A Merited Defeat

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 36, 7 September 1905, Page 1

A Merited Defeat

According to the ' New York Herald's ' Chicago correspondent, a certain woman in Porlcopolis- — one Mrs. Warfren WilLiams—wa s recently leaning up against the. gates' of 'd'aath. Her malady was a complication of

rtyphoiid fever and blood-poisoning,. It seemed that the gates would soon swing open and let her spirit pass beyond the great barrier that the footsteps of all of us must one day cross. But (so runneth the report) a timely flash of lightning struck her hou^e, set the sick-room on fire, and (by some unknown electric alchemy) restored the patient to the health that not a drug in nil the pharmacopeia rould have given h€>r. An analogous effect may be produced upon the Bible-in-sohtools loaders m Victoria by the heavy shock of censure that was passed upon tihom by the State Legislature of Victoria within the pas,t two weeks. It may cure them of their ready resort to intimidating methods of electioneering, and induce them to consider some means less unworthy of 'the cloth' for shaking salt upon the Parliamentary tail. The moans adopted by them to ' persuade ' Members contributed largely to produce the tleaJdly majority— forty-five to six— which pole-axed the Scripture Instruction in State Schools Bill introiducod on their behalf by Mr. Watt. Is it not hiftHi time for our parson-politicians both m Australia and New Zealand to cease for a time the application of the knofoikorry to the Parliamentary pate, and turn— for a change— to their long-neglected duty of instructing unto justice the little ones of their respective flocks ?