BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS.

Southland Times, Issue 22132, 28 September 1933, Page 9

BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS.

To the Editor.

Sir,—Not now, nor at any other time, will I answer any questions, or enter into any debate with your correspondent, Frank Sampson. He may vilify and misrepresent to his heart’s content; I shall not reply. But, lest any of your readers should erroneously conclude that because I, or the Ministers’ Association, do not reply to this correspondent, there is no reply; and in order that they may see just how much reliance may be placed upon his characteristic distortions, misrepresentations, and innuendos, may I be permitted to say—not to him, but to your readers—this much:— (1) That the courageous and admirable resolution passed by the Southland Presbytery on the motion of Rev. Mackintosh Carter, calling attention to the dangers of modernism, so lauded by youi* correspondent in his letter this morning, was in actual fact drafted and written by me! The Clerk of the Presbytery, or Rev. Mackintosh Carter himself, will verify this fact. So much for the accuracy of your correspondent as to what happens in Presbytery or anywhere else; and so much for2his oftrepeated charges of “modernism”— whatever he means by that. The fact is, he condemns me out-and-out, and praises Mr Mackintosh Carter’s motion to the skies, only to find, poor silly man, that not Mr Carter, but I, drafted and wrote the motion that so delights him! (2) Your correspondent further says: “The president of the Southland Bible-in-Schools Committee (the Rev. C. J. Tocker) has expressed the sentiments «f the Bible-in-Schocls’ League recently in Dunedin in an extremely illogical address, seeking, like a demagogue, to arouse popular antipathy to the present system of secular education.” The facts are that never at any time have I delivered any address on the Bible-in-Schools question in Dunedin!

(3) He further repeats a statement which he alleges to be mine, about *High Schools opening with religious Instruction.’ Not in Dunedin, nor anywhere else, have I ever made such a foolish and ignorant statement. I have frequently referred, and will do so again, to the fact that our High Schools throughout the land open with religious ‘exercises,’ to their very great advantage; and that none of the dire results feared by opponents of the Bible-in-Schools League are found to arise! And I go on to ask why what is legal in the High Schools should be illegal, and fraught with such fearful peril, if introduced into the primary schools” But I can get no answer. Nor can any answer be given. But that is not my point just now: my point is that Frank Sampson’s statement as to what I am alleged to have said about ‘opening High Schools with religious instruction,’ has as much foundation in it as his other remarks about the mythical address I am supposed to have delivered in Dunedin! That is, it has no foundation at all.

(4) The final point to which I would refer your readers is the subtly veiled suggestion regarding the Synod: “It is interesting,” he writes, “to learn that the Otago branch of the Council of Religious Education unsuccessfully applied to the Presbyterian Synod of Otago and Southland for a grant of £2OO to inaugurate the Nelson system in the State Schools of Otago and Southland.”

Why is it interesting? This is a typical example of your correspondent’s method. He subtly insinuates that the Synod was unfavourable. The facts are that the Synod was wholly sympathetic and favourable; but it has no funds from which a grant could legally be made. If faced with the innuendo your correspondent is able to reply that he said no such thing. He has left a way of retreat. But the hint is there —It is for the sake of the hint that the statement is made at all—and it is false first and last. Such have been his methods all through. In none of his innumerable and tedious letters could the fact, as it actually occurred, possibly be found.

I write this letter with reluctance, and I repeat that not now, nor at any other time, will I bandy words with this correspondent. But it is time that your readers should knovz how little reliance can be placed upon anything that that correspondent thinks or writes. He may, or may not, mean well: it is, indeed, hard to say: the point is that he is utterly unable to See things as they are; everything that passes through his mind becomes twisted and distorted in the process. He may be sincere, but he is an utterly unsafe reporter and guide. Your readers should further be shown, as I have shown above, how far beneath all respect are the methods this correspondent habitually uses in his propaganda. His real aim is to launch a Bill of his own.—l am, etc., CECIL J. TOCKER. St. Paul’s Manse, September 26, 1933.