An Important Decision.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 3, 15 January 1903, Page 1

An Important Decision.

An important decision has just been given by the Supreme Court of Nebraska in a case which was brought in order to test the question of the legality or otherwise of Bible reading in the public schools of the State. The facts in the case are very simple. A teacher in one of the schools was in the habit of opening school every day with the reading of a selected passage from the Protestant Bible, the singing of a hymn, and the recitation of a prayer. Section XI. of article Bof the constitution of the State provides that ' No sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution supported, in whole or in part, by the public funds set apart for educational purposes; ' and one Daniel Freeman, a resident tax-payer and parent in the district, applied to the Court, under this section, for a mandamus to compel the school board to order the discontinuance of the practice.

* The plaintiff's charge against the school board was stated in these terms : That against his protest and in disregard of his objections and in opposition to his demands, the board permitted a teacher employed by them in said school to engage daily in school hours in the public school building, in said district, and in the presence of the pupils,^ in certain religious and sectarian exercises, consisting of the reading of passages of her own selection from a book commonly known as King James' version or translation of the Bible, and in singing certain religious and sectarian songs, and in offering prayer to the Deity according to the custom and usages of the so-called orthodox evangelical churches of this country, and in accordance with the belief and practices of such churches, the pupils joining in the singing of such songs or hymns. The defen-

dants admitted the facts, but denied that The exmises'cor? 1 plained of were sectarian or that they constituted religioue worship. m ™ w *

The suggestion that such exercises did not constitute religious worship was transparently weak, and the defendants failed utterly to substantiate their contention. The teacher herself, who was produced as a witness, frankly admitted that she regarded the exercises as constituting a religious worship, and that she conducted them solely for that reason. The plain common -sense view of the matter was thus tersely stated by the Court : * ' ff r °testant sects who maintain, as a part of their ritual and discipline, stated weekly meetings in which the exercises consist largely of prayers and songs and the reading or repetition of Scriptural passages, would, no doubt, vehemently dissent from the proposition that such exercises are not devotional or not in an exalted degree worshipful, or not intended for religious edification or instruction. That they possess all these features is a fact of such universal and familiar knowledge that the courts will take judicial notice of it without formal proof.'

The Court was equally firm and clear in holding that Bible-reading of the kind complained of was distinctly sectarian in its nature. The grounds of the learned judges' decision are as interesting as they are conclusive. ' That such exercises are also sectarian in their character,' said the Court, 'is not less free from doubt. For more than three centuries it has been the boast and exultation of the Protestants, and a complaint and grievance of the Roman Catholics, that the various translations of the Bible, especially of the New Testament, into the vernacular of different peoples have been the chief controversial weapons of the former, and the principal cause of the undoing of the latter. For making of such translations Wickliffe, Luther, Tyndale, and others have been commended and glorified by one party, and denounced and anathematised by the other ' The several popular versions differ in some particulars from each other, and all differ from the Catholic canon, both in rendition of passages from which sectarian doctrines are derived by construction, and in the number of books or gospels, constituting what is regarded as the written record of divine revelation. In addition to this, there are persons whs are convinced, upon grounds satisfactory to them, that considerable parts of the writings accepted by all Protestant denominations are not authentic, while devout Hebrews maintain that the New Testament itself is not entitled to a place in the true Bible. These diverse opinions have given rise to a great number of religious sects or denominations. To some of these sects the reading in public of any portion of any version of the Scriptures unaccompanied by authoritative comment or explanation, or the reading of it privately by persons not commissioned by the Church to do so, is objectionable and an offence to their religious feelings ; to some, the utterance of public prayer, except recitations from the Scripture, is a vain and wicked act ; and to some, the song 3 and hymns and praise in which others engage are a stumbling block and an offence.' The Court thus formally summed up : « We do not think it wise or necessary to prolong a discussion of what appears to

us an almost self-evident fact, that exercises such as are complained of by the relator in this case, both constitute religious worship and are sectarian in their character within the meaning of the constitution.'

The mandamus was accordingly granted and the religious exercises were ordered to be discontinued. Boiled down, the decision amounts to this, that the use of the Protestant version of the Scriptures in the State schools is distinctly and essentially and beyond all reasonable doubt or question, sectarian. The decision furnished striking confirmation, from very high authority, to the oft-repeated contention of the Catholic body that the various schemes of Bible-reading propounded in this Colony are essentially one-sided and unjust, and that they aie merely a means of introducing a particularly insidious and objectionable form of sectarianism into our Public schools.