THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1905. THE 'POSSIBLE' AND THE 'IMPOSSIBLE'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 40, 7 December 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1905. THE 'POSSIBLE' AND THE 'IMPOSSIBLE'

4 PRESBYTERIAN writer, who wields a facile pen, has been confiding to the ' Outlook ' his impressions of the recent General Assembly in Auckland. Among other things, he slated that his Church was exhausting its sticngth 'in getting itself and keeping itself unanimous ' on the Bible-in-schools question, and that its year's record in this direction had been barren of serious work. Whereupon our esteemed contemporary politely calls the writer to order. ' The year's work,' it declares, 'is exceptionally good ; the League has distributed literature all over the Colony, and has raised between £500 and £600 for the payment of its agent, thus bestirring itself in every possible way.' Our friend the ' Outlook ' has been unconsciously imitating the Hamlet in Mr. Vincent Crummles's troupe,

who kept thrusting his sword everywhere through the threadbare curtain except where Polonius's legs were plainly visible. It has placed its pointer upon the literature distributed by the League, and upon the funds raised to feather a cosy nest for the paid political agent of that organisation. But it avoided— after the fashion of Mr. Crummles's barn-storming Prince of Denmarkall mentien of the very duty which should be first in the eye of an organisation that professes to^ interest itself in bringing the truths and duties of religion home to the minds and hearts of the children in the schools. Of this elementary duty of the Christian ministiy there is no whisper, not a breath. It forms no part of the ' exceptionally good work ' done during the past year by the League. We may well ask, with the Melbourne 1 Argus ' : What is the real end for which the organisation is working ? 'Is it not to encourage Biblical studies among school-children ? And cannot this be done without resorting to political agitation ? Is it absolutely necessary to ask the intervention of the State, which is not a denominational body ? ' Catholics have not done so, where it is a question of imparting religious knowledge to the children of their faith. Why should Presbyterians, with their rich endowments and their bulging money-bags, plead in forma pauperis to have the neglected spiritual work of their Church done by public officials • at the. public expense? • The ' Outlook's ' estimate of what constitutes an 4 exceptionally good ' record of Bible-in-schools ' work ' resolves itself into mere electioneering. And this it declares to be the only sort of ' work ' which it was ' possible ' for the League to do. All else is therefore, by necessary inference, pronounced impossible. A similar plea was once pressed upon Mirabcau by his secretary. 'Impossible ! ' exclaimed' the great revolutionary orafor, ' ne me dites jamais cc bete de mot ! '— ' Never name to me that blockhead of a word ! ' 'It is not a lucky word,' says Carlyle in his ' Chartism,' ' this same " impossible " : no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth. Who is he that says always, There is a lion in the way ? Sluggard ! thou must slay the lion, then ; the way has to be travelled.' If it was ' possible ' for the League to ' distribute literature all over the Colony ' to the free and independent ' electors, was it not also ' possible ' for them to circulate wholesome religious publications among the little budding men and maids of their various faiths in schools and homes throughout the length and breadth of the land ? It was admittedly ' possible ' for them to ' raise between £500 and £000 ' to provide a comfortable position for their salaried electioneering agent. Was it not ' possible ' ior them to raise a few hundreds— or, for that matter, a few tens of thousands— of minted sovereigns to establish an organisation of paid and volunteer teachers, to carry the influences of religion not only into the schools, but into the homes, wherever the little adherents of their creeds arc gathered, from the North Cape to Stewart Island ? And in such a scheme, could not the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, with its fat endowments and all the pilcd-up wealth that lies within its fold, take a leading and honored part ? Catholics would greet such a movement with a ' Mactc, i fausto pedc '—a right hearty Godspeed. Can the Presbyterian Church, with all its broad acres and rich emoluments, devise no method of religious instruction for its children without filching coins from the unwilling pockets of Catholics and other dissidents to meet the expenses of the process 9 And have the Bible-in-schools leaders no shorter cut to the souls of the school-children than through the e\ il-smclling 1 quag mire of political agitation ? Or will our friend the ' Outlook ' maintain that what Catholics — fourteen pci cent, of the population— have been doing for the children for the past twenty-eight years, is ' impossible ' for the Bible-in-schools League, which claims to represent eighty per cent, of the population ?

The whole matter just resolves itself into this : that where there's a will there's a way ; where there's zeal there's sacrifice ; where there's strong conviction, it will quite naturally blossom into action and bear fruit in works. In this matter of Christian education, our friends and critics of the General Assembly have severed the connection between feeling and action. While we Catholics are up and doing, they are content to play the part of the foolish yokel who sat upon the riverbank and waited for the waters to flow away, so that he might cross to the further side. 'Do the duty which lies* nearest thee,' says Carlyle ; 'thy second duty will then become clearer to thee.' When the Assembly and Bible-in-schools League have done this, and performed more direct and strenuous work for the souls of the school-children than mere electioneering, then, and not till then, will the country begin to take them seriously. The words of a noted New York Baptist divine apply with special force to New Zealand : 'If Protestant Churches were as interested in the education of their children as the Catholic Church is, there would be no religious problem in our country.'