That Text-book

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 36, 7 September 1905, Page 2

That Text-book

Verdi, in his ' Rigioletto,' samg of woman's variable moods. His./ merry ari, a (' La Donna c Mobile ') was a lengthened echo of the couplet that (according to tradition) was traced by the royal hlan-d 'of Francis 1., who was a somewhat luckless King of France in the Reformation days, and was coffined in the same year as his many-wived neighbor, King Hal the Eighth ;— 4 Souvent femme varie ; 'Bien fol est <jui s'y fie.' [(' Woman changes full many a time and oft ; foolish is he that puts his trust in her '). Verdi cruelly likens loively woman to a bit of soft feather-down upon the breeze— the southern emblem of hopeless inconstancy. But never was woman, more tossed about by every wind that, blows jthan are the -thistle-down head's of the Bible-in-lschjolols Lealgue in regewd to the details of their scheme for Protestantising the public schools of New Zealand. On Uhe one lone question of the now notorious text-took they ha\e pretly well 'boxed the compass. Somo time ago they invited the population iof New Zealand to sound the loud tirnhrel o\er that incomparable compilation of ' religious instruction ' which they hajd imported from cver-se>a and docked and pullod and hugged this way and that to suit (as they for the moment thought) the young 1 idea in New Zealand. Ipto a certain point (says the Rev. P. B. Fnaser), synchronising with his public attacks upon it, ' the trumpeting of this, text-bto'dk was unceasing,. A Bill was instantly to place it before the peonle, and it was to be pitchforked right over the heads of Parliament into the schools 1 , ajnd h/eaorhe the established and endowed sectarian religion of the land. Objectors v>ho didn't want it could just leave it— they would not be ''forced" to learn it, though they would be forced to pay for those who did.' Bui that day has gone by. The mo-bile-minded clerics till at lead the movement seem to have wrapped their precious manual in, cot tiqn- wool and Left it to the mercy of motJh and dust upon the shelf. And no wonder. For they know full well that the country does not -wjant it, and that it has. had no honor in the land from which it came— having been relegated to the ruMbiish-heap by the Parliament and people of Victoria. Thus it oomes to pass that "the famous textbook is, for the present at least, kept out of sight and out of minS by the very men in New Zealand who licked It into such fantastic shape. ' And now,' says the PreslbyUeitt'an clergyman already 'quoted, 'the issue for tha country is the " abstract " question of Bible in schools— with the text-book up the sleeve of the oecumenical Council of the Churches with headquarters at Wellington.'

Awd -tarns', like Moore's harp, the cold chain of silence hajmgjsi oven the famous textnbook of . mutilated Bittle-epctracts that was to have rmaide an • aduoational peace ' as deep as the peace of Nirvana to settle upon New, Zealand. Even the paid smallbore politician of t/bo Leagu/e seems unwilling to talk about i-t until his tongue is set a-wagjgtinig by the point of a goad. 'A few days ago, a* L-ovells Flat (Otago) he was pronrojked into putting up some sort of a fight for his employers' 'emasculated caricature; of the BiMe. 1 On his part, however, the combat was what has come- to be called! by a happy euphemism, ' an offensive movement to the rear.' ' Nothing of vital importance,' he pleaded— o,v e r his shoulder, \' was omitted which could vitiate its Christian character.' ' All the salient features of the New Testament,' he urged, as he sprinted along, ' were preserved, land the condensation was done in such a way as not to do any violence to the Scripture narrative.'

The debate that ensued nroceeded somewhat on the lines of the discussion that broke up the society, upon the StapLsdow. But, incidentally., ill was shown (among other things) that Daniel, for instance, was, bo to speak, ' defenestrated ' (or fired out through the window) from ' the Scripture narrative/ ; that Jonah was thrown otvwboard and drowned— the incident of 'tihe ' great fish ' of the inspire*! record baling, possibly, treated as a < snake-yarn ' by the reverend '•' Mgh«r critics ' of the Le a g|ue ; ana that a child would hanre to ft*? six yeaTS at school, taking his daily dose of the Bowtilerised Protestant version of the Bible, before hearing (ot such events 'of vital importance 1 ' as the Creation and the Fall \i, On our own account we migbt add the omission— by no means accidental, we vreen-ot the very remarkable series of texts and incidents which go to esjta>>lish what Catholics call the ' prerogatives ' of St. Peter ; while emphasis is given, by nothing less than, tnple repetition, to his denial of the Lord in the days before he, (being converted, received from the Master the commission to strengthen his brethren and feed the lambs and sheep of the flock of Christ. This and sundry other musty old controversial fallacies are bad enough in their way. But the Wellington clerics have perpetrated a still worse form of ' violence to the Scripture narrative.' They tore out of it and throw over the fence tho grand central fact of the Christian faithihe Virg^n-Birth of the Saviour of the world. This (says the Presbyterian professor, Rev. Dr. Rentoul) .'is a wanton and a deadly wrong, to Vhe bona fides of the story and to -tine central faith of the Protestant' Churches themselves.' The idea of mutilating the inspired record of the Incarnation in this disgraceful way must have come from a place a long way ofl from heaven. The Victoria Commission rejected it 'because (as it turns oiut) some of the clergy, composing it do not believe in the Virgin-Birth and Dnmity of Christ. History has a trick of repeating itself. Over fifty ye a rs agp Archbishop Wfhately endeavored to force upon the National SaWs of IrelaJnd Ms ' 'BvkSences of Christianity '-« ibjook that is chiefly remarkable for conbainmg not so; much as the shadow of a reference to the Divinity of Christ. Foiled in this, and in his. vuriws other attempts to use the public schools of Ireland ' as an instrument of conversion, 1 he retired in dudgeon from his place an the National Board..