BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15519, 29 January 1914, Page 4

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION.

address under the auspices of the Bible in State Schools League was delivered in St. David's Hall, Khyber Pass, last evening by the Rev. W. Gray Dixon', of Dunedin, and formerly of Auckland. The Rev. W. Ready presided over a good attendance.

Mr. Gray Dixon, in expounding the platform of the Bible in State Schools League, eaid that it was fair, full, factual, and final. It was admitted by many earnest adherents of non-Christian religions, and even by many earnest agnostics, that a person who had not a good knowledge of the Bible was not fully educated. Education could not be separated from religion, as the two were so closely interwoven! All Government and all legislation must have a moral basis, and the close relation of morality to religion made a rational exclusion of religion impossible. There were very few teachers, he said, who would not be willing to give Biblical instruction to the scholars. He denied that this would involve the introduction of sectarianism it would rather tend to break it down. The platform of the league was so liberal that even Roman Catholics could take advantage of it, as they were already doing in many schools in Australia. Rightly or wrongly Christianity was the basis of the morality and civic life of the country, and to deny the children a full knowledge of the facts of the Bible was utterly fatuous. He stated that the system advocated by the league was a great success in Australia, and that there was no reason why it should not be a similar success, if adopted, in New Zealand.