THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

Evening Star, Issue 11997, 21 September 1903, Page 7

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

DR GIBB REPLIES TO THE PREMIER.

[Fatal Oub PabliakestjUßt Rsfobtsb.]

_ WELLINGTON, September,2L Replying to the Premiers taunt in the House that the clergy had . not done their duty in regard to Bible-teaching in schools, the Rev. Dr Gibb, in a letter to the ‘ Post,’ says" Does the Premier mean by joining in tips absurd cry that the dergy ax© unwilling to take advantage of. the inestimable privileges offered them under the present Act—namely, of teaching the truths of religion to the children after school hours? Surely Mr Seddon is too astute a judge erf human nature not to know that it is a sheer impossibility for the.dergy to get children to remain after the fixed weak of the day is over.- The children will not remain, and Ido not blame them. One remembers too well the pleasant sound of the bell announcing the dose of the day’s work to do anything but sympathise with the reluctance of young folk to stay for a minute longer than is compulsory, I have myself teed this business of conducting a Bible - dare after school hours, and unhesitatingly pronounce it to be little better than a faron Whatever the solution of the problem may be, it is not to be found in the privileges ai present extended to ministers of religion. Of coarse, it is well known to the man in the street that the dergy are idle and have nert to nothing to do; they have no cnfhi on their time and live a life of luxurious sloth. Like Jeshurun, they have waxed fat, and kick at tire mercies offered thorn bva benevolent Government! Let it stand at but let it also be admitted that the bread the Government offer is really a stone, and that the clergy, even if as industrious as politicians, could not do the- work assigned them under existing conditions. As I read your statement of toe Premier’s arraignment tlle dergy, I thought of Shakespeare’s lines: ‘The times have been that when the brains were out the man would die, and there an end..’ The brains were out of this cry about the dery and schools years and years ago; but here it is once more, alive and lusty, and fathered by the Prime Minister of New Zealand.”