Correspondence.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 16, 16 August 1895, Page 9

Correspondence.

[We are not responsible for the opinions expressed by oar Correspondents.] + THE LATE DR MORAN AND CATHOLIC EDOOATION. TO THE EDITOB OF THE NE"W ZEALAND TABLET. Sis, — The receipt of the pamphlet, the mouth's mind of the late Bishop of Danedin, a sermon preached by Dr Grimes Bishop of Christchurch, has brought to my mind the noble work hia Lordship conferred, not only 00 New Zealand, but also on all the colonies, by hia unflinching attitude on the education question. I honour the kindness shown in sending me the pampbjet. I hope the appeal for justice to Catholic schools, will be continued in its prominent position in the Tablet, until equal justice, and on the same basis as the State schools, is rendered to them, tnd come it will. Let us, therefore, go on, for God is on our side, and victory will be ours. The Catholic Church is right in the position she has taken that the State has usurped a position by infringing the rights of parents who are the sole custodians of their children, and the Church will attend to th*ir spiritual welfare. It is in obedienca to Christ's command, Feed My lambs, and the attitude the Church has taken has won the admiration of Protestants, who begin to see tbat their own sects put up with a systfrn which is making havoc among the flock* Your late revered prelate whose encomiums were pronounctd by Catholics and Protestant?, knew that a really vicious and anti-Chris-tian result was to come of State education. It was loyalty to our Blessed Lord that animated him, and I regard the system with horror, tbat Christian men and womeD, led away by bigotry on the part of statesmen, an equal bigotry on the part of some of the sects, that fair dealing is not allowed to Catholic Bcbcnls for secular results. I write these line 3 thsu, animated by the noble work of the late Bishop, Dr Moran, we may take fresh courage, and, God helping us, we ehull win the day. Our action will be Christian and patriotic ; it will help to mii-imise the awful secularism which is being created by the State School education mania, which is of the devil. Let us, therefore, fight for our Blessed Lord, and we will yet make our enemies ashamed. May continued success attend your paper. The enclosed cutting of an extract of a speech by Lord Salisbury at Bradford, which kindly appeDd, as taken from the Adelaide Southern Cross, puts in a nutshell the claims of Church Bchoolp, Catholic and Protestant.— l am, etc. MBBCATO3. Brighton, South Australia, July 29, 1895 Lord Salisbury recently at Bradford remarks on the extreme importance of the maintenance of liberty in our religious educational system. His Lordßbip claims equal i^hts and equal facilities for the Church of England, Roman Catholic, and Nonconformist. Parents to bring up their children in their own way. Liberty to be maintained as the anchor of our educational system. Lord Salisbury on May 23, after referring to the recent election of the chairman of the meeting, Mr Milthrop, to be chairman of the Bradford School Board, said : " I regard as a matter of extreme importance the maintenance of religious education amoDg all c'asses in this country — (cheers) and, while I do not wish to press upon the conscience of any man, while I desire that all should have an equal right and equal facilities for bringing up their children in their own way, I do earnestly claim for the Church of England the right that the parents who belong to the Church of England should bring up their children in their own way (cheers). I claim the same right for the Roman Catholics ; I claim the same light for the NoLonformis's. What I deprecate above all is the attempt to stamp definite religious teaching ai though it was in itself something absard or disgraceful, or to be avoided. On the con'rary, I lament— as we all must lament— the divided state of CLristendom, and while Ci nstendom is so divided what I urge above all thicgs is that each parent should bring np bis child in his own belief, undiminished and unquestioned, and should not a'tempt the impossible, tbe almost profane task of trying to boil down different beliefs ioto one common profession. Such an attempt can only issue in universal unbelief (cheers). I earnestly welcome the movement of opinion that has taken place in Bradford as an approach to a sounder Btate of things ; and I earnestly press on all who hear me to value in the first instance above all, tint children of all should be brought up to believe in the religion of tbeir parents, and that no action of the State or the school should weigh in the slightest degr eto diminish tha purity and enirety of that religious teaching, but that that liberty should be maintained as the anchor of our educa'ional system, nntil such time — which, unhappily, may be far distant when we can altogether te ch, without substantial difference, that religion which Our Lord has bequeathed to us. The greatest danger which I see in the path of true religious education is an attempt to substitute for it a false, unreal, hollow attempt at compromise between different beliefs, and I earnestly welcome tbe victory of your chairman as an assurance that tbat is not making its way amongst the people of Bradford, (Loud cheers.)