Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 29 April 1915, Page 21

Current Topics

Prophetic , That the German Administration long ago clearly and accurately foresaw the possibilities and dangers of ; failure at sea is rather.' strikingly . shown by the memorandum of the German Navy Act of 1900, in which it was impressed upon members of the Reichstag that: ‘An unsuccessful naval war of the duration of even only a year would destroy Germany's sea trade, and .would thereby bring about the most disastrous conditions, first in her economic, and then, as an immediate consequence, in her social life. Quite apart from the .consequences of the possible peace conditions, the destruction of our sea trade during the war could not, even at the close of it, be made good within measurable time, and would add to the sacrifices of the war a serious economic depression.’ As a long range guess at the course which events might take this is remarkably close to the mark. To Beat the Zeppelins ♦ The cables hint that the Germans intend in the near future suddenly to launch a great fleet of Zeppelins from Germany and Belgium for a spectatular raid on England ; and the experts all agree that the story is quite a probable one. The invasion, we should judge, will be awaited with more curiosity than dread by the gieat majority of the people/ For so far the damage wrought by Zeppelins in England has been negligible, and, more important still, it would seem as if the effective counter-move to the attacks of these air monsters had been discovered. It consists in a strict and rigid adherence to the 'simple programme of ‘ Lights Out.’ All the evidence goes to show that if this precaution is thoroughly carried out even the mighty Zeppelins are almost absolutely harmless. In the recent raid, described in last week’s cables, it was recorded that ‘ the Zeppelin travelled up the Tyne, but the extinction of lights confused the airmen.’ Still more conclusive is the evidence afforded by the experience of Antwerp in the very first month of the war. The first Zeppelin which visited the city damaged many buildings, killed a dozen people, and narrowly missed destroying the Royal Palace, in which were the King and Queen of the Belgians and their three children. On the occasion of the second Zeppelin’s visit the lights of the city had been extinguished, and there was a very different tale to tell. On the day following the first visit,’ says Sir Cecil Hertslet, late British Consul-General for Belgium, ‘ the General issued strict injunctions that the whole of Antwerp was to be placed in darkness every night at 8 o’clock. The darkness was very real. There were no lights in the streets, the shops were all closed, and the.cafes shut. It was as dark as one could imagine Egypt to have been during one of the plagues. The result was J that when the second Zeppelin paid the city a visit ten days later it did not succeed in getting to the heart of the city at all. It threw its deadly bombs, but they fell just outside the inhabited part of the city, and no one was killed ; whereas on the first .occasion eleven people were killed,' all of them women or non-combatants. This is, I think, worth mentioning, because it proved the value of darkness as a precaution against Zeppelin raids. The second Zeppelin came over the forts, and it was at once taken up by the searchlights.’ Fore-warned is .said to be fore-armed ; and if the ‘ Zeps.’ come in force to England, at least the country will be fully prepared. " ■ Benedict XV. on -Preaching *, - The address delivered' by the Holy-- Father to he parish priests and the Lenten preachers of Rome, which appears elsewhere in this issue, .sets forth, briefly and simply the essential requirements for effective preaching. His Holiness had in view not that rare and , highest type of sacred oratory which implies the possession of special genius, but the plain, practical, everyday preaching,; which falls to the lot and is-well within*- the scope of the humblest curate or parish prtest, , The require-

ments outlined .by the . Holy : Father - mainly* concern the ? matter and the form of sermons. x As to - the former, .the. object being the r spiritual profit and not the mere intellectual gratification of the hearers, the staple of-the sermon is to be drawn direct and first hand : from - the pure source and fountainhead of that ‘ Word of God, written and revealed,’ which forms the deposit of the : Faith ; and the discussion of ‘ arid . questions of philo- - sophy, history, or politics,’ is,* of course, to be avoided. In regard to this latter point, we think the. most exacting censor of present-day Catholic discourses could find little of which to complain. .We have listened to thousands of* Catholic sermons in many lands, .but we have never heard one which, in regard to its- subject , matter, could for a moment bring the. preacher ■: under • suspicion of being engaged in holy trifling of mere intellectual display. It is not from Catholic pulpits that hungry flocks are regaled with disquisitions on the - ten - toes of the beast, the ‘ little horn ’ of Daniel, the nine and twenty knives of Esdras, and the question of pre or post millenarian schemesall of which, it , is -on - record, have formed the subject of discourses otherwhere. Whatever else they are, Catholic sermons are, we should say, invariably and essentially practical. ' . . * t - - As to the form, the Holy Father lays it down, first, that preachers should above all remember the care with which they should give to their discourses ‘ a most clear order in their different parts,’ and, secondly, thaP'no amount of literary or rhetorical beauty can make up for the failure to drive home the definite and practical application of the truths and principles proclaimed. Both of these requirements imply preparation—necessarily written preparation, but an adequate amount of preparatory study and thought. The speaker who has not made clear to himself beforehand what he' intends to say suffers truths to drop from him pell-mell, forgetful of the fact that one thought fixed on the mind is better than fifty thoughts made to flit across the ear. There will, moreover, in such a case, of necessity be more or less of rambling and repetition, with loss of attention and an inevitable soporific effect upon the congregation. ... ‘ We all know,’ says a writer in the Imperial Review, ‘ how the noise of running water, or the murmur of the sea, or the sighing of the south wind among the pines, or the moaning of wooddoves, induces a delicious dreamy languor.’ It is even so with a congregation, when the preacher Leaves his hearers perplex’d— Twixt the two to determine: ■ ‘ Watch and pray,’ says the text, ‘ Go to sleep,’ says the sermon. The one and sovereign remedy against such a state of affairs, as the Holy Father plainly hints,*»is definiteness and orderly arrangement, and, as far as time permits, careful and thorough preparation. Germany and Peace Press discussion as to what will be or what ought to bo the terms of settlement when the great conflict is over has become very keen and very general amongst the belligerent nations and though such speculation is altogether premature, and more or less futile, at least it witnesses to the almost universal, conviction that the end is now within some sort of measurable distance. The spirit of discussion has even extended to Germany, where it has so far found expression chiefly in a demand that when the psychological moment arrivesand that moment is more or less clearly indicatedthe people shall be consulted and their views considered when negotiations are entered into. In a - review called Das Neue Deutschland ( The New Germany Herr de Zedlitz, the leader of the free Conservatives in the Prussian Chamber, publishes an . article on the manner in which the terms of . future peace ought to be discussed in Germany. The article is all the more remarkable in that de Zedlitz .is; a very well-known personality in the German: parliamentary world, and his party is in, aim and object the Government party. The article. was transferred to , the columns of the well-known Berliner Tayehlatt,

from which L’Echo de Paris has reproduced, with com-. ment, the more salient passages. We translate from the Paris paper, of date January 28, both quotations and comment: • . .- * ■ , . . ‘The object of the article,’ says the Echo, ‘is quite other than one would have expected from the party affiliations of the author. It is written to protest against the severity of the censorship, and to induce the Government to permit a free discussion of the conditions upon which Germany will make peace. De Zedlitz declares: ‘ It must be afflicted with a bureaucratic presumption and with an unlimited blindness, or else with an excessively timorous spirit, to desire that' the existing situation should be prolonged right up to the conclusion of peace. The German people are not children. They have the right to insist that their voice shall be heard before the negotiations, and that due account of their views shall be taken throughout the pourparlers. If they are prevented by force from raising their voice at a time when it would be of some advantage, the intensity of their feelings would bring them to the state of an over-heated boiler the safety-valve of which has been closed. If one opens too late the safety-valve of free discussion in the press, one is Trot able to avoid the danger of an explosion. There is no need to point out that in such a case the public authority, and those in whose charge it has been placed, will be the first to be placed in peril ?’ De Zedlitz does not fix the precise date at which it would be desirable to open the safety-valve of which he speaks. He indicates simply that Germany must have first obtained complete victory on one of the two fronts. But he affirms that even before this period the Government ought to make promises of free speech in Parliament: ‘ It must be recognised that if the moment of a free discussion has not arrived before tiro next parliamentary session, some undertakings must be entered into with the Reichstag and with the Prussian Landtag.’ In conclusion, de Zedlitz returns to his favorite and disquieting comparison. ‘ln default of such a safety-valve, the danger of parliamentary explosions would by no means be remote, even in full session. Whoever figures to himself the consequences of such a happening will acknowledge at the same time how fitting and opportune is the saying of M. Miquel : Give way in time.’ * ‘ The significance of this extremely curious article (comments the Echo') depends on the circumstances under which it was written ; and on this point we are unable to do more than conjecture. If de Zedlitz is, in this affair, only in the position of a parliamentary leader who voices his personal view or the view of his group, it is without doubt a manoeuvre directed against the chancellor himself and certain of his colleagues. That would then be the sequel to the reproaches which the leader of the strict Conservatives, de Heydebrand, directed on January 18 against German diplomacy. If that is so, it would appear that confidence does not reign amongst the German authorities, and that in-' stability of 'government is not a scourge from which Germany is exempt. There remains the other hypothesis: that M. de Zedlitz has written his article in agreement with the Government. The authorities in Germany perceived, then, that their country will not. bear the burden of the war indefinitely, that the peace will be far from corresponding to the expectations and sacrifices of the nation, and that it is necessary to speak of all these things in order to soften the blow, and perhaps also to provoke in the foreign press controversies from which Germany would draw a supreme advantage. If that ex] lanation is correct, our enemies are in rather a bad way.’ Why Christ Died v • We should rather have headed this. Why, and in ■what sense, was it necessary that Christ should have died for the salvation of mankind The question is worth discussing — partly because there is room for clear ' light on the subject, and partly because in these

materialistic , and . pleasure-loving,. days there is ; urgent • need to ; state and emphasise , the j great doctrine of • the heinousness of sin, of which the Atonement.is the practical expression. . There is need for enlightenment even among those whose duty it is to ( instruct , others, and to speak with knowledge and authority , on the subject. ■ Outside of the Catholic Church there is a large'- and growing school of clergymen who do not believe in the necessity, in any sense, of- the. death ; of Christ, and who deny the fact of the Atonement is, that the Saviour’s death was offered in -any sort as a satisfaction or expiation for sin. . In a well-known work published by a New Zealand minister our Lord is described, in relation to His crucifixion, as merely * an unconscious martyr.’ Dr. R. F. Horton, one of the most -representative of Nonconformist divines, declares that the traditional doctrine of the Atonement , ‘ is shattered on all the salient points of the New Testament teaching.’ -Robertson, of Brighton’ and other eminent Protestant authorities, have expressed similar views. And even amongst Catholics speak, of course, of the —while the fact and doctrine of the Atonement are believed and held without a question, there are many, and these not the least educated, who would experience some difficulty in giving an adequate and effective answer to the query : Why, or how far, was it necessary for Christ to die to provide a way of salvation for mankind? Being God, could He not have redeemed the world without shedding His own blood? * One such Catholic, a reader of the Bombay Examiner, non-plussed by these two questions, which had been submitted to him by a non-Catholic friend, passed the problem on to the editor, with the happiest results. Father Hull fairly revels in the exposition of these finer theological points; and his answer is so clear and apposite that we reproduce it in its entirety. ‘ There arc,’ writes Father Hull, ‘ two sorts of necessity, the one absolute, the other relative. Thus to take a simple instance, food and drink of some kind is an absolute necessity for a man’s existence, because he is so constituted that without food and drink he must waste away and die. But it is not an absolute necessity for a man to wear clothes. In hot countries they are superfluous ; and even in cold countries archaic man seemed to get on without them. But clothes have nevertheless become a necessity for most men, simply because they have got used to them and would suffer and possibly die of catarrh if they suddenly threw them off. This is a relative necessity. Another instance would be this: It is not absolutely necessary that a bicycle should have a bell. The necessity arises only from the police laws, which impose a fine on those who ride without a bell. This may be called a consequent necessity; that is, a necessity which arises in consequence of a law. With these ordinary instances to explain the idea, we can say that there is no absolute necessity for Christ to have died on the cross in order to deliver us from the bonds of sin. God could have decreed any other way of restoring us to His favor. He might have simply made a clean sweep of the effects of the fall, restoring 11 is grace to mankind by a pure and simple act of bounty.' When we say that the divine justice demanded some kind of satisfaction, we only mean that the divine justice could make such a demand if God so willed; but this demand could be waived by the divine mercy. Even if such a demand was made, theologians teach that this satisfaction could have been fulfilled by Christ without undergoing-.death on the cross. He could have secured our redemption by a simple wish, if the Father had been willing to accept that wish.? * - ' In what sense then can, the death of Christ be called a necessity? It can be called a necessity in two ways, first relatively, second consequently— above explained. The death of Christ was necessary relatively to God’s design in dealing with mankind. God wished (to impress on our minds the heinousness of sin ; and in no more vivid a way could this be done" than by the picture of His own beloved Son dying on the cross as a

victim for sin. In order to produce this vivid impression the -death- of 'Christ | was therefor© relatively necessary . ;■; Secondly, the death ; of Christ” was necessary consequently to God’s decrees." God chose to impress us with the sense of His divine justice, and the claims of justice against sin, by I putting forth the demand that sin ; should be counter-balanced by satisfaction. Unaided man was incapable of rendering any satisfaction which would have even the semblance of being adequate. Therefore a human nature was elevated by the hypostatic union into a divine person, whose every act was of infinite value, and whose suffering for sin would therefore be an infinite satisfaction. In both ways the death of Christ was a great dramatic object-lesson to mankind on the enormity of sin. Relatively to this dramatic object-lesson, and in consequence of God decreeing to give us such a lesson, the death of Christ therefore became a necessity—and this in two ways: First, a necessity as the means of carrying out God’s designs and decrees; and secondly, a necessity to us, as the only means offered to us by God for our salvation.’