PILATE'S REFERENDUM.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2018, 27 March 1914, Page 9

PILATE'S REFERENDUM.

Sir,—Allow me to present my compliments, and acknowledge my obligations, to your "courageous" and "tolerant' correspondents, who so triumphantly disposed of Pilate, .Barabbas, and my humble self I It is a pity that their modesty is such that your readers afforded an opportunity of publicly acknowledging their services to logic and to' the Bible-in-schools' movement I .1 am sure every "tolerant"; member of tho community: would like to know who the 'courageous" and "tolerant" correspondents are who would:. niV , Im ' loSo tlle task of conducting Hible-lessons, or religious instruction, on State officials (without a conscience clause for such officials)! (2) Kate tho entire community for ™e Purpose of supplying the children or the Dominion with religious instruction approved ofby a Protestant combine! (3) Commission the Education Department to provide a substitute.for the Bible! (4) Ask the Government of the Dominion to recognise the churches »as part'of the political and legislative machinery of the Dominion! (5) Refuse to educate and enlighten the' community on the Bible-in-Schools' issue by means of public meetings and public .discussion I I sincerely trust your, "courageous" correspondents "Nisi Dominus," "Toleranco," and the still more "courageous" "F.1.C." may be as successful m disposing of tho above "soft impeachments" as they have been iri the Pilate affair! Logicians who can commit tllemzolves to tho conclusion that what is "customary" for a Governor to do is, necessarily, Tegal and constitutional, should have no difficulty in disposing effectively of such impeachments I •

As for "Tolerance," who is so modest in tho matter of his own historicity and identity, he might bo ablo to furnish (after careful research) tho name of a single "recognised" authority on Jewish or Roman law, who admits the historicity of tho Trial by Pilate (as recorded in the Gospels). He will perhaps be able to find eminent Anglican scholars and divines who admit its unhistoricitv! He may bo ablo to find a distinguished Presbyterian scholar and divine, who, writing of tho Passion and Trial, remarks that the story, even inits most historic-version, is not pure truth, -but truth mixed with doubtful legend, and so relegates not a litt|e of it-to tho category of more or less-leg-endary accessories. When ho consults exnerts .(legal and Biblical), he may well wonder that any humble truth-seeker "in this far-away corner of' the earth" would have the effront-' ery to admit tho historicity of tho record! ■ He may, too,- bo "tolerant" enough to inform us whether ho would allow Stato-school teachers to discuss tho truth and historicity of such portions of the Scriptures as to the truth and historicity of which eminent Christian scholars are themselves hopelessly at variance.— : l am, etc., 'HUGH MACKENZIE. March 20, 1914.