Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 32

Notes

' t A , Boy Gives the Answer A few weeks ago the Rev. Oliver A. Welsh, of the Paulist Fathers, was conducting a non-Catholic mission at Deerfield, Michigan. An incident of the mission is described by a writer in the Missionary . This question was asked through the question box : ‘ How much money do Catholics pay to have their sins forgiven?’ Father Welsh waited a minute and. looking around the church for the smallest boy he could find, asked the little fellow to stand up in his place. , ‘ Little.boy,’ said the priest, ‘ will you answer this question for all the non-Catholics who are present “How much money do Catholics pay to have their sins forgiven?”’ The little boy, somewhat nervous and embarrassed for a minute, shouted out so every one could hear him: ‘You don’t have to pay nothing; confession is free, but you have to be'sorry!’ Father Welsh made the boy’s answer the occasion for telling his hearers that even the smallest Catholic child knows more than the adults outside the Church, who get their information about the Church from books written by men who lie and malign the Church. Education in the United States -iv The following cable message appeared in Monday’s .papers: —‘Mr. Alfred Mosley, an English educationist, speaking at Leland Stanford University, declared that American teachers were disgracefully underpaid., If America fails, the world must go back to autocracy and the sword. Mr. Mosley criticised the American graft law, and said the schools ought to teach higher ideals. The American newspapers were a disgrace to civilisation.’ ‘ Nothing but positive religious instruction can protect this country (said Mr. Bird S. Colers, of New York, -in an address on November 21 at St. Paul, Minnesota) The schools are responsible for .the i spread of socialism. Seven out of every ten teachers in the New York City schools are socialists. The public schools are fast becoming temples of a new, religion. By 1 some it is known as agnosticism, by some atheism, by some socialism, and by others ethical culture.’ ■ ••J--;-* • * The Rev. Dr. S. T. Willis, president.of the Virginia Christian College, takes a similar view to Mr. Colers. He said in an address the other day;— ‘The American public is doomed to destruction because the majority of its college professors are infidels. Unless the college professors of the present day lay more stress Upon the teachings of Christianity instead of sending out into the world students and graduates with a great store of book learning and little or no conception of what an upright life should be, this Republic will go the way of the first French Republic, the Roman Republic, and all others where lack of morals, unchristian living, an improper understanding of a man’s obligations to his neighbors, and similar deteriorating elements have held sway.’ ; *