Evening Post. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1914.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 124, 21 November 1914, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1914.

THE PARSONS AND THE POLLS ♦ Canon Garland and the most unbalanced of his followers are never weary of insisting that the Bible-in-Schools question sorts the electors clearly out into tho sheep and the goats, putting the saints of orthodoxy and the children of light into one pen, and atheist*, secularists, and Roman Catholics into the other. There is something very comforting to ascertain typo of theological mind in being able to consign one's opponents to the outer darkness of " godlessness and heterodoxy in this sweeping fashion. The odium theologicum is just as striking a reality as Christian charity, and there has unfortunately been more odium than charity in the scorn with which opponents have been misrepresented and maligned by some of the leaders of a, movement which is to bring to the community, with the blessings of peace, good will and a higher standard of life. Some of us certainly slept more soundly in our beds after it had been explained that that terrifying sermon in which the final judgment to be pronounced upon us, " Depart from me, I never knew you," appeared to have been anticipated, was not intended to consign the whole of the opponents of the League's programme to perdition. It was the halfhearted children of light ' and not the thorough-going apostles of darkness at which the Canon aimed his ecclesiastical thunders, and the text had been thoughtfully doctored so as not to scare them too much by the omission of any reference to cursing. We are glad that this generous amendment softens to some extent the painfulness of the duty which compels us to point out to the members <t)f the Methodist Synod at Auckland that they have exposed themselves to the full force of the dread sentence which Canon Garland has been privileged to anticipate. A Methodist Synod is not composed of atheists, secularists, Roman Catholics, or other reprobate or intrinsically objectionable persons. Methodists have surely as good a claim to be placed among the children 'of light as the members of any other Church, and yet the outcome of their deliberations at Auckland is darkness. It is darkness, unfortunately, in more senses than one, for as the debate took place in committee the public is not allowed to know the details, But the official report shows that a thorough-going motion in favour of the Bible-in-Schools League platform, including its political pledge to refrain from supporting any candidate who refuses to vote for the so-called referendum, was debated; and that "after a long discussion the chairman announced that nothing had been done." Those who, by sinning against the light, prevented die Synod from repeating with parrot-like precision the Australian shibboleths of Canon Garland must face his thunders as best they may, but at least they will make many a troubled candidate feel less forlorn. While the Methodists at Auckland are thus imperilling their immortal souls, the autocratic methods of the Bible-in-Schools League go from bad to worse. We are being constantly told that the League represents a great democratic movement, and that to speak of it as a clerical movement is a gross misrepresentation. Yet the League was unable to call a single witness before the Education Committee of the House who wa& not a clergyman, and a more striking testimony to the clerical domination of this democratic party is furnished by its latest and most audacious move. A circular has actually been issued by the Bible-in-SchooLs League to lnMstere of

religion requesting them to pledge themselves — not as individual democrats but as a class — to the support of the League's political programme in its most drastic form. "We, the undersigned ministers of religion, will not vote for any Parliamentary candidate who would deny tho people the right of deciding for themselves the issue submitted by the League." That is the first sentence ot the declaration of faith— the declaration of political faith — which ministers are being asked to sign. 'The issue is," they are asked to say: "SHALL THE PEOPLE BE ALLOWED TO DECIDE on the League's proposal providing for th« Bible and religious teaching in the public schools?" The issue, it is to be noted, is at first honoured with capitals, but they .very properly stop at the -worn "deciSe." It sounds thoroughly democratic to ask that the people should be allowed to decide, but the thoroughness of the democracy disappears when we find that the reference is to be limited to "the League's proposal, which, as everybody knows, puts a leading question, if we may be permitted to say so, ir> a very misleading form. The question proposed by the League is a leading one, because it assumes that there is no alternative to the present system and no practicable method of religious teaching but that proposed by the League. The question is misleading because it fuses two essentially different questions into one and demands a single answer. It is a queer sort of democracy that seeks to cloud the issue in this fashion — not quite as harmless as doves, but certainly as wise a« serpents. "I am sick to death of politicians," says Bishop Julius. So are we, especially of the pulpit politicians who set up to bb so much better than the vulgar herd, yet seem to have mastered some of the worst tricks of the trade without learning them. To Bishop Julius the most objectionable of the politicians are those who, while opposing the League's programme, "make it known all round their constituencies that they are in favour of religious teaching and the referendum." In other words, those politicians are particularly exposed to the naive intolerance ot Bishop Julius who, while equally ready to "trust the people," are not so limited in their trust as to narrow the issue to be submitted in order 10 favour one party. What the League now asks ministers of religion to do is to pledge themselves publicly as such to the support of the whole wt its platform, and ''to invite all members of the League to tollow their example." There are, of course, scores of ministers who will decline this request, and we trust that even, among those who give a general support to tho League, not a few will make a public protest against ihis latest effort of ecclesiastical tyranny.