THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE BISHOP.

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 152, 24 December 1903, Page 7

THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE BISHOP.

■ « - TO TUB EDITOR. Sir— lt must appear "passing strnngo" to the disinterested lay mind how tuo weighty and dignified deliverance of our Chief Justice on the proposed introduction of religious instruction, with its inevitable accompaniments of ■ strife and xnr rt >we. into our SUte system of oduca-

tion, uhould bo construed an the Reverend Bishop of tho Uomuii Church in Auckland, apparent'}'' in ins liuwte, coiiHtrued it. Truly, it would enUul a heroic hurgical operation to get tho "poecant humours" out of the .ecclesiastical mind! The learned Chief Justieo did not u»-o a single oxpretwion that can bo regarded by a fair and dispassionate critio ns reflecting on any church or churchman — Catholic, Protestant, or othor. his thoughts were occupied, exclusively, with the question as to tho expediency* of the States- attempting to adjuflb matters, as betwoen tho churches, in connection -with tho proposed Bible or religious teaching in our schools. This is no politicul question proper; it is rather an ecclesiastical or domestic one j and ono in which every parent in tho community has a "natural light" to speak out and "protest," if need be. To every dispassionate student vi history tho inexpediency of tho Stute's attempting to adjust or adjudicate iii tho matter of religious education must readily appear aud appeal. It is absolutely contrary to reason and common sense to urge that secular and religious education must (or even ought, to) go hand in hand— "coupled and inseparable." This in the day of economio division of labour. What has religion to do with tho teaching of tho threo "it's," or with the teaching ol literary, linguistic, or scientiQc (subjects? Dr. Gibb tind us, not so long ugo, m ono of his declamatory efforts that tho name of Uod could- not bo used in our schools, and that the "Unvso" wus the educational God of ouv present' State system. Dr. Lonihan now declaims to much tho sumo purpose. This is, of comae, v fair specimen of eoclesinsticul rhetoric ! There is nothing to prevent a teacher appealing to tho ''verities and veracities" or even to God. As a matter of lact it is nevor necessary to do so, for tho simple reason that every child before attaining school ago has had considerable # instruction in what its parent regards us accredited ethical sanctions. When it does wrong it is conscious of tho fact, and can refer its "uonsoiousness" in this connection to an "ethical sanction" without tho aid of a teacher. Who ever heard (in a Protestant school, at any rate), oven in tho days when thcro wus a surfeit ot "Bible and catechism," of a teucher solemnly appealing to an offended God? Has Dr. Gibb, think you? Kight and ■wrong are right aud wrong by what wo may cull the Hat of Nature; and all that theism, theology, and ethics! have done is but to emphasise and perhaps "humuniso" j tho fact, aud the ideas prompted by contemplating the fact, isthicu.l principal) are antecedent to religious systems, and in fact give birth to them. This explains how wo como to have "lcspoctttble" ethics outside tho pale of the- Christian Church and under other auspices than those of tho "God of tho Christian Bible. If the various churches could provide on their own account an eflioiont nil-round education, religious and secular, thoro could not be any serious objection to the Sfrato'p allowing them to do so, and even subsidising thorn for doing ao (by a flystem of proportional grants) ; but think of tho economio loss which tmch provision, under existing conditions, woul<J entail ! Fancy ©very church having to provide- schools and schoolmasters in every school district in New Zealund ! Could thoy do it? Wo should soon, I opine, bo back to tho condition of lgnoranc© and illiteracy which uniformly characterised tho ecclesiastical regime in education. Tho churches and churchmen did great sorvico to humanity educationally ; but they werb never, and uovor will be, equal to the task ol supplying an efficient and universally accredited system. Efficiency demands State intorvention; justice and expediency demand that religious teaching be loft to tho home and tho church. KiUcioncy, also, demands "division of labour" in education ; and honce there can bo nothing wrong or unfair in' separating tho secular and tho religious. Expediency nnd commoniwnse, to my humble mind, leave us no alternative. No church can provide an efficient education for iU own people in a roligiounly divided community j and no church has been singularly successful in firoviding the secular and eacrod conjointy, oven under tho. auspices of the Slate and with comparative uniformity in religion. To concoivo that our Chief Justico has gone out of his way to "insult" any religion or any roligious denomination is but grossly to misapprehend him or wantonly to belie him. — I am etc, Wellington, 22nd Dec, 1903. II.M.