THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11801, 2 November 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1901.

The reunion of the Presbyterian Churches in Nev? Zealand, formally completed at Dunedin, is an event which has the keenest sympathies of all Protestant bodies. For beneath the various differences which separate into distinct churches the followers of "Wycliffe and of Luther, of Calvin, of Knox and of Wesley, there is a broad and stable basis of common doctrine, common thought and common conception. Nor have any of the Protestant Churches more fully deserved and more freely reoeived the gratitude and respect of kindred organisations than the one which grew up in North Britain and has been transplanted and acclimatised into every land whereto the Scottish people have spread. The Lutheran Churches of Germany and Scftndinavia and the Low Countries, the Episcopalian Church of England, the Free Churches of America, have each and all played great parts in the history of their respective countries. But there has been no Protestant country in which the national church has played a more heroic part or wielded a more powerful influence for good than the Presbyterian organisation has in Scotland. The stern and devoted spirit of its apostle has inspired it to identify itself closely with those great conceptions of civil and religious freedom from which have evolved the broad and tolerant society of to-day. To Knox, vice in high places was the same as vice in the lowest, the Bible was to be read by the poorest as by the richest, was to be understood by the humble peasant in his cot as by the cultured minister in the manse; to him, the school was the inevitable corollary of the church ; the faith he held was to be made indestructible by being buried in the innermost heart of the nation. How well he succeeded the history of subsequent generations proved ! In the black years of the Stuart reaction, when the blood of Russell stained the scaffold, and the shadow of national dishonour lay over England like a funeral pall, it was the peasant Covenanters of Scotland who kept alive the sacred fire of religious liberty and supplied to Episcopalian England itself the inspiration to final and decisive revolt. From that day to this Scotland has been the wonder and admiration of richer and more genial lands, has been foremost irf light and learning, foremost in many great liberal movements, and foremost in spurning from her those false and pretentious liberalisms that would destroy the Empire to which she is proud to j belong. I

In Otago we have had the Presbyterianism of the old school, & creed which if it has not won the love of outsiders has commonly commanded their respect. We get an inkling of the narrower Otago spirit in the" present conservation of their local church endowments, made in the original settlement days, to the sole users of the local churches. What the Southerner once grasps he holds., whether it be railways or church funds. It is in one sense a ■weakness, but a weakness which on occasion transforms itself into an amazing strength. Of this, we have an instance in the history of this very Otago Church, which came from the loins of that magnificent Free Church movement that is now pointed to with pride by Scotchmen of every degree. The doctrinal difference which caused that great secession is lost in the broader spirit of this new century, but the courage and the devotion which made it possible is not lost, and can never be. We know the Otago grip, the Otago determination to hold its own —and more if possible. But we also know that the Otago pioneers had left the great endowments of the national Church of Scotland and stepped out penniless to found a new church in which what they considered the Truth would be adhered to. It was a proud day for Scotland, a hopeful sign for all earnest men throughout the world, when thousands of ministers left their houses and their assured livelihood, when hundreds of thousands of communicants left the churches which had been as their own, and commenced the hard and costly task of organising another great Church and to provide anew all necessary buildings and all necessary funds. It is the memory of this that saves Otago in the Presbyterian mind from any misconception as to her financial attitude. Nobody doubts that Otago would freely surrender every advantage which is hers if surrender appealed tb her conscience. But the Free Kirk conscience is not readily stirred. It moves as slowly as it moves resistlessly on great occasion.

The effect of this Presbyterian reunion, of this healing at the antipodes of the famous schism of the North, must necessarily invigora the Church and increase its in fluence. We have no fear that this influence will be exerted in any manner that is detrimental to the common weal, for the public opinion of the community is distinctly against any undue interference in politics of religious organisations and only tolerates such interference when good and sufficient reason is shown. This opinion was clearly set forth by the first Moderator of the United Church. Our report state 3 that his mention of "the Bible in the schools" drew hearty applause. Whatever we may think of the advisability of abandoning iho middle plank of the famous "free, secular and compulsory" platform, it cannot be questioned that the church organisations aro clearly within their jurisdiction in advocating such a change, so long as they do so with charitable regard for the unquestionable right to freedom of conscience of every individual in the community. It has become evident that a very strong feeling exists in all our great Protestant churches in favour of some form of religious instruction in the schools and that the matter will soon be forced to the front. It is sincerely to be hoped that we shall be able to discuss this important and much-debated question ■without bitterness and that, whatever the issue, the settlement will leave no rankling feelings behind it.