The Church in New Zealand

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 10, 18 March 1925, Page 19

The Church in New Zealand

THE CHURCH IN TARANAKI: A SKETCH PREPARED FOR THE JUBILEE OF

Parish of Hawera (Continued)

bidden to attend the opera, we knew Gil- ' ' v bert and Sullivan, Verdi, Bellini, and Donij zetti, and would sing them first in two parts '\ and then play them; and when voice or flute would make a false note, or be a fraction of a beat out of time, Father Dan would fall back on his • chair and send his pealing laughter through the town; he laughed in Irish scales that would give four or more sounds between each two full tones. I remember on one occasion sending him through the town on a wild goose chase. I issued a challenge, that, while he was the better player, I could produce effects on the flute that he could not. I was seated in front of a little stopless organ, my feet on the pedals so that he could not see them. Then I began to play on the flute, and at the end of each phrase I would give a clear note, and at once lay down the flute, when the organ, of course, would continue to give forth the note, though no hand was touching it. This mystified him, first he thought it was the whistle from a railway engine, but why the same engine, stationary, should produce different notes at different times, was the puzzle. Next day he visited the flautists of the town seeking enlightenment, One of these I believe it was Mr. Highnm, questioned him about the furniture in the room —perhaps there was a little ortran and I had been seated before it? When Father Dan had thus found out the trick T played him, he made me listen to some very eloquent language. When I expressed surprise, he said that he did not keep all h<< _ v eloquence for the pulpit. Ah, we had renin* and mirthful souls twenty golden years a «rtT Ihere ,s less mirth in the world since Father Dan Malone left it.

We brought his body to Hawera for buriala large number of priests came from all Parts, and practically the whole town walked m his funeral. A good musical critic told me • recently that the memory of the "Benedicts sung at the grave still remains unrivalled. There is nothing tawdry, falsely sentimental or meretricious about real church music. It was the grand Gregorian theme arranged for six voices by Novello. The newspaper report says that Father Stanislaus Mahony was first alto, Mr. Eddie Whit taker second alto, Father Power first tenor father Galerne second tenor, Father Holley first bass, and Mr. Higham second bass. His Grace (then Father) Archbishop O'Shea a class fellow, preached a touching panegyric. .But I have anticipated somewhat. The late Father Mulvihill took charge in 1884 and remained till May, 1898. A stronoenergetic man at that time, he found or more correctly made, ample scope for his zeal There was already a good Catholic school in Hawera founded as I have already stated by ,th e first pastor, but Father Mulvihill . saw the advantage of a convent school, and so within one year of his coming he brought m the Sisters of St. Joseph to the parish. Many i residents of Hawera. and the plains still recall the welcome the Sisters received that -Sunday in February, 1885. Every buggy within a radius often miles 1 was coma-ndee!-- . " ed, and all met the Sisters at Manutahi, who were followed by another line of buggies from • :: Waverley and Patea. ' Mr. John Collins with

"Monkey" between the shafts, had two of the Sisters, and two others had two each. Mr. Collins had to give an explanation of his driving at the Magistrate's Court in Patea a few days after. He was accused of driving his horse at greater than a walking pace across the old Patea bridge. "What have you to say to this?" asked the Magistrate. "Your Worship," said Collins, "I was in a hurry and T trotted "Monkey." The Magistrate, who had a saving sense of humor, turned to the police officer and said, "You should not have brought such a charge before this honorable court, there is no harm m running a monkey across a bridge, or up a tree for that matter. The charge is dismissed." Mr. Collins, who was married to one of the Malones, was as devoted to the priests as the Malones themselves were. At times his devotion was somewhat embarrassing, as when to soothe the priest after a weary journey he would get out his famous (one priest called it infamous) musical-box and keep it going for an hour. It was impossible to escape the ordeal, he held you with his glittering eye. God rest his soul! He was a grand, devoted parishioner.

In 1887 Father Mulvihill. built the new church; the architect was Mr. Turnbull, of Wellington, and the builder Mr. George Syme. If was a very beautiful and devotional building, and is still, though it has been lengthened by thirty feet. He secured another section of the Church land at his own expense, but when his health broke down, and he was leaving the parish, he was recouped out of the parish funds. He was a most zealous and painstaking priest: he wrote all his sermons, and these were both sound in matter and beautiful in form. He built churches at Manaia, Opunake, and Waverley. He had very large ideas; and having a great affection for Hawera, , wished to make it a great educational centre so far

as the Catholic Church was concerned. Indeed his failure to carry out this scheme, taken too much to heart, was a chief cause of his breakdown in health. He was ambitious to establish a great boarding school for girls, a scheme in which the business people of the town were very naturally concerned. The authority in the archdiocese, however, considered, and rightly, that there was not room for another boarding school between Wanganui and New Plymouth. Boarding schools multiplied at close distances would only injure one another. Father Mulvihill saw this after awhile, but nevertheless the failure of his scheme had its effect upon his too sympathetic disposition. I myself hold that we have too many girls' boarding schools in New Zealand, at least in proportion to boys' high schools. We hear much about the evil of mixed marriages, and we read of many remedies suggested by old people and by young, but let there be an equal number of secondary schools for boys and girls in the Dominion, and in my humble opinion one main cause of mixed marriages will be at once removed. The experiment is worth trying. Will some of our too wealthy Catholics turn their attention towards it? After many years of retirement owing to ill health, Father Mulvihill died in the odor of sanctity at the Lewisham Hospital in Sydney under the care of the Little Daughters of Mary in November, 1922. His successor, the present pastor of Hawera, was with him almost continuously during eight of the ten days before his death', and he had the grout consolation of many visits during the same days from his Grace the Archbishop of Wellington, who had been his ecclesiastical superior for twenty years. For four years before his death he said Mass every morning at half-oast four, and after served four Masses in succession. Indeed, on the seventh of November, a few -before his death, I saw one of the nursing Sisters take him away from the altar as he was serving Archbishop Redwood's Mass. She insisted that he should rest himself. She had to insist and put down "her foot firmly, as his friends will readily understand, for we all knew him to be a very strong-willed man. When the news of his death reached his old parish of Hawera, the people came in hundreds to his Requiem and offered their Holy Communions for the happy repose of his soul. The new church should certainly contain some memorial of a pastor who had served the parish so faithfully for fourteen years. ■ (To be continued.)