘lt is fair to point out that the desertion is not defended or justified by the priests. . .’ In the name of all that is reasonable, then, what is all the pother about? Sir William Robertson Nicholl is at least as brilliant a journalist as Mr. Douglas, and a much higher authority on questions of church doctrine and principles; and his statement of the necessity that is imposed - upon all Christian churches of enforcing their interpretation of the law of Christ in regard to marriage sums the whole matter up in a nutshell: ‘ The situation is harsh, painful, and oppressive to the last degree, but from time to time it is realised. This is sound Protestant doctrine.’

Our contemporary further quotes the brilliant journalist assaying: ‘lt is said that this case is not the only one. There have been others.’ There -have, indeed; and they are mostly all of a piece. Let us tell the very latest—and certainly not the least moving. The Outlook has probably seen it,- but, for the sake of those who have not, we feel it- a duty to place the facts upon record. The story has appeared in several of our Horae exchanges, but we quote it as we find it told in a leaderette in the Dunedin Evening Star, ‘ In the two great Irish organs, the Belfast A etas Letter and the Northern Whig ,’ says the Star, ‘there appeared a harrowing story. A correspondent wrote: Yesterday there came into my possession the details of a cruel and heartless desertion of the victim of a so-called unhallowed union’ by the partner who should have remained faithful to her for life. The poor mother, thinking that at least she should have her children to console her was, however, not only abandoned by her natural protector! °i f off-spring. lamin a position to say that the foul robbery of flesh and blood was perpetrated by a member of an Irish secret society. . . . No terms were dictated, because no terms would have been accepted; Son I unf< finnate creature was deprived of that which by all laws of Nature was nearest and dearest to her. But there is a bright side to the picture. I can say that the mother is in no state of destitution. She is being at present amply provided for by a well-known and respected elder of the Presbyterian Church, whose munificence cannot be praised too highly, and whose modesty has prevented the pubheatmn of his name.” The story was Repeated in The Times, was signed “Herbert Pym,” and from 65 University, road, Belfast.” From the London Times the story .of ‘‘Roman Catholic intolerance and injustice A was copied into scores of provincial journals and provoked much indignation. But the pathos of the storv has been rudely destroyed, for, on being interviewed Mr Pym had to confess that his letter on “mixed marrikees” was a joke pure and simple. The sole foundation ter i? story was that a neighbor’s cat hJ T i;!+V° n for th ° kittens, which hadbeendrow„«l ■ We 1 tUnk°LT a " t ? i m saying that 011 the hole Tittle kympX I „ b e e M for the journals in question; for papers which are will in. -IS Waitl ? S for the least substantiation of the facts—emphatically a dOse^rto o^fan n fn.’ Vild against ‘ Ron <

Discredited Statistics

, sr fr? Evening News baa in onera+inn „ ‘ a U the i OU T 7 to 7 hich ’ as we learn from the head teg be an excellent thing; but from which ft lays P down st°rict“fine‘, ’coEurth^TmtributoT 1 - 6 te dit ° r home represented, and inhibiting particular i ifTT' ton represented, ond inhibiting than good. I, the isa jtl!? ■ ‘‘I do nmK harm 11, among the contributors are the Rev r.!i aich presenting the Catholic Church, and the Rev E 1) "i, T shair, writing on behalf of St. John’s (AnriLol The contribution of the former consisted nf ß Church, an actual happeningviz., the recention nf re^ere “ ce to converts into the Catholic Church-taken froL an”!™)!! °1 Anglican paper, accompanied by a few brief intend H and hues from the N.Z. Tablet The Rev E t? n introductory his contribution, after a dissertation hitting ,n people who ask, ‘ Are you saved,’ turns tXuj^S reference te aS A &n( i dra ? s inro P os of nothing at ill a ererence to Church communicants so that he may wind

fP the following attack on other Christian bodies: therefore, any body of Christians who leave out the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper are disobeying His Command. Any body of Christians who forbid the cup to the laity are also disobedient.’ Thus, in this one short contribution, the Rev. E. Robertshaw has attacked the doctrines or practices of the extreme evangelicals (such as the Salvation Army), of the Quakers or Society of Friends, and of the Catholic Church, lie submit that this not a fair or reasonable use to make of such a column. If Father Cahill retaliated as he easily might, if he were disposed to be contentious by pointing out in his portion of the column that a Church w I con t r adicted itself could not possibly be a messenger of Cod; that a Church which does not know its own mind even on such a fundamental matter as the Holy Communion (one section •'affirming the Real Presence, the other emphatically repudiating it) could not be the true Church; that a Church which speaks to its people with two voices on such important subjects as baptismal regeneration, the priesthood, confession, the number of the Sacraments, etc., forfeits all claim to be considered a teaching Church; and that a Church which, with all these difficulties, contradictions, and dissensions within its own borders, gives itself airs and sets itself to put other churches right, only makes itself ridiculous—if Father Cahill, we say, or any of the other religious bodies who have been attacked by the vicar of St. John’s, were to imitate that gentleman, and use the Church column’ for such a purpose as this, there would be an end to all religious-peace in the community. Each contributor should be compelled to stick religiously to statements affecting his own church; and any attempt to go beyond that, and animadvert on the doctrines or religous practices of other denominations, should be rigorously blue-pencilled.

In addition to disfiguring his portion of the ‘ Church column with these unpleasant allusions to the religious beliefs of his fellow-Christians, the Rev. Mr. Robertshaw rushes into print in the general columns of the paper, ostensibly to refer to Father Cahill’s contribution, but in reality to make a general attack on the Catholic Church ranging from allegations as to Catholic predominance .in prime, clown to comments on the Pope’s decrees regarding Modernism and mixed marriages. The letter deals for the most part with statistics-of a kind. The Anglican vicar has been most unfortunate in his selection. His figures are not merely, like Hood’s oyster, ‘ open to suspicion ’—they are absolutely and hopelessly ‘ bad.’ His first batch is taken from the N Z ear Book for 1907; and they are quoted to show that Catholics contribute more than their proportionate quota to the crime records of the Dominion. The best and most complete refutation of these figures is to be round in the fact that the very compilers of the Year Booh have themselves become so entirely convinced of their inaccuracy and unreliableness that they have ceased to compile them, and have incontinently dropped them from the 1 ear Book publication. The Rev. Mr. Robertshaw will search In JhX. th Y S ar T \° oh for 191 °* for the old tables relating to the denomination returns of crime. The reasons which led the department to abandon these returns were explained in the Wellington Evening Post of January 13, from which we quote as follows: ' Inquiries made in the proper quarter tpW; Y JT’ ed th !i 116I 16 *' easo ? for dropping the table above referred to was that when investigations were made into the matter it was found that the information in the tables was unsound. Prisoners charged several times gave different religions. For example, John Jones would be a Catholic when convicted of one offence, and say a Primitive Methodist, an Anglican, or a Baptist on another occasion. The editor of the Year Booh (Mr. W. M. Wright), on being seen with reference to the omission, said it was purely no Into,™ „f mte r? st , o . f “curacy. There was absolute y It influence of any kind brought to bear upon the matter. It was done in order to avoid anything leading to controversy that could not be supported by facts. The prison ma^CaZH™ 08 f T tbre6 r f Sions-via., Protestants, Reman Catholics, and Jews. - For reasons of their own, prisoners are known to change their religion according to Sr. r ?S> S T 1 as i th • -Strength of the religious body or £ fliti? Ude gaol-visiting in their institutional work, iusticS the mastcr or gaoler, or even of the visiting justices. Prisoners seem to think, rightly or wrongly, that account 1 of recei y e . a ,? ertain amount of consideration on op™* 1m faith tll0 A Profess if it squares with that of f lB official or non-official authorities or visitors.’ Here we have the editor of the Year-Book frankly acknowledging that when investigations were made into the matter,’ the and unrVil # ° ffi ° lal ’ tables were found to be 80 incorrect and unrehaUe for purposes of comparison that-'purely in , a n crests of accuracy —it was necessary that they should that S! fi Eltber , the Rev. Mr. Robertshaw was aware that these figures had been officially condemned and abannnt ’ or j. 16 " as . if he did know, it was, of course not honest on his part to put forward figures which he

knew to be inaccurate and unreliable. We prefer to believe that he was not aware of the fact that these figures had been abandoned in that case he ought not . to have written on a subject on which he is evidently so signally behind the times. * The Rev, Mr. Robertshaw’s next squad of figures are taken from the notorious Joseph McCabe, high priest of Agnosticism, lecturer on the ‘ Myth of Sinai,’ translator of Haeckel’s Biddle of the Universe, wherein the Almighty is spoken of as ‘a gaseous invertebrate’—a strange person, truly, to be paraded as an authority by a minister of the Gospel. McCabe’s figures, based on no official authority and compiled almost entirely by himself, have been over and over again refuted in detail—notably by the late Father Coupe, S.J., in an altogether admirable pamphletand we have sufficient material before us to fill many pages of the N.Z. Tablet with, demonstrations of the rationalist’s slipshod and blundering methods. But we propose to adopt- a different method. From the point of view of the Rev. E. Robertshaw, Mr. McCabe’s chief claim to credence is that he was at one time a member of the Catholic Church. We propose to compare his testimony with that of another ex-member of the Catholic Church, also dear to the hearts of Protestant controversialists—Mr. Michael McCarthy, no less. Both McCarthy and McCabe have taken up their parable against the venerable Church in which they were baptised; both are lecturing and writing against her both are making fair money out of the business. Only there is a woful discrepancy in their evidence. In his tedious and heavy work, The Decay of the Church of Borne — means of the made-to-order figures quoted by the Rev. Mr. Robertshaw —McCabe endeavours to prove that in England, and everywhere else the Catholic Church is losing ground and is now on the road to complete extinction, At the very time when McCabe and his friends are trying to push this somewhat doughy volume on the market, Michael McCarthy is giving English audiences the creeps by his description of the advance of the Catholic Church in all parts of the British Empire and in America. ‘ In Great Britain, without including Ireland,’ he said, in a recent lecture at Leicester under the auspices of the Women’s Protestant Union, ‘ the number of Catholic churches has grown from 500 to over 2000 since the Accession of Queen Victoria. In the same period the number of Catholic priests has risen from something like 500 to oyer 3500. The number of Catholic elementary schools has risen from 89 to over 1300, while the pupils have grown from 8445 to over 320,000. The number of convents has increased from 17 to over 1600, and the number of monasteries from six to over 300. ... In the Empire, outside the United Kingdom, you will find the same story of Romanist growth and consolidation.’ Mr. McCabe proves, to his own satisfaction— to that of a vicar in Dannevirke that the Catholic Church is undergoing a process of rapid and complete decay: Mr. McCarthy, with equal conclusiveness, proves that she is progressing by leaps an 3 bounds. So there you are, where are you? It seems to be a case of ‘ you pay your money and you take your choice. In the case of these anti-Catholic lecturers and writers who are ‘on the make, ’it may be said to be always choic© Ver a queston of P an S your money and taking your * . To Catholics—resting with quiet confidence on the promise of her Divine Founder that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, — is simply entertaining and amusing to read these parades of carefully-manufactured statistics and these Vary and conflicting utterances on the Catholic Church. We could quote plenty of Protestant testimony to show that practical men who refuse to comfort themselves with absurd statistics, and who judge from their own knowledge and experience of what is going on around _ them, admit frankly that the Catholic Church is really progressing in England. The Anglican Bishop of Bangor, at a conference in the Liverpool Town Hall not long ago, intimated that if left to themselves or, as he said, without guidance— people could not help drifting into infidelity or into ‘ a Church which had the one great attraction that it always spoke without doubt and with authority.’ Addressing a congregation of Orangemen the other day at Discard, Cheshire, the Rev. M. Greenhalgh said it was a surprising thing that Roman Catholicism in England seemed to be gaining in prestige and authority. It is, indeed, surprising, because if there ever was an institution which her enemies in England have striven to destroy utterly it is the Catholic Church. They combined to kill her, and they dug her grave, and congratulated one another on the impossibility of her ever showing face again. And lo ! they have now discovered that .she was never dead, but on the contrary that she has been all the time full of life and vigor; and many of them have come, and more of them are coming, to understand that she draws her energy and quenchless vitality from the Divine Founder of Christianity. '