Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 23 July 1914, Page 21

Current Topics

The Power of the Pulpit The following passage from Mrs. Craigie’s The Dream and the Business may, with all due respect, be quoted in view of the danger now' threatening our Catholic children in State schools. ‘ Men forget what they read; some do not read at all. They do not, however, forget what they are told by a vigorous speaker who means what he says. It has been proved ever since the first beginnings of politics that no tyranny could stand for long against the warning prophet or the preaching friar. . . . Of course, ho must be in dead earnest. Newspapers, pamphlets, speeches in Parliament, and reassurances to constituents are as nothing compared with the actual influence of the persistent Sunday sermons of a great preacher.’ More Light on New South Wales We think it was Aunt Mirandain that delightful story, Rebecca of Sunnyhrook Farm —who used to defend her occasional, plainness of speech by .declaring that ‘ the truth needs an airin’ now and then.’ The truth regarding the working of the Bible-in-Schools League’s system in New South Wales received a muchneeded and somewhat unexpected airing at the meeting of the Wellington Anglican Synod held on July 8, when the Rev. D. C. Bates rose to deliver his testimony. Mr. Bates worked for seven years as a minister in New' South Wales, and regularly visited the schools as a teacher, and consequently speaks with full first-hand knowledge of the system. In a few telling sentences he reveals the precise significance of the League’s claim that the system there works ‘without friction,’ and at the same time show's the utter ineffectiveness of the scheme as a system of religious education. We quote from the Dominion report, in its issue of July 9. Mr. Bates said that it as easy to declare that there was no friction in the Australian State, for the question was flat, and stale, and dead over there. The clergy, as a wdiole took little interest in the teaching, 'which was usually relegated to some paid catechist, who was usually a very ill-informed person. He wished the question were dead here, because it was producing a bitter crop of religious differences, and was doing incalculable harm to religion.’ -xIncidentally, Mr. Bates confirms Bishop Cleary’s contention that the system, which has been in operation for more than forty years in New Smith Wales, has contributed largely to bring about the intense sectarian rancor and bitterness which is shell a marked and unpleasant feature of social life in the mother State. ‘ln New Zealand,’ he continued, ‘ where r e had not the Bible in schools, wo had nut the Continental Sunday (which Sydney had), we were without various other excrescences, we had more home life, and more religious tolerance than there were in New South Wales. In New South Wales there was rivalry between the various Protestant teachers, and if the system were introduced here there would be more bitterness between Protestants and Catholics.’ Ministers and the Referendum : A Remarkable Declaration Last week we directed attention to the vigorous repudiation and condemnation of the referendum which was given utterance to some years ago by Mr. James Allen on the floor of the House of Representatives. This </eck we desire to refer to some of the past utterances .if his ‘ colleague, the Hon. F. M.. B. Fisher, Minister of Customs and Marine. Mr. Fisher has already frankly intimated his intention of voting against the Religious Instruction Referendum Bill which has been introduced by his colleague, and in doing so he will be acting entirely consistently with his previous attitude on the question. In the second reading discussion on Mr. Sidey’s Bible Lessons. in Public Schools Plebiscite Bill of 1905,

Mr. Fisher, whose speech, though brief, was one of the best in the debate, expressed himself as opposed both to the particular proposals of the Bible-in-Schools League of that time and also to the demand for a plebiscite. We quote a portion of his remarks as they appear in Hansard, Vol. 132, pp. 708, 709. * Mr. Fisher said: ‘ 1 have stated before on the public platform that I was not only opposed to the Bible in schools, but that 1 was also opposed to the Bible-in-schools referendum ; and on being approached by the League I gave them that answer. . . . What arc the people supposed to vote on at the present time? Victorian text-books are as scarce as moa bones in this country, and it is not reasonable to ask people to express an opinion on something they know nothing about. I would ask all members who are in any way concerned in the movement if they will endeavor to have a text-book framed and placed before the people of the country. When I see it I might bo prepared to give the matter more favorable consideration, but at present I am not inclined to vote for something that is a mere elusive shadow. Then, 1 am averse to going any further in the direction of granting a referendum on any one specific subject. If the referendum is good for one subject it ought»to be good for all subjects ; and if we are going to deal with the referendum let us make it general in its application, and not single out any special subject to which it is to be applied.’ * Mr. Fisher then made the fallowing remarkable and plain-spoken declaration : ' I want to draw attention also to a point which is either overlooked or kept in the background, and it ought not to be kept in the background. Throughout the length and breadth of the colony we have a great number of Catholic schools which are attended by great numbers of Catholic children. I submit that these Catholics have got the faith and the courage and the fervor to build their own schools and to educate their own children, and if you are going to maintain the State schools and teach one religion there you arc justified in giving a subsidy to the Catholic schools, it is no good keeping the question in the background or fighting shy of it—it has to be met ; ancf in a discussion like this the sooner it is taken into consideration the better. Before we are prepared to grant this referendum let us ask, are we prepared to maintain all the Catholic schools in the colony? If we are prepared to maintain these Catholic schools, then we can go ahead with the referendum ; but it would not be right and it would not be proper to carry a proposal such as this is and then repudiate the claims of the Catholics afterwards. I would not be a party to it. I am going to vote against this Bill on every possible occasion, and I do not do so under any stress of excitement or in any heated manner. I am perfectly calm and dispassionate in my opposition to the Bill, but I will use my utmost endeavors in every possible direction to prevent the Bill being placed on the Statute Book.’ * That consideration is, even more pertinent to-day than when it was advanced by Mr. Fisher; and should the Religious Instruction Referendum Bill by any chance become law, and the Bible-in-Schools League’s proposals be given effect to, it is safe to say that Mr. Fisher’s uncompromising declaration will be brought forcibly and pointedly under his notice, and under the notice, also, of the other members of the Cabinet. More Wit and Wisdom Mrs. Craigio (John Oliver Hobbes) has much to say in her books of the social relations between men and women. We venture to quote some of her remarks, which often go straight to the mark. Hoes experience testify, for example, to the truth of this philosophic treatment: ‘ The secret of managing a man is to let him have his way in little things. He will change his plan of life when ho won’t change his bootmaker!’ On the other side : ‘ Men will forgive any fault in a person so

long as she can make a meal pass pleasantly. They do not want wonderful charactersthey like people who are civil at dinner.’ i There is keenness in this analysis of man’s waywardness. ‘ You may know a man for twenty years, and in the twenty-first year ho will do something which will make your twenty years’ experience count for nought. hen you say, “1 should never have expected this from A. .lust as if A would have expected it himself. Men astonish themselves far more than they astonish their friends.’ And here is a modern woman’s illustration of a deep truth on which our spiritual mentors are wont to insist. ‘ There is a story told of a man who begged bis wife to tell him his besetting sin, “in order that,” said he, “1 may conquer it, and so please you in all respects. ’ With much reluctance, and only after many exhortations to be honest, the lady replied that she feared he was selfish. “1 am not perfect,” said her husband, “and perhaps 1 am a sinful creature,' but if there is a fault which I thank God 1 do not possess it is selfishness. Anything but that!” And as he spoke lie passed her the apples—they were at luncheonand set himself to work on tho only peach.’ Pungency is the note of this remark : ‘ There are very few men that can bear authority if they have not been born with the shoulders far it,. If you gave a man a nose who had never had one, lie would be blowing it all day.’ * Tho thoughts of this convert naturally turned to the consideration of such realities as life and sorrow, and tho thoughts are often deep and wise, though at times we see that her sensitive soul bears tokens of the fire through which it has passed. ‘ There are many duties and difficulties in life: there is but one obligacourage.’ ‘ Men are punished—by the law and otherwise—not because they deserve punishment, but because Nature herself makes inexorable war upon her failures. Her legislature is for the robust in mind and body—one or the other at least—and while religions preach benevolence, patience, charity, long-suffering, we know that strength where it meets weakness must prevail, and industry, no matter how wrongly directed, where it meets half-heartedness, no matter how welltrained, must of necessity conquer. If so-called good people had the energy, tho nerve, the backbone of socalled bad people, the bad would be trampled out of existence.’ And these moralisings on sorrow are well worth quoting: ‘ I cannot forget that every supreme blessing must be bought , with long sadness, both before and after.' Is night less night because it pales gloriously before the sun ? Is day less day because it darkens into evening? Is joy a false tiling because it passes? Does not sorrow pass also?’ If no one is completely happy, no one is completely unhappy. On the other side of the limit fixed to all sufferings and all joy, there is a sort of stupor.’ ‘ Hope is tho heroic form of despair. Such must have been the feeling of tho great Lawgiver, who, if you remember, sang as ho started for tho Promised Land, and died in silence when it was at last shown to him.’ So in A Bundle of Life we come to this conclusion of faith ;

This is only Sorrow For to-day ; • Life begins to-morrow. Faith, and all endeavour That is pure, Hope and Life, for ever These endure. .All things else are folly To the wise,— Quit thy melancholy, And thy sighs!