By the Rev. H. W. Cleary^*

We Catholics are a highly favored generation. We have our own pastors to guide us in the, way that leads to Life. And we have, besides, a variegated multitude of leisured clergy of some hundreds of other Christian creeds who weep over us, and beat us to the best of their ability with their shepherds' crooks, and go into hysterics over us whenever we are—or seem to them to be—obstreperous and chuckleheaded. Their zeal for our souls manifests itself on all sorts of occasions. But it usually achieves its highest glow when substantial sums of money have been raised by us, at bazaars, to further some new branch of Catholic devotion, or education, or charity. A foremost place among our self-constituted Mentors is taken by a mainly or exclusively Nonconformist body that, for some recondite reason, calls itself The Council of 'The' Churches. Last week the organisation of that name in Wellington discussed the following resolution (or, rather, indictment)—

'That the Council of Churches deeply deplores the fact that the Roman Catholic Church should continue to identify itself with the gambling habits of the community, and in view of the unanimity of moralists and the attitude of other sections of the Christian church, the council urges on the responsible authorities of the Roman Catholic Church the need, in the interests of the public, of a renunciation of gambling for religions ends.'

Some of the saner and more moderate speakers succeeded, in the face of much opposition, in carrying an amendment substituting the words 'certain Churches' for 'the Roman Catholic Church.' But on what we may call the side for the prosecution, controversial temperatures rose high. And the lava-flow of oratory (to use the words of 'Junius') consisted of 'assertion without proof, declamation without argument, and violent censure without dignity or moderation.'