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Show CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BOERS. We find in our esteemed contemporary, contempo-rary, the Connecticut Catholic, a very interesting interview with Father Brady, a member of. the Oblate Missionary Mis-sionary Order, who has given missions in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Kimberley and Mafeking, and is, therefore, in a position to speak from personal knowl edge of the Boers and of their characteristics, char-acteristics, which evidently have made Father Brady pro-Boer in sentiment. He denies the statements about the Boers being fiercely anti-Catholic. One i of the means resorted to by the British Brit-ish Government to secure recruits in ! Catholic Ireland was the spreading broadcast of handbills in which the Boers were represented as intolerant haters of the Church. These bills were posted up in every barrack in Ireland for the purpose of stimulating the. degenerate de-generate Irish Catholics who had accepted ac-cepted the Queen's shilling. Father Brady thus refutes these stories about the anti-Catholic prejudices preju-dices of the Boers: tor the Catholics there is manifested manifest-ed a respect, and a spirit of toleration and even of official kindness, which shows that whatever the Boers have against the Church is motived from political considerations. Certainly the Boers have the greatest esteem for the Sisters and that is a splendid sign. The school and hospitals in the care of the Sisters have always been shown favor. Kruger has on several occasions visited those institutions on their days of ceremony. cere-mony. Joubert, too, thought the world of the Sisters. The English commander at Newcastle gave the Sisters of the convent only two hours to leave the town; later than that he would guarantee guar-antee them no protection. General Jou bert was very indignant when he heard of it; he had rather counted upon the assistance of the Sisters in behalf of the wounded, and it grieved the old man's heart to discover that his foes were not magnanimous enough to permit per-mit him to secure for his sickened men every reasonable possibility in the shape of Christian pity." This testimony of one who Is competent compe-tent to speak about the Transvaal and its inhabitants is convincing refutation refuta-tion of the English lies about the attitude atti-tude of the Boers toward the Catholic Church. . i |
