Bible-in-Schools

New Zealand Tablet, 25 October 1906, Page 10

Bible-in-Schools

Some laughing philosopher has said that mon live to a ' ripe ' age by - keeping * green \ ; Which is a ' wisdom ' masquerading in the .hide of a -'bull'. The Bible-in-schools organisation in Queensland fancied that the local State Parliament was composed of representatives who were of the ever-green or"^©ver-green variety that (according to the laugh-and-grow-fat philosophy X might hope to blossom into centenarians. So the League leaders said things that were childlike arid bland about ' our common Christianity ', and ' fundamentals ', and • unsectarian ' and" ' undenominational ' teaching, and ' simple Biblical instruction ', and so on. It was the same old tune that was played on the political hurdy-gurdy in ISiew Zealand till the • public wearied of it, * ' And silence, like a poultice, came - To heai the blows of sound '. In Queensland the sharp notes of the Bible-in-schools tune had not stung the atmosphere to the same extent as here. And the legislators up there are"- not quite so green as not to know a hawk from a handsaw. So when a Biblc-in-schools Referendum Bill- was introduced,* they defeated it solidly.

Now, whether in Queensland or in New Zealand, such defeats are not customarily taken with stoical resignation or "the serene repose ' which stamps the caste^ of Vere de Vere '. The defeat had to be accounted for— for, of cour-se, no team and no cause have ever yet been beaten on "their merits. A scapegoat had likewise to be found. So— although the hostile nonCatholic vote in the House^ sufficed by itself alone to kill the measure— it was discovered, by some trick _of padded-rcell mathematics, that the disaster was really caused by the ' members of the Roman Catholic Ohurch '. So the ' members of the Roman Catholic * Church ' are being rib-roasted by the leaders of the League for the high crime of having voted as their conscience, . common-sense, and political insight dictated— and, as it happened, with the non-Catholic majority. The" Queensland public are . thus being entertained with a repetition of the experiences of the First Charles' whipping-boy, who had to bear frequent drubbings for acts committed by the young princes, whose skins were ' tapu ' or sacrosanct. Artaxerxes got somewhat nearer his blue-blood culprits than did the First Charles or the Queensland Bible-hi-schools League : he had offending nobles .disrobed and their clothes soundly whipped. Whiph shows that the gorgeous old-time barbarian had a keener sense of justice than some twen-tieth-century ministers of the Lord up in Queensland.