GODLESS EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 300, 31 January 1879, Page 11

GODLESS EDUCATION.

To the Editor of the N.Z. Tablet.

Sir,— lt is to be hoped that the election of the new School Committee may have the effect of letting the infidel band, which has hitherto sat upon us like a horrible nightmare, see that they are no longer to play at pleasure the dictator to. a professedly Christian community ; on the other hand it is to be hopad that those who have some respect left for religion mly see the necessity that exists for using to purpose the power they have got. Qur infidel neighbours and half-hearted religionists have heretofore almost wrought themselves into a phrensy over the bigotry, forsooth, ' that lurked i.i every mild, almost apologetic, assertion of Christian right ; but, sir, we have had * taste of what those can do who care nothing for religion and that taste has left a bitterness behind it which years tocome°will not obliterate. The secularists have been permitted to set up Jti'ii- g r° for a time ' and a sony g° d he ba s proved to be. Of this I am sure that, granting the worst that has ever been said about denominationalism, it would be hard now to convince us that it is worse than the moral plague, in the shape of the scholastic system, which has for a moment been imposed upon us in New Zealand. Where there is no fear of God, it appears to me, you may say there no firm principle will bo found ; a wavering, cunnin« disreputable telescoping of the future will take its place, and, as a matter of course, our legislative adventurers are doinoc their best to brin« up the art of balancing themselves on a fence to the dignity of a science. It is surely owing to the moral blindness of the crowd and the indifference of those whose perceptions are clearer that men like the bulk of our representatives get into office. Look, for example, at the Attorney-General even on Monday night last, and say if the exhibition was not painful.. I would not like to say that the office which he fills has had the effect of softening his brain, still the point is worthy of consideration. What a farrago of nonsense he spoke when the Education Act was jeeringly handed down to him for his explanation as to whether women could vote — wives as well as husbands — in virtue of the same estate, and I venture to assert that no man, not presuming on the insanity of his audience, could affirm that husband and wife could vote in virtue of the same property, but the learned^ Attorney's perceptions are so much clearer than other mortals' ; then he can see black where they see white, and vice versa. It may stave off the clear perception of the fatal hour at hand for the Hon. R. Stout not to put forward his name on such an occasion as Monday night presented, but it will not delay it ; his utter disi-p^ard of the religious feelings of this community has been not onl} known, but so thrust in our faces that a Nemesis has sprung into being which will neither be pacified nor deceived. Ido not "know whether the Attorney-General is thinking of taking that "confoundedly sharp curve " or not, but it may be well be asked if, when by way of explanation of the utter secularism of the Bill he said something to the effect that, had it been otherwise, free-thinkers might have applied for the schools for their worship ; it may well be asked I say if this was the moving spring of his conduct—to put the question to any one who knows the gentleman is to answer it. Sir, I could respect consistency even in the devil, but when he begins to come out in garments of light, incipient respect vanishes. The Attorney-General has gone too far to retrace his steps He has read no doubt the story of the boy and the wolf, and some how or other we fancy that we have a moral plague to stamp out, and we'll <&> it.

Sir, it is such men as Mr. Stout that perpetuate the jealousies aud heartburnings that are supposed to exist among Protestants, Catholics, and others, and that too, by the very means they take, if you believe them, to remove all such jealousies ; they would perpetuate peace by the destruction of all solid basis of peace. Perhaps, you would kindly enquire if the Attorney-General has ever, on any occasion said that the best way of counteracting the Roman Catholic influence was for Protestants to nominate their own friends, &c. If such reports go abroad they make us uneasy, when we find denominationalism cursed in one breath and blessjd in another. I hope you will not)cease in your efforts to obtain in education what you demand, for in obtaining it, we will all derive benefit. Were I sure that religion could be taught apart from denominationalism I would be content. This, however, the sectarianism of secularism forbids, and, perhaps, it is well for what part has Christ with Belial. Yours, &c, A Protestant.