MR BRIGHT'S LECTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1343, 25 August 1877, Page 16

MR BRIGHT'S LECTURE.

The new Athenaeum Hall was well filled on Sunday evening last, when Mr Charles Bright lectured on " Education and Religion." His reading was from a work by George Combe. The conduct of the sectarians, he said, reminded him of the story of the boy who was starving, and was told that he could have food, but he must first say grace. While the sectarians were quarreling over the form of grace which the boy should say, he died. The State made laws for the welfare of the people, and provided punishments for their infraction. The duty to educate the yemth of the country arose out of society itself. It was the duty of parents to educate their children, but it was found that unless the State undertook that duty, the expenditure for gaols, police, and other preventives of the evils arising from ignorance, would be greatly increased. The State, however, cpuld not educate or develop fully the mmd — that was the work of a lifetime. All the State could do was to instruct — to pile up a foundation which could be built upon ; and it remained for priests and parents to erect what religious superstructures they pleased. The State had notinits coffers one farthing of religious money. If the children, while they were taught arithmetic without a creed, were taught to believe that they should do aa they would be done by, and to speak the truth, they wculd not be very badly off. He sympathised a good deal with the Roman Catholics who gave vent to their feelings at the iate meeting. They had a grievance, and a mark would be put upon them, which was undeserved, if the Education Bill passed in its present form. Having treated on the duty of the St&te, he re-

ferred to the higher duty which devolved upon the people, and the 1 higher system of education, based, not upon faithj'but upon scientific truth, which would prevail only when the mind was freed from sectarian influences. He announced that his next lecture would be upon " Sabbatarianism ; or, the Dog in the Manger."