PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

New Zealand Tablet, 16 August 1917, Page 30

PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

Mr. Cecil Chesterton, who is a private in the Highland Light Infantry and brother of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, was married recently to Miss Ada Jones, the writer known by the pen-name of "John Keith Prothero." The bridegroom, who was expecting to leave shortly for the front, was in uniform, and was attended by Mr. T. Michael Pope. The ceremony took place at Corpus Christi Church. Maiden lane, London, and was attended by many journalistic friends of both brido and bridegroom. Rev. Father Kearney officiated. Mr. and Mrs. G. K. Chesterton and Mr. Hilaire Belloc were amongst those present. Among those confirmed by the Bishop of Southwark at St. George's Cathedral early in June were eleven recent converts presented by Mgr. Hinde from St. Vincent de Paul, Altenburg Gardens. Two of these were ex-Anglican clergymen—viz., Mr. Sidney A. Cuthbert, formerly rector of Molesworth, Huntingdon, and Mr. Rowland Arthur Williams, who until a few months ago was curate of St. John's, Clevedon, and is now under training for military service. Another was the Hon. Mrs. Bertram Mitford, wife of General Mitford, who is serving at the front.

The death occurred in the recent severe fighting, of Second-Leiutenant Edward Edwards, Worcester Regiment, son of Mr. Herbert Edwards, of Oamaru (states an exchange). Formerly a Church of England curate at Avonside and Phillipstown, Christchurch, Lieutenant Edwards left New Zealand in 1912 and joined the Noviatiate of the Society of the Divine Compassion, at Stanford-le-Hope, Essex. When war broke out he joined the R.A.M.C. as a private and saw two years' service before being gazetted to a commission in the Worcester Regiment. He left for France in April. A few months before his death Lieutenant Edwards joined the Catholic Church. According to The Catholic Convert, Frank Urban, well known to Socialist audiences of the great East Side of New York, as an open-air lecturer, is a recent convert to the Church. Mr. Urban had no trace of any Christian heritage. Both his parents were Socialists, and he was brought up without religion. He seems to have been led to inquire into Catholicity by reason of having been accustomed to read Catholic periodicals in order better to be able to combat what they had to say. He was thoroughly versed in the monistic philosophy, of which Karl Marx was the great exemplar. Rev. R. H. Tierney, S.J., editor of America, received him into the Church. Rev. Basil W. Holman, 8.A., Cantab, England, who was ordained by the late Anglican Bishop King, of Lincoln, in 1901, was received into the Church by Father Carey, at Holloway, England, recently. After having spent four years in the Lincoln diocese, as curate of Horncastle, he became acting Anglican chaplain to the Forces in 1904 for 18 months, and went to Lucknow diocese in India, in 1905, as chaplain of the Bengal Ecclesiastical Establishment. He left on account of ill-health in September, 1913, and, when the war broke out, he joined the New Zealand army as a private in August, 1914, and was with that army both in Egypt and in France. He is still attached to the New Zealand army, in which he is now expecting his commission. Everyone familiar (as what Catholic lover of ecclesiastical antiquities was not with his writings was delighted to note the conversion in his old age of Dr. J. Charles Cox in England (states the Glasgow Observer). No one acquainted with his historical work, especially his general editorship of the series, The Antiquary' '« Books, was surprised to see that even at the age of 74 he had submitted to the Catholic Church, of whose history he was such a profound student. The list of books written or edited by this most learned and versatile historian fills a big space in ('rock ford. Dr. Cox, who was successively rector of Barton-le-Street and Joldenby, has had no preferment for many years, his time having long been devoted to writing and historical research. Possibly his intimate friendship with Cardinal Gasquet may have had some influence upon the acceptance of the faith. He is admittedly in the first rank of British ecclesiastical antiquaries, a man of surpassing scholarship and ability. He was received into the Church at Downside Abbey, appropriately enough as the peaceful abode of the learned sons of St. Benedict. It only teaches us once more that it is never too late to mend, and that the Catholic Church attracts to her ample fold the greatest and brightest intellects of all centuries. It is a pleasure to see that practically the first public act of Dr. Cox on behalf of the truth which he has embraced is to pronounce a scathing denunciation of the low Protestant agency that had the impertinence to write to him. Like many others, he had inflicted on him a communication form the Protestant Press Bureau enclosing samples of shaving-papers and pipe-lights disguised as Protestant tracts. The zealous convert at once published the following comment, circulated last week, which certainly will not' penetrate brass, but would bring humiliation to any average man capable of feeling it:—" Dr. Cox has not the slightest intention of holding any correspondence with anyone sending

him such blasphemous and untrue tracts as those that reached him this morning. He is ashamed to think that any Englishmen are to be found banded together to circulate such stuff.”