THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1905. A TANGLED AFFAIR

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 14, 6 April 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1905. A TANGLED AFFAIR

HE new political campaign of the Biblc-in-jAa ' Ikl schools League opened rather inauspiciously J&A p 4 in the South — at Dunedin, to wit — on the \aA*\)s Sawbath day. It was continued under •?^*<^yp» -somewhat depressing conditions. Tho hirod AVmi political agitator o! the League was greeted \ &&* in le ma * n ky disconsolate little audiences Y^ of from six to fifty souls, set amidst long perspectives of em}pty benches. To surah scant auditories he unfolded 1 What' he t?hou&ht of church and steeple, And, his little [pJan to prop them up, up. up, And his little plan to pirop them up.' by Hurnftnig the Stelte schools of the Colony into sectarian finfetitiirtions. The noted Father Ilealy, of Little Bray, tells of a clergyman who— moved by a parisji-

loner's aAfrmi'flatioai for his sermon— -asked him : ' Was there an 7 one part of it more than another that seemed to take hold of you ? ' ' Well, now,' said the candid critic, ' Wha.t took hoult of me most was y'r reference's perseiviaranice— the way ye went oivec the same thing agin an' agin an' agin.' And in the new political camipaign of the Bible-in-scbools party, one of the things tjhat have most ' taken a houjt ' on the public fancy is, no dcmbt, the ' persevarance ' with which the paid agent of tihe League repeats, like a chea,p phonogi^ph, the old fallacies, misrepresentations, undue assumptions, and special pleadings of his employers. * Another feature in the campaign that has taken a grip upon the Dublic mind is the shifting counsels and the lines of cleavage that are showing among the stan-dard-bearers of tlhe League. For tihe moment— till the wind Shifts the weathercock to-morrow— the official position seems to be : 'N o religious leading, but s-impJLy Rible-roa<i*ng.' In this matter there has been, .during the past tweEve months, a clamor of conflicting counsels, an)d the studied reticences of the League leaders give a point to our remark that they want something \ery badly, bAit do not know what it is they want. They call for a ' referendum,' while it is really a plebiacite that they desire, and they are unable to state from idiay to day What is the precise point that they wisih to submit to the electors of the Colony. 'It is eminently 'desirable,' says our local morning contemporary, ' that the public should know clearly what lies behina 1 the so-called referendum. It is impossible to say that, so far, the supporters of the introduction of Bible-lessons in the schools have /Siucceeded in s&tdsfyin'g the demands for information as to what they want.' One reverend speaker in Duhedin was, far instance, prepared to ' take the risk ' of 'the thin edge of religious teaching and sectarianism being introduced ' Into o*jr public scfiools. >And the League's paid o>rgani'ser stated that ' there was a chance (if they did not succeed) of the dissatisfied Nonconformists allying themselves wnt'h the Denominationali&ts attid overturning the present system.' Why, the immediate and direct object of the League is to ' overturn the oresent system '—to which they have been officially profes/sirug unbou/ndeM loyalty— by overthrowing one of its three fundamental features. But there is one thing they will not do : they will not sacrifice time or persmal effort or bawbees to do what tihe Denomtoatiojialists (that is, the Catholics) have been for over a generation doing for the children whom the Creator lias committed to tihoir care.