The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 16, 15 April 1908, Page 6

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

MrtflEßE has been quite an interest,” I begali the eynie, “shown by the I Labour party in trying to get. B Mr. Justice Sim removed from the Arbitration Court. Seeing that one or two decisions lately have gone against the unions, it seems a very lit and proper thing that they should adopt the short and easy method of endeavouring to get a new judge who will be more sympathetic. In this connection, 1 think there is a great opening for an ambitious Labour agitator to form a criminals’ union. The hardships endured bv these good people could be most eloquently enlarged upon by street corner orators, and their many woes would furnish excellent material for Socialistic denunciation against private property and capital. If there was no private* ownership of anything there would be no theft or forgery dr embezzlement. Thieves are merely people who endeavour to redress in a practical way the inequalities of the present distribution of wealth. " Such a union as I propose might become a great force towards the establishment of the nationalisation of propei'tv, and any judge who ruthlessly endeavoured to interfere with so laudable an object could be summarily deposed at the bidding of the union. If many modern writers and speakers are right in their contention that all capitalists are thieves and robbers, then any judge who does not' do his utmost to suppress these robbers should be deemed unfit for his post, and make way for a more advanced thinker. The worthy editor of the "Clarion” considers religion the greatest . obstacle to the realisation of the Socialistic dream. Certainly the. ten commandments must, be rather inconvenient. Hut we have made a great step forward in abolishing all sm h old-world ideas from our system of national education, we shall make a still greater step when we banish the commandments from our law courts also.” © © © “It seems silly," remarked the lawyer, “to do away with all Bible teaching in our schools and to retain the ceremony of kissing the Book in our courts of law. The witness is asked to show ri veience for a volume of which he knows nothing. It -would lie better to make him kiss the sixth standard arithmetic. since the state has so clearly shown that it considers this as of more importance, or lie might take the oath on a bourn! volume of the “School Journal." 1 believe there has already been a good drill of hard swearing over this lust production already, so the witness would feel quite at home. You know, speaking seriously, it is a little absurd for the Bible to be banished from our schools, and retained in our courts of law How van people realise the meaning and serious nature of an oath taken in Hod's pri-ern e on God's hook if they have never been, taught anything -of cither? As a lawyer. I cannot help being truck with the enormous increaso ot perjury, and with the light-hearted way in whi'-li the rising generation look on crime. 1 believe things are rupidly becoming worse. Dishonesty is frequently spoken of with almost floppant approval. Surely, someth lug more is wanted from our educa-

tional system than that the pupils should be able to parse the word “but” in seven different ways, and know that Lough Neagh has a surface of 150 square miles. A State is built up on the character of its inhabitants rather than on their knowledge of more or less useless facts, justr as success in life is more often due to character than to learning. The whole system of free education is stultified unless it succeeds in turning out good citizens. But I feel I x.n trespassing on your preserves, padre, in dealing with this matter.”

“Not at all,” answered the parson thus appealed to for an opinion. "It is very refreshing to hear so celebrated and successful an advocate in our criminal courts deploring the prevalence of erime. As a person interested in education, I

must say that I fail to see how anybody can claim to be educated if he i Ignorant of the history of Christianity. For Christianity has been for nearly two thousand years the greatest force in moulding the thoughts and the actions of the most highly civilised races of mankind, and the authorised version of the Bible has never been approached as a model of pure, nervous, vigorous English. Nearly, the whole of English literature would be a sealed book to anyone wholly ignorant of the Bible. No amount of grammar and analysis and knowledge of the heights of mountains and length of rivers can train the mind

and educate the taste like a knowledge of, say, the Book of Isaiah. In spite of “extensions and completions of the predicate” and all the rest of the grammatical jirgrn we cram down the pupils’ throats, the fact remains that the majority of our children both write and speak most execrable English. The tendency of the day is towards making a knowledge of the Bible the exclusive privilege of the upper classes, like a knowledge of Greek and Latin. I have heard dozens of parents complain that they can’t afford to send their children to schools where they give religious education. It is also clearly the duty of the State to form character as far as it can, and character must be ultimately based on religion. But I am not at all sure that it is desirable for the State to attempt more than this.. Religious training is essentially a thing for the parents, and for the home. I believe half of our juvenile crime is due to parental neglect. Parents think the State should do everything. If the rearing of infants is a trouble, they propose State nurseries; if education involves sacrifice, they propose free schools, and free books: if children grow up wild and wilful. they propose State homes. The whole cry is to do away with individual responsibility. If the Bishop's remark that we are rapidly liecoining pagans is true, the fault lies with the parents rather than with the with the men and women who neglect their first duty towards their children.” © © © “My own idea,” said a country member, “is that people in the country are a good deni less pagan than people in the towns. Jake the district from which I

come. Our total population is about 150, and we, frequently have more than half our people at our services, which we hold each Sunday afternoon in the schoolroom. Nearly all our children go to Sunday school. I have frequently known people in the country ride ten or fifteen miles in’all weathers to attend a service; while town people stay at home if it merely threatens to rain. I admit that in many places there are few opportunities for either Church services or Sunday school, but our settlers always take advantage of any opportunities that do arise. All history, teaches us that the countryman is always far more religious than the dweller in cities. The tiller of the soil, like the man who ploughs the furrows of the sea, realises his dependence on God. But I think the Bishop is right in his contention, that country districts are in danger of being neglected by the Church. They are of far greater importance really than many of our town parishes.”

“My dear padre,” put in the cynic, “I feel that I am perhaps going to offend you, but all the same I would like to proffer one remark. You people are all agog to get a town parish. You speak of a city living as promotion, you refer with pity to a country pastor as one who is buried away in the bush. You probably prefer being a shepherd of a town floek because your sheep are likely to have more wool. Now, believe me, this should not be so. It ought to be a far greater honour for a man to be called to minister in Galilee than in Jerusalem. Almost any duffer can preach to a city congregation or organise a city parish; but in the country you have to know your people. You want the highest culture and the greatest possible tact and sympathy. If you succeed in -your work you win what is best worth winning—the gratitude and love of honest, unspoilt hearts. You will have no mass of statistics, or guilds, or unions, or well attended meetings to witness to your success. Your clerical brethren will speak of you as a failure, and you will not loom large in the parish notes of that quasi-humorous publication, the Church Gazette. But you will be doing more to save the colony by ministering to the country folk, who are the backbone of

our nation, than you could ever do by work that can be measured by statistics. Wasn’t it David who got punished for numbering the people ? You * Church folk don't always seem to take to heart the moral of this incident.” © © © “I quite agree with you,” replied the padre. “I am afraid we do neglect our scattered districts too much, and I feel that there is nothing more important than doing all we can for these hardy settlers in our back-blocks. The tendency everywhere, in politics as well as in education and religion, is to exalt the town at the expense of teh country, and it is quite time this state of affairs was remedied. The Jieresy of numbers afflicts al) sides of life.”