BISHOP NELIGAN AND HIS CRITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 237, 3 October 1908, Page 6

BISHOP NELIGAN AND HIS CRITICS.

.-Torn Onr Special Correspondent) LONDON, August 21. The scathing comments of the New Zealand Press on Bishop Neligan's Oxford sermon on paganism in New Zealand, of which I sent you a report some time ago, are made the subject of a leading article this week in '"The Church Family Newspaper," a Loudon Anglican weekly. "Dr. Neligan," says the journal, "will, no doubt, speak for himself, but we do not think that he asserts or that he believes that New Zealand is 'largely pagan. If he says that it is partly pagan, it is not more than may he said of England, or, for the matter of that, of any other country. There is a pagan element everywhere obtruding itself in our civilisation. Nor is he answered by statistics of Sun-day-school attendance. ... In this country, according to the last statistics accessible, in England the total number of day scholars was about 6,800,000, and the attendance at Sun-day-schools was 6,100,000. But all this does not save us from paganism in the laud. Nor are we saved from it by the fact that somewhere about three or four million children attend Church schools. There is a continual slipping away of the young, even when they are carefully educated in Christianity, from the fellowship of the Church. One of the chief problems that confronts us to find a remedy for this. If we could religiously influence the children who are taught religion, our problem in this country would very soon be solved. We have very large opportunities of reaching the children, both on ■ week-days and Sundays, but at a certain 1 age they appear to break away from us, in spite of tha most earnest and devoted efforts." "We do not doubt that this dispute is based to a large extent on misunderstanding," adds "The Church Family Newspaper," "it deserves to be noted that the sensitiveness of our colonies is extreme. They are not patient of criticism, and they axe especially impatient of it in those who have recently taken up high office in their land. This is so well recognised in Canada that we hardly ever hear from Canadian public men who return to England anything that reflects on their countrymen. This may be a misfortune in some respects, but it ia a misfortune that has to be reckoned with."