THE EVENING MEETING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 152, 29 June 1914, Page 9

THE EVENING MEETING

RESOLUTIONS CARRIED AGAIN. At the evening meeting, in the New Opera House, there was another largo audience, which filled the. body of ' the hall and the dress circle. A number of prominent citizens were on the stage. Professor Hunter presided. The various speakers proposed and seconded the resolutions adopted at the afternoon meeting, which were all again carried almost unanimously. Professor Hunter said that the Government's anxiety to grant the league's request was in marked contrast to its slowness to grant certain concessions asked for by the teachers. (Applause.) He i also read 1 telegrams of sympathy from various parts of the Dominion, and some apologies for absence. Mr. J. Hutchesoii added to his afternoon's remarks some strong criticisms of the movement, and the methods employed by the Bible-in-Sphools League. The guile of the politician was nothing, he said, compared to the skill of these people. (Laughter.) The Government's Bill was either a piece of gross insincerity or the worst betrayal of a religious minority that this or any other country in Christendom has ever proposed to accomplish. The Hon. W. Earmshaw strongly condemned the proposals, of "Canon Garland's Bill." The Bill was Ml of the greatest deviltry that could be conceived by persons wearing clerical cloth. "You know," hu said "they come honietimoi very near tho devil." (Laughter.) The Labour Party would have to fight this movement, the Tight of enfcry into the GCliools to teach secularism meant proselytosm.. (Hear, hear.) The Bill a-leo gave a back-door way out for tbs parsons in order to push in boy substitutes. (Laughter.) This country had been very free from Christian strife and they did not desire it xiow. Rev. W. A. Evans said that the proposed action of the league must bo fought in jimtico to the churches 'as well as to the State. He believed tho movement was due to a. misinterpretation of the times in which we live. (Applause.) It was because theTo were things being shaken that were 6upposod to be placed on a rock and unshakable. But it was for ' th« good of the churches, that what -was real may re* main. _ (Applause.) He believed the Bibhc-in-school movement the re&ult of panic and the Government's action also, [t would be to the advantage of the churchy to havo iho movement blocked IS *» te icpmpel tlie ptouJsiißj, -tp gc> ifi

for more internal cultivation. (Applause.) Tlie present state of education was not Godless as stated by tho league, because it was not impious. (Applause.) Had all the striving, suffering, and sacrifice of the past to be accounted for nothing ; did not the very schoolbooks themselves contain references to that history of the past, and wa6 the product of that past to be termed impious? (Applause.) The Rev. T. A. Williams (national organiser of the Defence League) said that old battles now had to be refought and old victoriee rewon. There should be no indifference ; sheer indifference had accounted for the victory of the Bible-in-schools in Victoria. Those against them used unclean weapons. It was an attempt to secure the bulk of the children of the schools for sectarian ends. (Applause.) Bishop Julius had sought to raise the devil of sectariani&m which slumbered in every brea-st, by inferring it was only Catholics who were opposed to the proposal. They must make the Government at least give them the option of voting for the system that now obtained. Mr. W. T. Grundy, of the Clyde-quay School, elaborated many of his previous arguments. He also quoted from a Bible-in-Schools pamphlet to show that sectarian strife did exist in New South Wales. The whole proposals were monstrous in this twentieth century, and he hoped they would never come about. (Applause.) Professor Kirk said he ha-d prepared a speech, but as the hour was late he would not do more than second the last resolution before the meeting. Professor Hunter announced that at the afternoon demonstration 1200 people had signed the Defence League's cards of membership. (Applause.)