The ‘Referendum’ on Religious Instruction in State Schools

New Zealand Tablet, 20 August 1914, Page 11

The ‘Referendum’ on Religious Instruction in State Schools

EVIDENCE OF THE RIGHT REV. HENRY .WILLIAM CLEARY, ' BISHOP OF AUCKLAND.

Series D.

(Continued.)

XIV.— CONTROVERSIAL CONCEALMENTS, CONTRADICTIONS, ETC.

The confusion of the. ballot-paper in this Bill becomes still worse confounded when we consider some of the controversial concealments, minimisings, and other economies of fact which mark the misleading and partly unintelligible reference proposals of the Bill.- Let the following instance suffice: - 1. A distinction is made in the reference’or ballotpaper of the Bill, for an obvious controversial purpose, in Australian law, and in the League’s own official publications, the Government Biblical instruction, conducted by the teacher, is called ‘ religious instruction,’ ‘ general religious teaching,’ etc. In the ballot-paper it is referred to as merely the ‘reading’ of * selected Bible lessons.’ The term ‘religious instruction’ is applied only to the denominationalism taught by visiting clergy during schools hours. The obvious purpose of this verbal distinction is to meet a controversial difficulty —to lead the unsuspecting voter to believe that the Government is NOT being pressed to relieve the League of part of the sacred duty of ‘religious instruction ’ which the Almighty has imposed not upon Governments, but upon parents and the Christian ministry. (Deuter. vi., 6-7; Matt, xxviii., 20; 11. Tim., iv., 2). ’ : f " r 2. In the League’s petition-card, ‘reading’ from ‘ Scripture books,’ under the ‘ supervision ’ of the teacher, is set down as the first part or. feature of the ‘ system of religious instruction in State schools prevailing in Australia,’ which the League wants to introduce into New Zealand. In the League’s official publication, Opinions of Experts, ‘religious instruction’ by teachers, is affirmed forty-five times, by State officials, as forming part and parcel of the ‘ system of religious instruction demanded by the League. In two or. three other League publications, this is affirmed some twelve or thirteen times. And 7 et in another publication of the League (Notes on the Australian System, by Rev. A. Don) the ‘ religious instruction ’ so given is shown to be of a highly sectarian, dogmatic, and theological character. Indeed, one. lesson is described", by the Rev. A. Don as-being given. ‘ in the manner of a first-class. Bible teacher.’

3. All this corresponds with the provisions of .the law and the Departmental regulations in the various Australian Bible-in-school States. Thus, section 7 of the New South Wales Education Act expressly provides for ‘general i-eligioxis teaching’ (by the teachers) as part of the school cui'riculxxm. The report of the New South Wales Minister of Public Insti-uction for 1909 (p. 38) says, that the ‘general religion ’ imparted bailie Government teacher is a ‘ foundation laid for further religious instruction.’ Western Australia has copied, word " for word, the New South Wales provision for,‘general religious teaching’ by the State teacher. The Queensland Act (191 declares • thatVifs object is to provide ‘religious instruction in the public schools; and in section 22a, provision is expressly niade for such ‘ religious instruction’ —the official margin of this section, ' the regulations and -Schedule XVI IT. all describe the Government Biblical lessons, as ‘ religious instruction.’ The . other Australian Biblb-in-Schools States have legislation and regulations which, in wording, or in practical effect, amount to the same thing. #~4". All this "corresponds with the demands of the last, as well as of the present, Bible-in-Schools League. Thus, 3 the League of 1904, stated .in, axx official pronouncement it waited simple unsectarian lessons ’ from the Bible; its leaders holding that ‘the Bible ‘contains great truths which all Christian men now hold

in common.’ {Otago Daily Times, May 25, 1904). In other -words, they demanded the really s sectarian compromise styled ‘ common; Christianity.’ The Rev. •J. Tait declared about the same time, that !‘ the Protestant churches ,’ ‘ had a right to insist that the, State should, for at least half an hour each day, provide religious instruction ’ (Christchurch Press, May, *2, 1904). > A precisely similar contention was put forward last year by* Bishop Averill, then and ; now- a member of the League executive. He said : It is the duty of the State to include, in its system of education, provision fox - the training of the spiritual, faculties, the emotions, the conscience, and the will, just as much as the mental and one-of his ‘ reasons for seeking a change in our present . education - system’ is this : ‘Because the majority are dissatisfied ‘ with’ the ’ omission of Biblereading and religious teaching from the school curriculum {flarehe's Bay Herald, June 19, 1913). See also the League’s religious dogmas mentioned under Section XI. of this evidence. The Right Rev. the Anglican Primate (Dr. Nevill) is now president of the League. In a verbatim report supplied to the Otago Daily Times' of August 5, 1905, his Lordship , said ‘ The terms “Bible-in-schools” and “religious instruction’’ must be .used interchangeably, because the Bible was the sower of religion.’ A great mass of League and other testimony, similar to that quoted above is ready for production on demand. Some of it isogiven in, No. 5 of the Catholic Federation publications (pages 10 to 17), copies of which are herewith handed to your committee. Judging by the demands of. the League at the back of this Bill, the type .of . Scripture extracts contemplated would be such v as is, in use in some or other of the Bible-extracts States of Australia. A perusal of those in use there reveals the following : They ai'e taken mainly or altogether from the Protestant Authorised Version. They are selected with a view to excluding all matters on which a group of Reformed denominations axe not agreed. They contain a quantity of (mutilated) religious facts, religious doctrines, religious moral .precepts, the Lord’s Prayer, and other devotions in sectarian forms and they exclude the great mass of texts and incidents to which Catholics appeal in support of the doctrines and practices ‘of their faith. - The manuals \ contain»paraphrases, Reformed sermon-headings, etc.-, and are, generally, made as sectarian as they well can be. ' ||. - A . CHANGE OF MIND. ■ , 2. Under pressure of coxxtroversy, two prominent League leaders wrongly denied that the League had adopted the Hislx coxxscience claxxse, or any particular form of conscience clause. So likewise, under stress of discussion, suxxdry League leaders dexxied that, under their; chosen-: ‘ Australian system,.also, embodied in the Bill, the Government sets up as ; a purveyor and teacher of ‘ religious - instruction ’ and 5 ‘ general religious teaching.’ Indeed, some of the leaders went so far as to declare that under the favored ‘ Australian’ system, the Government Biblical lessons' are given merely- as ‘literature,’ or. as! purely secular#,* orals ’or ‘ethics,’ quite * devoid of , religious .significance,’ and without ‘ application to any other* world thaxi the present one’ ! The words last quoted are from a letter written by a ‘ member of the League executive ’ in the Otago Daily' Times of September, 8, : 1913. , ,

3. Here, again, we find the League doing what follows: (a) Contradicting the plain facts of the ‘system of x-eligious instruction ixx the State schools prevailing in Australia,’ and demanded by the League ; (b) contradicting the plain words of its own petition?card ; (c) contradicting its -other publications and the declarations of its own trusted leaders.: Here agaixx, |for the fourth time, we find the League departing, in a radical manner, from the prayer of its petition—and, apparently, as before, without consulting ..its petitioners. How, in reason could any body of petitioners be other than hopelessly confused by the endless self-contradictions? How in reason could they know precisely what they were petitioning for, while not even the League executive knew it from day to day? The Schedule to the Bill represents another * verbal change-^— * an obvious - con-

troversial purpose. But surely, in a ballot-paper' for popular use, there should be no misstatements; there should be.no ambiguous expressions such as 1 sectarian,’ etc.; there should be no concealments of vital facts; plain words should be used in their plain, workaday sense, and not altered in meaning so as to confuse electors, or to suit the self-contradictions and lightning changes of any League or section of the community. As the ballot-paper stands, it is a riddle which no’ man can read. .

THE COST.

Both the League petition and the present ‘ Referendum ’ Bill conceal one highly practical matter from the electors:

tvei 1. Biblical extracts, * religious instruction,’ and ‘ general religious teaching ’ are to be provided by the Government to suit only one privileged class. These lessons are, admittedly, to be of such a kind that many people would object to them on grounds of religious conscience./. Hence the conscience clause— for children.

2. Only one class of people can benefit' by ' this Government Biblical instruction. All must pay for the State-compiling, State-printing, State-binding, Statestorage, State-distribution, and State-teaching of it. There is no conscience clause for objecting taxpayers. They must pay for teaching which they conscientiously reject, and from which they can derive no advantage. Herein, the ballot-paper penalises conscientious religious ..belief. It gives to one set of religious beliefs educational and financial privileges which it denies to all other religious beliefs.

I 3. The cost of the League’s scheme has been estimated at from £IOO,OOO to £120,000 a year. No opinion is here expressed as to the accuracy or otherwise of these estimates. The scheme does not necessarily involve additional taxation ; it does necessarily mean at least a new application of existing taxation. The principle involved is not affected, whether cost be £IOOO a year or £20,000, or £120,000 a year. The Boston tea-tax was a small thing; but it led to the American Revolution. Had this unjust and unequal treatment of religious beliefs been frankly laid before the League petitioners, it may be taken for granted that great numbers of them would never have signed the card. But, from beginning to end, they were misled bj 7 the great volume of cry from the League executive; ‘ Same footing’ for. all! “ Equal, privileges’ for all! Equal, opportunities ’ (Canon Garland’s cry) ‘ to all and special privileges to none ’ (Christchurch Press, June 9 and August 25, 1913 ; Otago Daily Times, Juno 14, 1913; Hawke' Bay, Herald, June 19, 1913; and numerous other papers and passages that can be quoted on demand). Such are some of 'the misrepresentations by which , signatures were obtained for the League’s petition.

XVI. TRUSTING THE TEACHERS.

1. One of the most odious provisions of the Penal Code was this: That no one was permitted to exercise the office of teacher unless he professed the State religion. The scheme of the League and of its own and ‘ only ’ ballot-paper is a proposed application,’, to New Zealand, of the principle underlying that old repressive legislation. The proposed new legislation would prevent anyone in New Zealand holding a State teachership except, in effect, on religious test devised by the League. In a word, it is, in effect, a proposal to farm out the consciences of the State teachers to the League.

2. Till,the present agitation, all previous New Zealand schemes that I know of, protected, in some measure, the -consciences of objecting teachers. * As late as 1904; the Bible-in-Schools League of that time said, in the course of a public-manifesto: ‘ A great deal is made of the teachers’ difficulty.-i We have .done our best to safeguard them in every way. A conscience clause means that we are unanimously., and determinedly opposed to anything in the nature ’ of religious tests being applied to them’ {Otago Daily Times, May 25, 1904). This declaration was signed ' by (among others) Rev. Dr. ’ Gibb arid Rev. (now Bishop) T. H. Sprott. The, former is a vice-president of the present

League; the latter a member of the League executive. And both are now ‘ unanimously and determinedly opposed to ‘ safeguarding ’ the consciences of objecting teachers.

3. Now, apparently, for the first time in New Zealand, the League and the League’s Bill refuses honorably objecting teachers even the poor protection of a conscience clause. Nay, intimation has .been plainly given that even a conscience clause will not be allowed to safeguard teachers. Here, for instance, is a statement mad© in a published letter by Mr. Braithwaite, an Otago League official : ‘To injure the League, he (Bishop Cleary) advocated a teachers’ conscience clause; but, if it existed, no teacher would make use of it, to bring himself into disrepute with parents and school committees. And a teacher would stand a poor chance of being appointed if he were known to be against Scripture teaching, so that a teachers' conscience clause would not protect him, nor do away with “hypocrisy” ’ (Otago Daily Times, May 20, 1913). Evidently the only protection for the teacher is to place him by law entirely outside the teaching of the ■proposed Scripture Extracts.

4. The League and the ballot-paper in the Bill—refuses to the teacher even the legal recognition that he has a conscience, and that his conscience may object. In fact, both the League and the Bill unite in not even supposing that the teacher (or the taxpayer) has a conscience. Yet, for nearly two years past—and in our present petition—we have made it clear that Catholic teachers object, as a matter of religious conscience, (o conducting the proposed Biblical lessons. The grounds of their objection are set forth in No. 3 of the Catholic Federation publications, pages 4 to 7., copies of which are herewith laid before your committee. These objections are doctrinal, doctrinal-moral, and disciplinary (that is, arising out of the Church law and discipline). Catholics, for instance, may not us© Bibles or Biblical lessons unless these have the approval of the proper authority in their Church ; they may nob explain or interpret them otherwise than in accordance with Catholic principles; they may not join in—much less conductany scheme' of ‘ general religious instruction’ or the League’s ‘ common ’ or reduced or ‘ skeleton ’ Christianity ; and (by a decree of the Council of Trent) the religious instruction of Catholic children must be carried out exclusively under the authority and supervision of the Catholic Church, and not under that of any Government or of teachers of all sorts of faith or of none. < This decree is substantially violated by the League’s conscience clause for children in the Bill. Under the conscience clause, the Government compels ALL I Catholic children not specially exempted, to receive the Government’s ‘common’ or ‘ general religious instruction.’ This is a violation of the Catholic principle (based upon the Scriptures) that the Church the Government—shall direct and supervise the Biblical and religious instruction of Catholic children.

OPPRESSING TEACHERS.

5. The doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church hereon are quite clear. Equally clear is the duty of the, Government to protect those sacred rights of conscience of teachers and (in the words, of the League of 1904) to oppose ‘ anything in the nature of religious tests ’ being applied to them ’ ( Otago Daily Times, .M ay 25,.. 1904). This declaration was signed by (among others) the Rev. Dr. Gibb (a vice-president of the League) and the Rev. (not Bishop) Sprott (a member of the League executive) both among the promoters of the present Bill. They are now ‘unanimously and determinedly in favor of a real form of religious tests for teachers. And equivalent tests are provided in the ballot-paper supplied by the League to the present Bill. Moreover, numerous members of that League affirm in direct, or equivalent, or implied terms, that conscientiously objecting teachers, persisting in their objection, will be driven out of the public service, forced to resign, be considered unfit for the position, etc. See, for instance, the. Hew Zealand Journal of ' Education, No-

verriber, 1912, p. 225 ; the Lyttelton Times of January 1 and 2, 1913; Otago -Daily Times of May 20, 1913; Dean Fitchott (a member of the League executive) in the Otago Daily Times of June 14, 1913; Rev. W. E. R. Fitchett, in the Otago Daily Times of July A, 1913 ; Rev. A. tMillar' ('League publication secretary), in' the Waikato Times ■of April'3o, 1913; Canon Richards, in the Bay of Plenty Times of, Juno 27, 1913; the Nation (Orange Lodge organ) of February 10, 1913;. and (among others). Rev. Dr. Gibb (a vice-president of the League) at Wanganui (Wanganui, Chronicle, August 1, 1913) ahcT at Invercargill {Southland Times, June 25, 1914) The ballot-paper supplied by the League to the present Bill provides, in effect, that the objecting teacher must either conform to the State religioh, or bo driven out of the public service. The alternatives which the League and the. Bill place before him are three: (a) Conformity with the State-edited, State Bible scheme, or State religion ; (b) acting .a part or playing the hypocrite before the pupils; or (c) dismissal as surely as if he were a convicted malefactor. Men with families will be sorely tempted to sell their souls for bread-and-butter. This is, in effect, the plea of a Board teacher, similarly placed, as stated in the Democrat of February 23, 1901; ‘But one must make a living somehow ; so I, personally, comply with the terms of my agreement, and let conscience go hang.’ The Bill, effect, farms out teachers’ consciences to the League; it allows no one to occupy a teacher ship except on religious tests devised by the League; it puts a premium upon hypocrisy; it penalises fidelity to .conscienceV it uses public funds, in effect, to bribe people into disloyalty to their faith ; and it deprives a large and honorable body of ~ men and women of rights of conscience which are accorded, as a matter of course, to the worst criminals in our prisons. .

6. This : serious oppression of conscience is concealed or, glossed over in , the League’s ballot-paper in the Bill. It is concealed in the League’s petition. It is seriously misrepresented in the-League’s declaration: ‘ Trust the teachers ’ ; 1 equal rights ’ ; ‘ equal footing ’ ; ‘ equal opportunities- to all and special privileges to none.’ _

7. Had the League, in agitating for this Bill, frankly told the,public how it proposed to oppress and persecute religious conviction in the teaching profession, it may bo reasonably" deemed very doubtful that it would have secured the signatures of any but a handful of . violent extremists.- It is . due to Parliament and the public that these penal provisions against conscientious religious conviction State financial inducements to disloyalty to Church-connectionshould be frankly stated in the present Bill. | gim; XVII—MAJORITY RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 1. The Bill now before Parliament interferes in the following purely personal matters of the purely personal conscience : - ‘ What views shall I hold regarding the Bible and ‘ religious instruction’ ? What views thereon

shall I contribute to? What views thereon shall I teach Moreover, the Bill proposes to fling these personal matters of personal religious liberty and personal religious conscience into the arena ‘of political strife, to be decided by electoral majorities, amidst the varied passions of an electoral contest. 2. No Parliament, League, or majority has the moral fight to interfere between the private conscience and God, Who (in the words of the Presbyterian Confession of I aith) is ‘sole Lord of the conscience.’ In democracies (such as ours) the people are free to designate the versons who arc to exercise the civil power. But (on Biblical and Christian principles) the power or authority itself is of God and ‘ordained of God’ (Rom. xiii., 1, 5). His moral law binds Parliaments, as well as individuals, majorities as well as minorities, to the eternal principles of justice and to that righteousness which ‘ exalteth a nation ’ (Prov. xiv. 34, R.V.) 3. The measure now before Parliament is ultra vires —it oversteps the proper limits of the-civil authority. It might, if placed upon the Statute Book, create a ‘ legal right ’ for an electoral majority to coerce the consciences of electoral minorities it could never create a ‘ moral ’ right—or a right in justice— to do so. Legal rights are only a fraction of human rights. The civil law rules only that part of us which comes to the surface in civil and social life. It has no right of interference or control, for instance, in the numerous things which concern the individual alone, and his personal relations with religious conscience, and with the Divine Law-giver at the back of religious conscience. The civil law is a social code. -It is not a personal code, to regulate or coerce the personal religious conscience.

NATURAL AND \ OTIIEII RIGHTS.

4. Legal rights may, at times, be moral wrongs. But, besides legal rights, there are also ; natural rights. These are so called because they belong to the nature of things. They existed before organised human society, before Parliaments, before electoral rolls. Such, for. instance, are your natural rights to live and breathe (where not forfeited by crime), . your natural ~ rights to fair wages for fair work, to enjoy the proper fruit of your labor, and so on. But you have also the following (among other) natural rights: The right to obey the moral law ; the right to . practise (and teach to your..children) the religion which you believe to be the true one : the rights to freedom from compulsion to take part in Biblical or religious teaching, or religious worship, which you believe to be erroneous. And, generally, you have a natural right to freedom from being coerced into doing anything which your conscience {even ■if in inculpable error) tells you is not morally allowable. ■ n ■ ■

5. These rights arise out of the Natural Law. They receive their perfection from God’s Revealed Law. Thus, for' instance, St. Paul makes it clear . that it is morally wrong to do-{or to lure, bribe, or force others

to do) that which conscience forbids (Rom. xiv., 14, 22). 11l connection with this text, the Anglican Archbishop ■Whately (in his Lessons on Morals) and the great Anglican, | Thomas Arnold (in his Christian Life), declare that it is ‘.sinful ,f and'degrading to conscience for a teacher to teach against his conscience, or to teach what he does not believe, and that it is doubly sinful to tempt him to do so. Catholic principles and Catholic disciplinary laws, already specified, forbid Catholic '.teachers to conduct such a scheme of State Biblical and ‘ general religious instruction ’ as is proposed by the League and in the Bill now before the House. For liky reasons, , Catholics cannot, in conscience, bear any part whatsoever of the cost of preparing that scheme or putting it into operation. In these matters wte stand on the inviolable* rights of the personal religious conscience, forbidding us to do that which that religious conscience declares to us to be not morally allowable.

6. This inviolability of the personal religious conscience was strongly affirmed by the Bible-in-Schools 'League, 1904. They said: ‘We have concluded that the majority must rule when the common good is in question ; provided always that the majority does not coerce the minority to violate its conscience; for it can never be for the common good that conscience should be violated ’ {Otago Daily Times, May 25, 1904). This declaration was signed by (among others) the Rev. Dr. Gibb and the present Bishop of Wellington. It is a universally accepted Christian moral principle. It is a doctrine of true statesmanship. Parliaments or electoral majorities may violate these sacred religious liberties and rights of conscience. They have the physical power ; they have not the moral right. Parliament is the guardian and trustee of these God-given rights of religion and conscience. It is its solemn duty to protect objecting Protestant and other taxpayers, teachers, and parents from the bitter wrongs which the League and the present Bill would inflict upon them. This is, in effect, a measure to put up our religious rights and liberties, for sale, by auction, to the highest bidder of votes. -.

MINORITIES MUST SUFFER.

: ; 7. The present Bill is an acceptance of the exploded theory ; that ‘ minorities must suffer ’—nay, that they must suffer in those intimate personal relations between the individual and the Creator which are outside the domain of Parliaments or electoral majorities. It is more than significant that this old and tyrannous theory has found, time and again, a voice among the responsible officials of the Bible in the State Schools League. It was, for instance, stated in the terms quoted above, by the Rev. Mr. Clarkson, an official League lecturer (Poverty Bay Herald, June .5, 1913). It was set forth, in other terms, by the League’s organiser (Canon Garland) when he called upon the Government to ■ introduce a Referendum Bill, and thereby adopt certain ‘ theological views ’ of - one section of the people and reject certain ‘ theological views ’: of another (and minority) section of the people (Dominion, May 27, 1914). The principle of the oppression of minorities was expressed in bitter speech by another League official,. Rev. Gray Dixon, when he declared, in a published letter . that this is an ‘ anti-Romish State ’ {Otago Daily Times, May 20, 1913), and that religious minorities should ‘ not ? expect more than tolerance’ for their opinions {Otago Daily Times, November 28, 1913) .' And yet again : Dean Fitchett (a member of the League executive) declared that he * did not see what a Roman Catholic Bishop had to say in • the matter ’ of the League scheme {Otago Daily Times, June 14, 1913). The present Referendum Bill is but another form of expression • of the general League idea that minorities must . suffer, even in their intimate personal conscience.

. 8. That," however, is the old, discarded cry of a discredited ‘ utilitarianism. Democracy raises the ’ opposite cry‘-Minorities’ must be safeguarded!’ Lord Acton is , the-, historian of political democracy. .. In a lecture ‘ On the Study of History,’ ~ at - Cambridge .University in June, 1895, he declared that the ‘ crown ’

of liberty was this: ‘ The security of the. weaker groups, and the liberty of conscience which, effectually secured, secures the rest. ’ Mr. Sydney ■ Webb is the historian of, industrial democracy. And he declares that the most important business of the twentieth century is ‘ to provide not only for minorities, but even for v quite small minorities.’ The Hon. Mr. Allen reminded the New Zealand Parliament on August 29, 1894, that a large proportion of the multitude will: be irresponsible ’ in the case of a referendum ; that a reference to them would result in ‘ tyranny and despotism ’ {Hansard, Vol. 85, p. 281). And if, in purely secular politics, such ‘tyranny, and despotism’ might take place, how much more if vexed questions of conscience were submitted to electors inflamed, in ; all .probability, by appeals to the worst forms of sectarian rancour. We have already had ample premonition of this in the following constant ; and lamentable ' features of the League campaign: Its vehement denunciations of honorable and God-loving men and women who have dared to differ with it; its persistent misrepresentation of the beliefs, aims, words, and acts of opponents; its bitter and unwarranted personal attacks; and its neverending appeal to those deplorable feelings of sectarian animosity which have made New South Wales a warning example to the whole of Australasia. These are Strong statements. I am prepared to prove them in detail, and I invite, thereon, the freest cross-examina-tion by those who are most interested in testing the truth or otherwise of my assertions.

A CONFERENCE.

9. Catholics, as is well known, can never in conscience accept the secular system :as satisfactory for themselves. But we recognise the fact that large bodies of our Christian , and other fellow-citizens can, and do, in conscience, accept the system, relying upon the home and the Church for the religious training of their children. . And we, furthermore, recognise that, in any proposed change, their conscientious convictions should receive fair and proper consideration. Unlike the League, we do not aim at the utter destruction of the secular phase of our system of public instruction. We aim at making that system truly . national—truly suited to the conscientious as well as the intellectual requirements of all the people of the nation: secular for those desiring, it secular, and religious, on fair, conditions all. round; to those desiring [irreligious. 4 We will resist to the utmost any and every attempt to force one cast-iron system of Biblical or religious instruction upon the purses and the consciences of people so profoundly divided in religious belief as is the population of New Zealand. , -

10. Over and over again, in the press and upon the platform, I have intimated the willingness of the Catholic leaders to meet all other interested parties in conference upon this subject only one proviso: the recognition of the proper equal rights of all before the law. Moreover, over and over again we have publicly declared that we are prepared to give fair, and friendly consideration to any proposal whatsoever for religion in the school, so long as this principle of proper equality and -rights before the law is conceded.:-;, There can be no ‘real settlement of this question unless it is broad-based upon justice. , And 'when God’s Word comes into the schools, it should come in God’s good way of truth, and justice, and honor, and not by the path of bitter wrong traced out in the measure now before your Honorable House. ■■ ,•: : . ■ i : •

(To be continued.)

* Votes for women ! votes for women !’ ; ;>- Screamed the angry suffragette ; ‘Votes for women !; votes for women! ...f ? We shall get our own way. yet.’ As the lady’s paroxyms .. , i Made her hoarsens spoke McGruer: ‘ Get your speaking voice in order r ' ! Vote for Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure!’