THE BIBLE’ IN-SCHOOLS QUESTION

New Zealand Tablet, 21 August 1913, Page 23

THE BIBLE’ IN-SCHOOLS QUESTION

METHODS EXTRAORDINARY AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REV. JAMES GIBB, D.D. (WELLINGTON). , (By the Very Rev. P. J. Power, Hawera.) Reverend Sir,You and I have much in common in our opposition to secularism in education. We have not, it is true, agreed upon the means of combating this evil; the foul demon of bigotry has come up from Hell to bar the way to mutual understanding, and so secularism rides rampant and Christians become a byword to the unholy mob. Still, it is something that we are both opposed to the ugly thing itself; and my heart was filled with joy when I heard you, in a well-controlled ‘ calm of intempestuous storm/ cry out: ‘ Oh, how I hate that dry, arid secularism! Education! it’s the merest parody of the name!’ And when in deliberate, well-chosen, and dignified words, you declared that the League would, in certain circumstances, take a leaf out of the Catholic Church’s book and establish Christian schools for Christian children, deep down in my heart I prayed that your words might prove no vain and vaporous boast, but the deepgrounded proclamation of a man who knew the worth of reason and of morals. This is why I was greatly grieved to find much in your address which, if not soon corrected, must kill a cause which has so much inherent goodness; and it is in the hope that you will make the necessary corrections that I take up my pen to write to you. Now, the first great fault I found in your address and in your answers to questions was a great lack of courtesy. Your old friend, a former Editor of the Tablet whose name you failed to recognise under his new title of Bishop, gave an address and answered questions here some few weeks ago. His was a larger meeting than yours, and was principally made up of men, and by universal consent courtesy was its characteristic. There are some who think courage is greater than courtesyand I am one of these—and that holiness is greater still; but if you will observe as you walk through life, you will find that the grace of God is in courtesy, too. When our Lady rode out of Nazareth to cross the hill-country to her cousin, St. Elizabeth, the greatness and kindness that shone in her sweet face came from the courtesy that was in her mind. And when a Christian minister, who believes in Christ’s Divinity, and who should, therefore, be a Knight of our Lady, rides out with lance in rest to visit and make conquest of a distant town, he ought to bring with him the aroma and the atmosphere of sweet and gracious courtesy. Your address was, in great measure, a No-Popery address, and graceful courtesy hid her head for shame. You made false and cruel statements against those who, like you, are opposed to secularism, but who could not adopt, with you, means which they consider to be immoral; and such statements gentle courtesy could not abide. You, a speaker of many years’ standing, thought it a duty to wax wrathful at a couple, of young men who, asking questions for the first time at a public meeting, were naturally shy, and you further arrogated to yourself the rights of the chairman, growling at a nervous young man, telling him his statement was not a question. You treated as an enemy anyone who failed to accept your utterances as final, or who seemed to call your statements into dispute. ‘ I am Sir Oracle, / And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark.’ What these young men had a right to expect from a Christian clergyman, and what the audience desired for them, was a large intent of courtesy. Did not Bishop Cleary do well when, before accepting the

League’s invitation to be present at your address, ha asked for independent guarantees that you should obt serve the ordinary rules of public speech '/ This matter of courtesy may seem of little moment to you, but it is not so to me; |pr in society as it is constituted here, any exhibition or uncouth or overbearing conduct on the part of one clergyman is calculated to lower the dignity of all. There was another portion of your address that pained me and others exceedingly, and that was where you referred to the poor little Presbyterian children in Victoria, who jumped through the open windows the first and only time you attempted to teach religion in the schools. Because of this little irreverence towards you, you vowed, and have kept the vow, that you would never again make the experiment. You and I know the story of the pet kangaroo that jumped through the window at the first strains of the Scottish bagpipes; but I know —and I. beg of you to take this to heart—that your little item of autobiography that was told ad ca'ptandum vulgus had the effect only of making the judicious grieve. You opened your address by telling us that you were a very busy man: Martha, Martha, thou art busy about many things: one thing is necessary.’ Save the children —that is the one, necessary thing. Do not be disheartened by difficulties; children are easily won over; a little sweetness and courtesy will go a long way. This is a priest’s continual experience. Children are not yet spoilt by the world, and their heart is in the right place. What more do you want? Make a second attempt, after the lapse of thirty years, and you will be all the more secure for it when you stand before the Great White Throne. Or if you choose to spurn my advice, do not continue to shock the consciences of Christian people by boasting of a bad resolve. Again I fear you are sailing . under false colors, and thus tarnishing the fair name of all clergymen and diminishing their honor. You know that it is not your wish to have the Bible, even the New Testament, introduced into the public schools of this Dominion. Instead of introducing either the New Testament or the Old,, you want secular men to hack and mutilate it, to select and string together ‘ inoffensive ’ passages— ■ is, passages which, to suit Dnitarianising clergy, etc., include not the Virgin-Birth of Christ; to suit Presbyterians, must not suggest the Episcopacy; : to suit Anglicans, must not include the words: ‘Thou art Cephas, and upon this Cephas I will build My Church.’ And yet, in the face of this, you misled an unthinking multitude by calling yourself an official of the League of the '* Bible ’-in-Schools. Such conduct may be thought to do very well for a mere political opportunist seeking to gain a temporary advantage, but it will recoil upon your own head in due time, and unfortunately weaken, too, the influence of preachers of the true religion, since you and they enjoy, the common name of clergymen. And as if, in your opinion, two wrongs could make a right, you assert that Catholics also treat the Bible as you propose to have it treated for the children of the schools. The children in the Catholic schools of New Zealand have the complete New Testament in their possession. We owe nothing to non-Catholics of any particular sect. We are nob constrained to tear out and fling aside (as your party did in Queensland and Victoria, and in New Zealand in 1904) the Virgin-Birth of Christ; neither do we mutilate the Bible, as your party, do in New South Wales, Queensland, and elsewhere, by casting out that great body of. texts to which Catholics notoriously appealsuch as those relating to the constitution of the Church, its unity, authority, perpetuity, inerrancy, its relation to the written and unwritten Word of God, the texts relating to St. Peter’s place among the Apostles, the clear statement of the doctrine of the Eucharist in John VI., the various texts relating to fasting, the power of forgiving sins in the Church, the anointing of the sick with oil, and so on. Practically all these Catholic texts have been suppressed by your party, for an obvious sectarian purpose. We do not, like you, put ‘an emasculated, caricature of the Bible’ into the hands of God’s children, who cry for bread. If you wish thus to mutilate and caricature the Bible,

along sectarian lines, do so at your own cost, not at tie cost of those who conscientiously object either to pay for or to teach such a maimed view of Christ ana of His doctrine and law. ANSWERING QUESTIONS. But it is when I consider your answers to the questions that I feel ashamed of our common name of clergymen. . What have we come to ? Is it becoming our name to leave the people the narrow choice of having- to consider us either consciously careless of truth, or gravely ignorant of what we ought to know ? Let us consider the very first question you undertook to. answer. A written question was sent to you by me a couple of hours before the meeting : (a) ‘The Doctor said in Wanganui last evening that there was not the slightest doubt thatthe priesthood and members of the Catholic Church were opposed to the National System , 0 of Education, Will he tell the audience wherein Catholic opposition to the so-called National System differs from that of the League to the same system To this you replied in writing, and read your reply as follows: —‘Just this: We think the National System will be perfected by the admission of the Bible into the curriculum of the schools. The Catholics don’t. We shall be content when the Bible is made the text-book, and the clergy permitted to teach their children the faith of their fathers; the Catholics will be content only when they get grants in aid of their denominational schools." Now, Reverend Sir, this answer is simply untrue. Assuming (as I do) that you did not know it to be false, but answered to the best of your ability, you are gravely ignorant of one of the leading questions of the day, both in England and in New Zealand. My question was not meant to take you unawares; you got due notice of it ; and, in a written reply, you give nothing better than, at best, a specimen of inexcusable ignorance! If I ask you to inform an audience how the garments of two fully dressed men differ, I must conclude that you are either reckless regarding fact or very foolish if you reply that one is dressed in a hat and the other in boots. You must mention the principal parts of the dress of each man, that the audience may be in a position to conclude if one is a man of taste and the other a man of mere fashion. Now it is true that the League wishes, not the Bible, but a few pages mutilated (as stated) from the Bible, and that Catholics wish a grant; but it is also true (and this is the essential difference) that the League demands that men of all religions and of none should ■pay for these pages, that will be a special gift to the League only; while Catholics {unlike the League) do not demand so much as a penny piece from the public funds for their religious teaching (; Catholics do not demand so much as a penny piece from non-Catholics for even the secular results achieved in Catholic schools they ask for only a fair proportion of the taxes contributed by Catholics themselves to the Education Fund. In New Zealand’s own Cook Islands non-Gath-olic sectarian schools are subsidised from funds supplied by people of ail creeds and of none; the Anglican Girls’ Friendly Society is likewise thus subsidised for its work among immigrants. So is the Protestant Young Womens Christian Association. So is the Salvation Army for its work among inebriates. Catholics do not demand any such subsidy for their schools from people of other faiths. You, Reverend Sir, as a member of the League Executive, ought to know how Catholics thus differ from the League: Catholics stand for a settlement on the basis of fair treatment of consciences all round; a solution of the difficulty acceptable to them they are prepared to pay for at their own expense; your League demands a solution of the difficulty, acceptable to you, and to nobody else, at the common expense of all, including conscientious objectors. It was impressed upon you in your early days that a half-truth is the greatest of all lies, that a suppression of a fact may be as great a lie as the suggestion of a falsehood. I would beg of you to be most careful

of this in future, because people who, after. the fact, discover that they have been, deceived, are very slow to again accept the testimony of the deceiver. Half a trutn may win the applause of the vulgar and bring a passing triumph; but the triumph ana the applause are short-lived. In such triumphs, in such applause, the Divine Words are verified : — Extrema gaudn luctus occupat’ ; ‘ Mourning snatches at, and maxes its own, the latter ends of joy.’ But if you have erred more from ignorance than from malice, as I believe is the case, tnen my advice is: Think twice before you speak once; study up the matter on which you wish to speak, and do not be above seeking information. With regard to the two parts of question (b) : I thought it well, for greater clearness, to keep them, well apart; you thought it better to combine them; and, . having done so, you make use of what logicians call an Ignoratio Elenchij and, presuming upon the assumption that the chairman was not a trained dialectician and was ignorant of the rules, you ignored the questions and substituted for answer a couple of pointless platitudes and a couple of statements that were not true. Let us take these questions again, set apart in the comparative quiet of this letter: (b) ‘ Does the Doctor hold that, in the domain of conscience, majorities should rule minorities ‘ That the majority must rule is sound legally, but not morally,’ said Mr. Balfour recently in the House of Commons. I have tried, without effect, to get a clear statement on this matter from the iofficials of the League in Hawera. It does not seem to be a principle of their philosophy that the proximate rule of rightness in human action is the practical dictate of the human reason, which is conscience; that a dictate of conscience is more binding than any law of sovereign or superior ; that no man or majority of men can stand between a man’s conscience and his God; that it is by conscience he will be judged on the Last Day; and that, standing on the firm ground of conscience, one man may oppose the whole world. If this is true, it goes without saying that two men or twenty men, or two hundred men, can, on grounds of conscience, oppose the whole world. It is a mere pointless platitude, therefore, for you to say that seventy-five per cent, can oppose fourteen per cent. You may fight to win for yourselves what your conscience tells you is right for you, but you may not fight to impose upon others what you believe to be light foi you, but what they believe to be wrong for them. If you believe that Protestantism is right, you may fight to have it taught at your own expense to your own children, and Catholics will applaud you; but it is quite another matter that you should endeavour to force Catholics and Jewish and Protestant and other objectors to pay for and to teach to your children a system of religion which such objectors’ conscience tells them to be false. You say, with great unction, that ‘ You are sorry that Catholics should think you wrong in demanding Bible instruction for your own child ’; but you ought to know well. Reverend Six*, that Catholics do not think this, and it is the sheerest nonsense on your part to pretend that they do. Catholics do not hold that you are wrong in demanding Bible instruction for your own child, but they do hold that you are wrong in stating that your assumed majority can force Catholic conscience to subscribe to and impart that instruction, which they cannot accept. Look up question (b) again, and give it a straightward answer, and then tell us, as a preacher of Christianity, on what principle of Christian morality your answer is based. J To question (c) : ‘ How does the Doctor justify his challenge to the teachers, whilst he refuses to accept a similar challenge from Dr. Cleary?’ you replied: ‘I may be somewhat stupid, but I certainly do not understand the question. Dr. Cleary has addressed no challenge to me.’ Now, Reverend Sir, ' there is here a lack of either memory or veracity. Let me, with the greatest possible kindness, put before you what you had said only the previous evening- at Wanganui : ‘ I repeat the challenge issued by the League, that it would pay the expenses of two teachers to go to Aus-

tralia and njake a report on the system.’ When question time had come, Mr. Whiting asked: Is the reverend . lecturer prepared to accept the offer of Bishop Cleary, which I am authorised to make on his behalf, to debate the question publicly on any platform in the Dominion ?’ To. which you replied : ‘ I stand for truth, not" for casuistry.’V Within twenty-four hours of your own statements in Wanganui you deliberately inform an audience in the neighboring town of Haw era that you do-not understand the reference to your challenge to the teachers and the Bishop’s challenge to you And you further say: ‘ DR. CLEARY HAS ISSUED NO CHALLENGE . TO ME.’ By what imaginable trick of memory could ‘YES’ in Wanganui have become ‘NO’ in Hawera? To question (d): ‘Will the Doctor advise the Hawera branch to keep its honorable engagement with Bishop Cleary and afford him an early opportunity of questioning a League orator in this hall?’ you replied that the Hawera people were no longer children, and , and that they would deal with Bishop Cleary as they thought best. But, Reverend Sir, it is my duty to remind you that the laugh which this silly retort raised among the groundlings cannot save your conscience. You are a member of the Executive, and in every , civilised community it is the duty of the Executive to see that branches employ clean and honorable methods. Another question, (e): ‘Will the Doctor, a s a member of the League’s Executive, inform the audience why Bishop Cleary is so desirous of questioning the League’s orators on a pamphlet entitled Methods of Opposition V To this, with every mark of innocence, you replied: ‘ Am I supposed to know all the subtleties of Doctor Cleary’s mind V Reverend Sir, .you are a member of the League’s Executive. In your capacity as such the question was put to you, and in your capacity as such you must have known perfectly well'' that Doctor Cleary had sent several distinct remonstrances to the Executive in regard to specific misrepresentations in both editions of the leaflet in question; that he charged your Executive with grave suppressions of fact, with altering and manipulating a series of seven specified State documents in order to hold him up to odium, and (among other things) with circulating, to this hour, statements which (after withering public exposure) your Executive had to acknowledge as untrue, in the face of these damaging facts you exclaim, with an air of injured innocence: ‘ Am I supposed to know the subtleties of Dr. Cleary’s mind?’ You may not be able to grasp or appreciate the varied wisdom and erudition of a mind so well equipped as his, but you are personally and officially cognisant of the points to which the question referred. I must come to an end, but there is one other question to which I must recall your attention—(f); ‘ Will the Doctor advise the Executive to take up Bishop Cleary s challenge?’ To this you answered with much heat: Who is this Bishop Cleary, this demi-god ? I 'never heard so much about the man before. Why should he ask for special treatment here beyond any other questioner?’ Well, I will give you one reason why the Bishop should be given special treatment here. You have come, as you told us, from the North of the Tweed; you know something, therefore, of the Master of Stair and the midnight massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe. You know how the great Scottish poet describes the treacherous cruelty with which the forty brave and knightly men were invited as honored guests, and how, in the silence of the night, when peaceful sleep had come to themhow when \ * The very household dogs were dumb, Unwont to bay at guests that come In guise of hospitality’— they were foully and brutally massacred. Well, Reverend Sir, had Bishop Cleary come to meet you, he would have been here as the honored guest of the Hawera branch of the League, and on the special invitation of that branch; and I, for one, deemed it

wise to ask for an independent guarantee that the ordinary laws of debate should be observed, .lest it should be afterwards said that one who had come in the guise of hospitality had received in our town less courtesy from a human being than a guest is wont to receive from the very household dogs. Does not the event justify the wisdom of my request P. J. Power. P.S. —Your statement that an unbeliever is not fit to teach in the State schools may ,or may not involve a test for teachers; but that is the business of the teachers, not mine—at least just now. Your further statement, that it may be necessary, in view 1 of your agitation, to have the teachers appointed by a central board, is very significant, but this, too, is outside my present scope.—P.J.P.