BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1938, 22 December 1913, Page 8

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

SEIJMOX 13V CAXOX GABLAXD,

Preaching at Trinity Methodist Church, last night, Canon Garland, in the cotu-se oi' his sermon, said recent efforts had been made to establish the Nelson ostein as a solution of the problem; but all had failed. Parliament had rejected it, and without even goin;; to a division. The Presbyterian Assembly bad again passed it over, reaffirming its adliereuce to the league's proposal as a better system. He had received statements in writing from S2 teachers in the Nelson Education Board district, of whom 77 said there was no religious instruction given ixi their schools, nnd this was in the home of the sysleni. The secretary of the Nelson Education Board had written that "the board has not at any time given permission for religious instruction to be given iii schools. The Education Act provides that the instruction must be entirely of a secular c-haracter." The recent attempt on the part of some Presbyterians to break tlio agreement_into which their Assembly had entered with other churches had proved disastrous to the promoters. Ho" resetted to notice that this defeat teaching wisdom to those who wore making a similar atlempt in the Methodist Church. He had suspicions that this attempt was being encouraged from the same quarter. He need say nothing stronger to condemn these attempts than that they had the expressed approbation of the organ of tho Roman Catholic Church, which tlifs week had written in commendatory terms of thoso Presbyterian and Methodist ministers who were opposing the decisions of their own Church. But he had no doubt that here, as in Australia, folk would prove as a body true to their own Church, even if they thereby lost, tho approbation of tho Soman Catholic Church.

Ho referred to the dob' which tho Empiro from the earliest birth of the English nation, owed to the Bible, a debt in which New Zealand peculiarly shared. It was just 99 .years ago 011 Christmas Day when the Ifcv. Samuel Marsden, a priest of the Church of England, arid who was also "one of the people called Methodists"—in those days all Methodists were members of the Church o: England— preached tho first Christian sermon in New Zealand, and brought! the first message of Christianity to the country. Tho words of his text were of peculiar application to-day: "Behold, I bring you Rood tidings," i.e., the Gospel. There had been other arrirals on (lie shores of New Zealand prior to Samuel Jtarsdcn's,. who met the fate of being killed and eaten by tho inhabitants'. Samuel Marsden's me-, tliod was to teach the Maoris to read.the Bible. As quickly as the circumstances of tho time allowed, ho had passives translated into Maori and distributed, following these up with the complete Now Testament, of which tho Natives bought thousands of conies. Tliftso who, as cannibals, had catch human beings, "eagerly devoured" tho teachings of the Scriptures. When Bishop Sehvyu. arrived he found over 30.000 Maoris at Christian worship. One thing which struck him wo a their eagerness to read the Bible; sad their ability to read tho print upside down, as a result of their sitting in a circle with the open Bible, lyng in tho centre. The teachings of tho Bible transformed the one-time savage into a man full of honour even in his fights, as tho Maori war' with the English so often demonstrated. As the Anglican-Methodist Marsden, with tlio Presbyterians who also had come vith the Bible in their hands to the South Island, and had made Now Zealand one of tho fairest Dominions of tho Empire, so now the same combination sought to restore the_ Bible to tho hands of tiieir children in the schools of tho country. Yet there were those who, wifch-the basest ingratitude, accepted tho couutry. which the Bible had made passible for them, .mil yet had kept for !!" years, and were still trying to keep, from the children's schools the Book of books to which-thev owed their very existence in tho land. We hear much to-day of the secularist and. other opponents of the opening of the Bible in the, schools. Where were they wlieu Marsden and others civilised and won New Zealand? Were they th'-re savins-. "The State ha* nothing '.<> ,! ri with religion"? AMiy, tho religion of ihe Bible wa*. then making the State! Or; were, they sacrificing their homes, bikini perilous journeys, rising their lives.- , 1S did the men who brought the Bible to this land, and whose successor* tu-dny, pleasn God, will rest not dar.nr .'light, nod will not keep silence until, that-same blessed Book is restored to the children in tho nation's school?. .