BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 221, 15 June 1931, Page 5

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

Plea for Support

ARCHDEACON’S ADDRESS

Taking as his text the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of St.. Paul to Timothy, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” Archdeacon A. L. Hansell, preaching in St. James's. Anglican Church, Lower Hutt, last night, said he desired to bring before the people the present position of the Bible in State schools.

“For years," he said, “the majority of parents in New Zealand have suffered from a very real grievance which they have tried again and again to have removed. It is that their children are gre given a purely secular education in the State schools. A new Bill is to be brought before Parliament this session if possible, and we are very hopeful that it will be considered a reasonable and just measure and passed if possible. The preaeher pointed out that the Bill had been approved and endorsed by the chief religious denominations in New Zealand, and' the Roman Catholics were satisfied with it. The New Zealand Educational Institute executive had remitted the Bill to the thirty branches of the institute for their report. Nelson branch, the first to report, gave a splendid vote in favour.

“We must remember," he proceeded, “that the participation of the teacher in both the religious observances and the religious instruction is wholly voluntary, and no statement of a reason is required in his notification by which he automatically obtains exemption. In fact, a very real effort has been made in this Bill to meet every reasonable objection that n teacher or a parent could put forward. The Bill is not coercive in any way. On the contrary, it amends the present Act, which is coercive.

“Against those who argue that the teaching of religion to the child is the function of the home and the church we hold that it is most important not to divide the secular and the religious; that religious instruction should be just as natural a part of the school education as history or arithmetic. The work that has been done in the homes and the Sunday schools is beyond all praise, but the responsibility is too heavy. It is not that the parents or the church ■wish to shirk their duty in this matter, but they know from years of experience that the State alone has the necessary organisation to reach the children of the backblocks and the big towns. “It is there that the leakage takes place. Quite a large proportion of the children of New Zealand get no home instruction and never enter a Sunday school. It is for the sake of these chiefly that we need the Bible in State schools. Indifference at this stage would be criminal. Out of loyalty to God whose will-it surely is; out of loyalty to His Church, which is practically unanimous in its favour;'out of loyalty to those children who, without His effort, would pass their lives here without any definite knowledge of their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, we must rouse ourselves and others to do all we can to further this most just piece of legislation. We will pray about it and talk about it, nnd witness for it, and then we will wait the result. If we lose, we shall try again, for we believe our cause a righteous one.”