A Striking Tribute to the Church

New Zealand Tablet, 29 September 1921, Page 37

A Striking Tribute to the Church

A very remarkable tribute to the Catholic Church of the so-called Dark Age has just been paid by a University Professor, Sir Martin Conway, who in the House of Commons as member for the Universities—electorally conjoined— Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. It is written as a contribution to a correspondence that has been running in the London Times under the heading, "A Spiritual Lead," the tenor of which is the need in these days of political and social confusion and unrest, the aftermath of the war, for turning to religion that a way may be found out of these perplexities and complexities. Sir Martin Conway writes:

"In the Middle Ages Western Europe was animated by a single ideal which made it one in heart. It was an ideal which sent the common man in his hundreds of thousands away to the Crusades which enshrined itself in countless wonderful cathedrals, abbeys, churches; which produced great schools of philosophy and art, great epic poems, and great institutions. It expressed itself in a theory of Government manifested in Holy Roman Empire and Holy Catholic Church. It expressed itself likewise in the lives of great men —in the royalty of St. Louis, the sainthood of St. Francis, the statesmanship of Hildebrand. This ideal, like all the ideals by which the great societies of men in the long past of our race have been fashioned, in the fulness of time wore out. It lingered on in the piety of the good men of the 18th century. It was finally killed by the discoveries and mechanical contrivances that have resulted from the labors of men of science.

"To-day, unhappily, we possess no common ideal. We thrill with no common hope. We tremble at no common terror. The nations of Europe are all adrift one from another and' the classes within each nation have likewise fallen asunder. The respect for real superiorities has vanished along with that for the traditional superiorities. Rank rests on no recognised sanction. We are all one as good as another. Vulgar ostentation replaces true distinction. The old catchwords are meaningless."

The picture drawn by Sir Martin is as beautiful as his contrast is true, and it comes from the hand of one who not only is not a Catholic, but who holds all denominations to be alike "pettifogging" and to be divided by "paltry non-essentials inherited from ancient theologians squabbling over incredible dogmas expressed in incomprehensible language." The higher ideality, the greater recognition of brotherhood that prevailed during the war, causes Sir Martin to join in the common aspiration for "an ideal that will reunite us," which must not only "embrace all that Christianity has given us," but also "whatever of truth and essential beauty mankind has inherited from the great seers of other lands" —Mahomet, Confucius, Budda, and Co., we suppose; while in the closing paragraph of his letter the writer tells us that "the world of our day languishes for a new St. Francis who shall call it to a new knowledge of itself." What a pity it is that Sir Martin cannot recognise the twin facts that the Catholic Church alone has given, only she can give, the world a St. Francis, and that there is no truth or essential beauty in the teachings of those whom he styles "the seers of other lands" not also contained in her teachings—and that without admixture of the errors and absurdities mingled in all teachings other than hers! — Irish Catholic.

Ideals- are like the stars: you will not succeed intouching them with your hands, but like the seafaring men on the desert of water, you choose them as your guides and following them you reach your destiny.