THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THE BIBLE. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5279, 20 January 1879, Page 3

THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THE BIBLE. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —I was gratified to read in your leading article that you are riot identified with those who would exclude all Bible-reading from our common schools. I have been surprised at the apparent indifference which has existed among the members of our churches since the recent action of the Legislature on this matter. I have asked myself this question: Is it possible that this Colony was in the first instance founded by a baud of Christian men, whose very faith in the truths of Scripture knit them together in their enterprise, and yet they have allowed the Bible to be quietly wiped out without uttering a protest or raising a voice in any public way until the other evening ? It seems to me they must be considered as very degenerate successors of such men if such is allowed any longer. I have never heard an argument nor read a newspaper article which, in my judgment, has given good solid reasons against allowing the Bible to be read in our schools, with the jsrovision of a conscience clause to meet the case of those who really do object. It is permitted, and even encouraged, among all the schools within the vast area over which the London School Board holds its sway, and is found to give greater satisfaction ; and surely our legislators do not claim an excess of wisdom in such matters over the very foremost men that can be found (as the London School Board is composed of) of the greatest city in the world. It is held by that Board that a child's education is not complete, even in an elementary sense, without some knowledge of the history of a book so interwoven with all the laws and literature of our country, and that parents cannot always be depended upon to afford that instruction. The stock argument of its opponents, though expressed in a variety of ways, is. We do not want any religion or Biblereading in our schools at all. Now, Sir, I hold that man is essentially religious—a religious animal he has been called by some; but it is an indisputable fact, put it which way you will. He always has worshipped, and always will worship, something —either a virtue or a vice. If he is not instructed in Christian morality and religion, he will assuredly learn some religion of the world's manufacture. Well, those who believe in the character-forming principles of the Bible—and most do so —must bestir themselves and show faith in that belief by taking up the matter in a business-like manner. It must be made a. hustiugs question at the next election. The Bible has been publicly abolished from our public schools, and publicly it ought to be reinstalled if the God of the Bible is to be properly honoured in this laud, and the stigma that now lies at the doors of the Christian Churches to be wiped out. —I am, &c,

Thomas Coull.

West Dunedin.