RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CONSISTENCY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 304, 14 February 1879, Page 17

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CONSISTENCY.

To the Editor of the N.Z. Tablet. Sir, — Our Roman Catholic fellow citizens aredeservingof great credit for the consistent stand which they have taken from the beginning on this subject and also for the persistency with which they have sought to^eaijse their aim. The helpless condition in which the Protestant proffcsing religious community finds itself in the matter of education is a lesson which ought not soon to be forgotten. It is cause for deep humiliation that as a people professing a supreme regard for the authority of God and the supremacy of a conscience enlightened by spiritual truth, we have yet, through division and false ideas of that wherein true liberty consist, bowed down our heads in t"ic dust and allowed the unclean foot of secularism to be placed upon our necks, a secularism that fears not God nor yet regards any duty which is due to man. It is the naked truth and it may not be denied that this professing Christian community has not had the courage of its opinions ; it has been browbeaten with the idea that one man's opinion is as "ood as another until this strange result has been brought about, viz :— that the godless minority, unscrupulous as such a minority always is, rule with an iron hand. You must not suppose that this strange state of things has resulted without protest ; by no means, but those who saw what was coming received no sympathy from those who affected to rule in the Church. There arc those among us who put themselves forward as oracles and who yet care for little else than to please the crowd, and if a course of action would only bring them a little ephemeral popularity, they would follow it even if the result should be the ruin of the unfortunate church with which they are connected. I hey will hold out their hand and even open their door to any godless charlatan that comes hither to blaspheme. It is a small matter to them that a Peebles and Dunne, a Walker and a Bright, are attracted thither to decry, in hope of gain, a religion which they have too little soul to understand. If such adventurers can only gain the ear of a thoughtless mob, some of our would-be leaders will be on "ood terms with them. We have, you see, got far a-head of St. John who says that such are not to be received even into our houses. They will also encourage and support such men as the Attorney-General, who from the lofty height of his agnosticism, some say egotism, looks down upon them with the complaisant feelings with which it is said the wolf regards the sheep. I am afraid that some of our so-called leaders will seek bofore the next election to tone down the feeling of deep indignation and disgust which is at present felt for the Attorney -General, if they should do so they will deserve to share with him a common ruin. There is a limit to forbearance, and I think, in this instance, our representative has gone beyond that limit. Had any one in the interests of religion acted so unscrupulously as he has done against religion there would have been a cry raised against him throughout the whole countiy Mr. Stout, feeling secure in his own want of religion, comes here, and in the very face of the Presbyterian Church has the audacity to repeat the untrue statement, to wit, that he is doing as that Church desires, and when that statement gets the lie direct he has not the manliness to say he was mistaken. I suppose this is what he meant the other night when presidium where no noble-minded Attorney-General would be seen he whined over the impossibility of a man being allowed freely to say what he thought. We know, Sir, this gentleman is supra grammutieam but it is quite another thing if he should seriously claim to be also supra vcrltatctn. But, Sir, supposing he did not refer to bein°- taken to task for unblushingly asserting that Mr. Bannerman said what he did not say, and supposing he meant that in Dunedin there was no liberty of speech, was this true ? and did it become him to say so 1 Is there no liberty of speech in the anti-Christian nonsense talked during the last twelve months in the Princess Theatre by this gentleman's friend > Is there no liberty for secularists, seeing that obscene books— declared to be obscene by the judges of England— published by leading free thinkers, are sold in this city without hindrance .' Is there no room for a man to hold his opinions in this place scein"- that the paper over which this hon. gentleman rejoices as quondam editor is a repertory of writing against ourcommon Christianity 1 And finally, looking at the position which Mr. Stout so frequently occupies as speaker at every meeting of vagarydom, it is a little too much to say that there is no liberty of opinion, unless he wishes an unrestricted to blaspheme. I confess, Sir, that I know of no degradation deeper than that to which as a professing Christian community we have sunk in supporting a representative that is out of all sympathy with us on the most important of all subjects, and if we suffer such a state of matters to continue we deserve the scorn and the misery which we are likely to experience. If not for our own sakes then at least for our children's we should be true to our better feelings and rid ourselves of an incubus. — I am, &c, ° A Protestant.