RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 799, 23 April 1910, Page 9

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. TRIUMPH LOCALLY APPLIED. -n St. John's Church last Sunday morning -Dr. Gibb referred to the victory which has been gained by the ■Bible m Schools' party in Queensland. He said that he had read the news with a gladness. which he could not easily find words to ■ express,-and- he felt sure that, in saving this he spoke .tor the great majority of his hearers, if not for every man and woman of themJiiatithe children of the Queensland schools would now receive instruction in the Word of God was a great thing. It was a great thing' for/the present and future well-being of the community occupying that v#>t Northern State tnat their young people would be delivered from tlie secularism which there as well as heft had been the predominant characteristic ■of the ..education imparted in .the national schools. But this .was; not, the only reason for gladness they felt, at this victory. ■ Sometimes their hearts almost fainted within them as t% considered the signs of the times, and noted the indifference which -the majority of people seemed to entertain for. the Scriptures, and the infinitely important matters for which the henptures stood. ' Here was a reMike to their despondency. By a majority of upwards of six thousand the People-of Queensland .had said the Biblei shall be placed in the schools of -tbe Mate, yes, and by a majority of six thousand • the people of Queensland had alhrmed.their belief that the! Bible is the book of books—a " book indispensable to .the young and to the old alike—indispensable for the upbuilding of in the individual and righteousness in the nation. [The maonty has., since increased ' to. sixteen thousand.].. .

There was another aspect of this victory which called for remark. The'success of the movement in Queensland did not, , indeed, absolutely, voiwh for the success of the movement'in New Zealand, but there was; no friend of the cause of the restoration of the Bible to .the schoolsr'nf",'the..Dominion _but would find in; the' Queensland.'triumph an omen of most happy augury for this' country; and there was no enemy of the cause but would feel, whatever might;be said or written, much painfill misgiving. For his own part the Queensland .victory only intensified the conviction to which he had so frequently given expression, that if the question Bible or no Bible in the schools was submitted, without ; ambiguity and'uncomplicated by merely political issues to the electors ol : New Zealand, they would, by an overwhelming majority, pronounce in favour of the Bible. His conviction was based on a fairly wide knowledge of the temper* of the people of this country, and on the voluntary plebiscites which had been taken some years ago by_ the Bible in Schools party." The significance of these : plebiscites had been ridiculed, but the ridicule had itself never failed to sound ridiculous in. the ears of tho"se who noted the frantic eagerness of the enemies of the Bible in Schools to prevent the question from being submitted to the people. But for the inveterate hostility of a.section of their legislators and political leaders—a hostility which swept: aside definitely made promises and stooped to trick and stratagem, the question would have been submitted to the people long ago. How much, longer, would it be delayed? One thing was certain; the moral well-being of this community " demanded that knowledge of the supreme fact of human history '—the Jifp^an'd,Reaching .of .Jesus; Christ. —should, hot he'.withheld ,froni ; the youth' in the public, schools of the land. Nay, hiore, oven the social and material prosperity of, the community was bound up with a reasonable kriqsvlcdgo of the holy. Scriptures. lii the long run, forgotfulness of God would spell out only misery and ruin. If they did not livo to see it, their children-and.child-ren's children would.