Here and There

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 45, 25 November 1925, Page 45

Here and There

Th« Pope’s Blessing for Ireland. —The /. Pope received recently in the Consistofial i Hall, 110 Irish pilgrims, 40 of whom came " from Cork and the rest from other parts of Ireland. The former were conducted by Father Shooeney and the latter by Mr. Chisholm, pilgrimage director. The Pope presented the pilgrims with medals commemorating the Jubilee Year. In a short ad- ■ dress he thanked them for the long journey they had undertaken in order to profit from the spiritual benefits of the Holy Year, adding that Ireland was very dear to his heart. His Holiness concluded by imparting to all the pilgrims the Apostolic Benediction, and extending it to the whole of Ireland. ♦ * ♦ Ancient Scottish Bell. —In connection with the preparations being made to repair the bells in Lanark Town Steeple, a hnk with the Scotland of pre-Reformation days is again brought to light. The history of the largest bell in the steeple, which is believed by some authorities to be the oldest in Europe, should be of great interest 10 Scots Catholics. It was taken from the old Church of St, Kentigern in Lanark churchyard, and bears the inscription : “Anno, 1110. I did for twice three centuries hing, And unto Lanark city ring.” •**. tt was in the Church of St. Kentigern that William Wallace attended Mass, and there he was married to Marion Braidfute. Every schoolboy knows the heroic part played by Wallace in the struggle for Scottish independence. The bells are in good condition, but the bearings have become a little worn, and in the interests of safety it has been considered necessary to repair them. * * * •aid Plight of Irish Baronet: Unable to Pay Hi© Rent.—Sir Thomas Moore, holder of on© of the oldest British baronetcies, and Lady Moor© were defendants in an ejectment action in Cork Circuit Cork. They occupied humble premises in the city, and possession was sought on the ground of non-payment of rent£l6. The case for the defendants was that they found themselves & unable temporarily to meet their obligations. They admitted they were not within protection of the Rent Act, and urged their age and Lady Moore’s delicate state of health. - Judge Kenny, while expressing sympathy t with defendants, granted a decree for posses- * sion, "with a stay of six weeks. Sir Thomas Moore is the 11th holder of a baronetcy created in 1661, and is 82 years of age. He succeeded his father in 1882, and married in 1893, Catherine Matilda, only child of the late Capt. J. George Elphinstone, late n jH.E., 1.C.5., of Aberdeen and Passage whose wife was Catherine, daughter ofc the late George R. Pain, architect, Cork. T&e heir-presumptive to the baronetcy is the eldest surviving son of the 9th baronet, Sir Emmanuel Moore, who emigrated to the

> United States. The family crest ■ nett© is: I “The brave man may fall, but can never ! yield.” * « * Mutual Understanding Wanted. Headed by Henri Bourassa, a party of three hundred citizens of' Quebec have recently been touring Ontario towns and cities to effect, if possible, a better spirit of tolerance and understanding between provinces where an overwhelming majority in one place is Catholic and in the other Protestant. About ten large centres were visited and a number of smaller places. Mr. Bourassa, editor of Le Devoir, explained the motives which prompted the tour. “To those Englishspeaking Protestants or Irish Catholics whom we may have the advantage to meet, we wish to state emphatically that we are neither hostile nor subservient. We ask for nothing better than a cordial understanding, not to dominate with them the rest of the country, but to ascertain the. true conditions of national peace, of agreement between the west and the east ; and agreement in truth and justice, taking into account the divergent viewpoints of all sections of Canada, their conflicting interests, their diverse needs. Those sentiments, free of all electoral preoccupations, of any interested calculations, individual or collective, ought to arouse a sympathetic echo in the minds of a large number of Ontarians. If, through this short contact, hosts and fellow-travellers lose some of their prejudices, acquire a keener knowledge and deeper appreciation of each other, and thereby better prepare to attain a common understanding, the object of this trip will be reached; and we will be amply rewarded for efforts and sacrifices it has entailed upon us.” » 808 A Worthy Rival of Livingston# and Stanley.—That cosmopolitan journal, th* 60 tholic Leader, Madras, recently (says the Irish Catholic) drew attention to one of the most remarkable missionary figures of our time, Mgr. Henry Hanlon (Bishop f of Teos), formerly the Vicar Apostolic of Uganda and the Upper Nile, whose presence at the consecration the other day of his present successor in the mission field, Bishop W. J. Campling, added a vividly picturesque note to the ceremony. The Catholic Leader reminds us that in the U.S.A. Bishop Hanlon has already been hailed as an African pioneer, “who can compare with Stanley or Livingstone, and as a missionary, with Cardinal Massaia, or Cardinal Lavigerie.” As a matter of fact, the six months’ tramp to Uganda from the coast when, in the last century, “Darkest Africa” was opened by Catholic missionaries, was one of the biggest feats ever achieved by a pioneer. No missionary surely ever lived through so much “romance of the missions” coupled with their sternest realities, as this Mill Hill apostle, who braved every conceivable danger arid difficulty to open a way through the vast African bush. Neither the poisoned arrows of the savage tribes that beset them

or ©very side, nor the raids of wild beasts availed to daunt the men who meant Light to penetrate that darkness at any risk, and counted not the cost to themselves. Bishop Hanlon’s link with the Madras Mission was his apostolate in the snows of Tibet, where lor several years he lived among the llamas, and had nothing but frozen mutton to eat. And no one rejoices to-day more than does the veteran pioneer of the Mill Hill Uganda Mission over its promising future.