A Quack Remedy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 16, 20 April 1905, Page 2

A Quack Remedy

Longfellow tells how a quack once invited him to Yftite a 'verse for the label of a ' marvellous drug.' The poet's fee was to be the free use of the medicine for himself and hip family for an unspecified period. 'Which, by the way, reminds us of an advertisement that was inserted, in all seriousness, in the London ' Tunes ' in 1895 : ' Any person whp can show that my tapioca contains anything injurious to health, will have three boxes of it sent to him free of charge.' It is s<aid to be on record that a medical charlatan omce actually took a dose of his own bolus. The black-coated enthusiasts of the Bible-in-schools League do not, however, manifest m/uch willingness to swallow their own political nostrum. They gaily and vociferously prescribe for State school teachers of every creed and no-creed a round of extra toil and trouble whicih tuey themselves are too indolent to undertake, although it is one of the primary obligations of the Christian ministry. We refer, of course, to the sacred duty of the religious instruction of children, which the Bible-in-schools clergy have, perhaps, more than all others, so flagrantly neglected in this Colony. Their itinerant paid politician is still perambulating the country, lecturing to disconsolately small audiences, and endeavoring to enlist the votes of a generally sarcastic and unsympathetic public to compel the Government to assume the white 'choker,' turn parson, and teach a battered and wobbly Unitariscience of a single subject.' •

One of the latest freak contentions advanced on behalf of the League is this : that Catholics are, in this matter, playing the part of opportunists ' The author of this fine ' break ' is the Rev. Mr. Gray ; the scene of its announcement, a thin and chilly meeting of the Leiague held in Christchurch during the past week, amidst a monotonous wiaste of empty benches. Donald Dun O/'Byrne cut a notch in his ponderous ashen flail for every Hessian he sent to his account in the dark and evil days of '98. And the ' Lyttelton Times ' can. place a fresh sciore an its tally-stick for the neatness and aplomjb with which it dynamited the fatuous contention of the Rev. Mr. Gray. ' The Roman Catholics,' says our Christfchurch contemporary, ' were desciibetl as opportunists;, and Mr. Gray declared that they were advancing the secular condition of the primary schools as an argument for denominational grants. The truth is, of course, that if the Roman Catholics were really opportunists they would encourage the League's agitation, in the sure and certain hope that the introduction of Bible lessons in the public schools would gi\e them, as conscientious oibjectors, a strong mc'ral claim for State assistance for their own schools.' ' But,' adds our Canterbury contemporary, ' whatever aspect of the question we consider, we get back to the original assumption on which the whole Bible-in-schools movement is basqd : that it is the function of the State to teach religion, and that the primary schools are suitable places Cor this instruction. . . The men and women who oppose the Bible-in-schools movement are not Agnostics, ml they are not opposed to Bible teaching. Most of them — the overwhelming majority — reverence the Bible to the full. Some of them are honestly afraid that religious teaching would introduce sectarian bitterness and would seriously impair the efficiency of the system ; many more believe earnestly that their children should not he instructed in spiritual matters by men and women who Wave graduated only in language, literature, and science. But all found their objections on the principle that the State shouM not lift a little finger to oftoxl the consc ence of a single subject.'