THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS CONTROVERSY

New Zealand Tablet, 8 May 1913, Page 22

THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS CONTROVERSY

A QUESTION NIGHT ’ AT HAMILTON BISHOP CLEARY TAKES A HAND r. 'A public lecture in favor of the Bible-in-Schools movement was given in Hamilton on April 29 by Rev. A. Miller, a prominent official of the Auckland League. It was announced that answers to questions would be a feature of the meeting. The double combination of a public meeting with answers to free questioning was an unusual feature in the League’s propaganda. The Right Rev. Dr. Cleary attended, on very short notice, at the special request of Dean Darby and representative parishioners. By an awkward coincidence, the meeting was held on Auckland’s ‘ Dreadnought day,’ and the Bishop had to cancel certain public and private engagements in order to be - present. At the close of a temperately worded lecture by the Rev.- Mr. Miller, the Bishop, with the chairman’s permission, briefly stated the attitude of -Catholics to the secular system, their desire to see the children in the public schools receive Biblical and religious instruction, their sympathy with the League’s aims up to a certain point, and the chief grounds of their objections, for reasons of religion and conscience, to the League’s proposals. These objections involved clear, practical' issues of moral right or moral wrong for legislators, voters, parents, teachers, and pupils. In illustration of this the Bishop put a lengthy series of questions affecting in a practical way the morality of the proposed coercion of conscientiously objecting teachers, taxpayers, etc. In every case, without exception, the practicalmoral issue was evaded. The questioner time after time called attention to this fact and several times pressed, but in vain, for a statement of the specific moral principles governing the various issues raised. For instance, a request was twice made to show a voter is morally justified in aiding a proposal to refuse New Zealand teachers liberty of conscience to object to the League’s proposed * religious instruction,’ as it is termed in Australian law. The ‘reply’ was, not an appeal to any Biblical or other principle of morals, but to alleged social or scholastic convenience or necessityon the assumption that there was no other way out of the difficulty. What would happen to a Jewish teacher persistently - and permanently refusing to impart the ‘Australian’ New Testament lessons on the sufferings, death, and resurrrection of Christ and the martyrdom of St. Stephen-much of which the conscientious Jew would regard as blasphemous The * reply ’ was to the effect that Jewish teachers are comparatively few and that they would take a sensible view of the matter

and teach the lessons. The question was: put over and oyer, again. Would; Jewish or other teachers absolutely refusing to. teach the Scripture lessons be dismissed, as they, surely would be if they absolutely refused to teach arithmetic or geography, and as : advocated by Leagues in Australia and New Zealand?. 'I am not Minister of Education/ was the 'reply.' After repeated pressure the lecturer replied that in his opinion the objecting teacher would probably be dismissed. In reply to a further question,_ the lecturer said it was impossible i that ; six to one of the teachers in New. Zealand (the New Plymouth Conference majority) would so refuse. The fact of conscientious objections by New Zealand teachers was questioned or denied. Direct, specific evidence to the contrary was submitted, and the ques- ; tion was put: Who was to judge whether a teacher had or had not a conscientious objection teacher or the League The lecturer, in 'reply,' expressed his inability to ; understand how any teacher, could thus object or take exception to'such beautiful lessons as those of Queensland, which could be imparted without any religious significance. Questions were also put by members of the audience. The outstanding ' feature ' of the quest'oning was the manner in which the lecturer evaded the moral and conscientious issues raised, and talked around about and away from the question-sub-jects. Towards the close of the meeting the Ven. Archdeacon Cowie, a leader of the local League, stated on the platform that on the logical and theoretical side of the matter, Bishop Cleary had ' tangled up' the speaker; that the Bishop's questions ran on one line and the lecturer's replies on another and that the two lines never met. He (the Archdeacon) thought strong objections might be made in theory, but in practice the New South Wales system had, nevertheless, achieved a measure of success. The Bishop thereupon took occasion to reiterate the entirely practical nature of the difficulties involved.

The utmost courtesy and cordiality prevailed throughout between the Bishop and the lecturer. They several times referred to each other in terms of mutual esteem, and, after the meeting, joined in pleasant conversation.

The Bishop will lecture on Bible-in-Schools, in Hamilton, on next Monday . (May 5). The advertisements announcing the lecture contain the following announcement: 'Admission free. No collection. Bible-in-schools clergy and sympathisers epecially invited. All relevant questions, on matters within the speaker's knowledge, answered promptly and straightforwardly. No refusals to answer relevant questions. No evading of relevant questions. No introduction of matter beside the question. No need to put any relevant question two, three, or four times. Questions answered promptly in the terms of the questions.'

BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS PROSELYTISM To the Editor. Sir, —In a previous letter I showed (1) that no Catholic took part in actually compiling the Irish Scripture Lessons now in use in New South Wales, and (2) that they were compiled by Rev. Carlile, aided chiefly ■ by Archbishop Whately. These proselytisers’ object , was proselytism. < Carlile (a Scottish divine) had obliged Catholic pupils to attend his Scripture explanations in his Dublin academy. Thus his evidence before the Commission of 1837. In 1821 he became secretary of the London ", Hibernian Society, a militant proselytising organisation whose object (as stated by a leader) was to ‘make ' - perpetual inroads on the Kingdom of Satan ’ (that is, ‘Popery’) in Ireland. During Carlile’s secretaryship the society’s schools ‘ had often been employed as instruments of proselytism,’ In 1825 he memorialised the Lord Lieutenant on the establishment of a mission to convert Irish Catholics, and for 13 years from 1838 he devoted all his energies to proselytism about Birr, So much we learn from various sources, chiefly from his co-religionist Rev. Dr. Killen, in vol. ii. of his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. The great gifts of his coworker, Archbishop Whately, were marred by the No-

Popery. violence of his Errors of Romanism, etc.' ' Till 1838 he and Carlile practically directed the ‘ national' system- ~ •' . ' V Queensland compilers mutilated the Virgin Birth of Christ out of the State Scripture lessons, giving the children a Unitarian or Ebionite Christ, not the Christ of the Gospels. _ So did the Victorian League. So did the New Zealand League in 1904. The Carlile-Whately respect for the Divinity of Christ had hot worn so thin; but Carlile- otherwise, mercilessly mutilated the Bible on sectarian lines. He suppressed practically the whole following body of texts to which Catholics notoriously appeal: those relating to the, constitution of the Church, its unity, authority, infallibility, perpetuity; its relations to, the written and unwritten word; the Petrine Texts; John vi. and 1 Cor., x. (Eucharistic doctrine); the power of forgiving sins; anointing with oil (James v.); the celibate state (1 Cor., vii.). His manuals were mutilated into a garbled residuum of Protestant Christianity, *an emasculated caricature of the Bible, as Bishop Averill (a League vice-president) described the Bible-in-schools lessons of 1904 (Press, May 2, 1904)., As paid. Resident Commissioner, Carlile was able to pack his relatives into fat Education Board positions. He and other imported Calvinists trained , the teachers to ‘explain’ the mutilated Scripture lessons ‘to the children.’ A series of sectarian reading books, prepared by Carlile and Whately was forced upon the schools—a hugely profitable Carlile-Whately monopoly. Cunning alteration's were made in Stanley’s conscience clause to facilitate the work of proselytism, which was carried on in wholesale fashion. ■ Archbishop Whately declared that the ‘ national ’ system was the ‘ only hope of weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery. But I cannot openly profess this opinion. I cannot openly support’ the board as an instrument of conversion; I have to fight its battles with one hand, and that my best, tied behind my back ’ (Life and Correspondence, onevol. edition, 1868, pp. 274-275). Before the Lords’ Committee in 1854 he defended school proselytism, if done fairly and openly (Mixed Education, p. 98). Voluminous statistical and other details of this wholesale proselytism are before me. The system amply justified the declaration of Dean Kennedy (Anglican): ‘I think the principles of the National Board are the principles of the Reformation ’ (Mixed Religion, p. 129). Ireland sickened of a system vigorously condemned from 1833 by the great Archbishop McHale (Life and Times, p. 105). The sectarian Scripture lessons and reading books were cast _out. The system became, and remains, practically denominational. In 1900, out of 8673 national schools, 5585 were exclusively Catholic or exclusively Protestant; 3088 more were practically so. A section of three denominations is now trying to force four of the penal-law features of the discarded Whately - Carlile system upon the consciences and pockets of some 50 denominations in this Dominion. —I am, etc., * Henry W. "Cleary, D.D., . ■ Bishop of Auckland. April 20.

A PROTESTANT LAYMAN’S VIEWS The following letter appeared in the Otago Daily Times of April 30: ‘ Sir,All true Protestants will await the Rev. Mr. Davies’s reply to Mr. J. A. Scott’s able letter in your to-day’s issue. But unless the conspiracy of silence hitherto adopted . when unanswerable questions are put be broken, Mr. Scott will get no answer at all. If that be the case, your readers cannot help asking why it is that from first to last of this agitation, and of every other similar agitation, the propagandists have never “faced the music.” All they have said regarding the serious Protestant attacks of the Rev. Mr. Ashford is to abuse Mr. Ashford. Mr. Caughley’s indictment, of the reprehensible . use of the State figures of New South Wales remains unanswered. Mr, Braithwaite trots out a new theology—the infallibility of the referendum as a religious authority. But Mr. Braithwaite’s logic is more damaging to his own cause than to any other. The older heads know that daylight on

their scheme is fatal to its success, and not one of them is game to face a public debate or a .controversy; on questions of principle. The reason is plain: their agitation is devoid of principle.'- If that be not the case, then it behoves Mr. Davies to.face Mr. Scott's challenge and demonstrate to those of us Protestants ' who are opposed to State interference in religion, and who are the' descendants of men who died at the stake for their faith rather than allow the State to prevail over it, how we can remain Protestants and turn our backs upon the principle contained in the .confession Of ■ faith as quoted by Mr. Scott. I ask true Protestants in Otago to note the reverend gentleman's reply, or, if he does not reply, to note that fact, and draw their conclusions." We demand from the Protestant clergy who are out in this campaign, and who alone are responsible for the controversies, more than a mere shrug of the shoulder and a contemptuous expression.' Either they must face and demolish the Scott, Caughley, and Ashford arguments or stand convicted of inability to do so. They have made "the matter an affair of State. They have appealed to the people to take over- religion, .and the people demand that such an appeal be backed up by a frank and open discussion of the pros and cons, and not by a system of sniping warfare from behind a curtain of ecclesiastical privilege. Protestant ministers are only made like ourselves.—l am, etc., 'J. J. Ramsay.

' Alexandra, April 28.'