The Eucharistic Congress at Dublin.—Near the end of June, amidst scenes of unparalleled fervour, the much-advertised Eucharistic Congress was staged at Dublin. We use the word staged advisedly, as Rome is a past mistress in appealing to the senses of her devotees by gorgeous display. When one thinks that all this had, as its central act, the blasphemous Mass in which such dishonour is done to Christ, it is enough to make one shudder at the awful extent to which human beings can be deceived in the name of religion. The newspapers vied with each other in their attempts to give word pictures of what was passing before their eyes. One need not put too much stress on what comes from the pens of those whose imaginations run riot at times, but if Rome wished a cheap advertisement the so-called Protestant press of this country gave it to her with unstinted measure. The Glasgow Herald reports that on Sabbath night, after this extraordinary display, the city of Dublin celebrated the festival with dancing and merrymaking. So it happened in Dublin on Sabbath, 26th June, as it happened at Sinai, in that senseless orgy of idolatory in which Israel indulged—”the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Ex. xxxii., 6).
Glasgow Lecturer on History on the Scottish Reformation.—At the recent Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin, Dr. McGlynn, Lecturer on History in Glasgow University, read a paper in which he described the Reformation movement in Scotland as “almost unequalled in violence, ferocity, and thoroughness . . . some mad fury seemed to possess the nation, and all that was beautiful, all that was noble and inspiring and edifying in her tradition, history, and monuments had to be attacked and destroyed.” The very last person in the world one would expect to give a fair account of the Scottish Reformation is a Roman Catholic, even though he be a Lecturer on History at a Protestant university. We have long been accustomed to the idle flood of tears that has been shed over the alleged
wreckage of culture and architectural monuments by the Reformation. A lecturer on history, however, should have read his book better than to allow himself to make the above stupid, and worse than stupid, statement. Scotland has reason to be thankful that the Reformation swept away, we hope for ever, much that was noble, edifying and inspiring from the Roman Catholic standpoint into the limbo of deep forgetfulness. In another paper read at the Congress, Mgr. McGettigan bemoaned the little headway his Church was making in Scotland. All the increase was due to the Irish immigrants, and the closing of one or two industries or the stoppage of the Unemployment Benefit Insurance might very quickly change all that.
The Cinema Bill.—By the time this issue is in our readers’ hands, the Cinema Bill will, in all likelihood, be on the Statute Book. It has already passed the third reading. The Bill, fortunately, does not apply to Scotland, but it has been passed by the Government of this country and the disgrace of it and the sin of passing it lies at the door of the National Government. The power behind the vested interests is too much for our weak-kneed and spineless statesmen, otherwise the time of Parliament during a national crisis would not have been mis-spent as it has been in devoting so much precious time to these God-dishonouring Bills.