FREE, COMPULSORY, SECULAR.

White Ribbon, Volume 31, Issue 367, 18 January 1926, Page 14

FREE, COMPULSORY, SECULAR.

(To tlie Editress.)

Mu darn, Your article on Mir above regarding education, is open to query on the secular question. 1 take this liberty because 1 have had some little experience on this matter. Our school had Bible readings for a time. The childrens attitude was (1) making fun, (2) quoting the ponograph ic parts, and (3) complete indifference. The readings were discontinued Next, the Presbyterian pastor gave lessons once a month. 1 was the only on* who ever asked or answered any questions. All the res just acted lik a mob of sheep. Tli.it was half a century ago. Re. gently their was a camp in this district of Bible students. Having fine scenery and views on my place. I invited the girls to come and enjoy themselves, and provided an abundance of ripe fruit. 1 was most unpleasantly disappointed nt the complete lack of good manners (the Holden Rule). They acted more like hoodlums than Bible students should lie expected to do. Though there was an abundance of ripe fruit provided, they went through the orchard, laying hands on anything they saw, picked green fruit, and threw it away ttecause it was not nice, or pelted on*' .ano*her, and most carefully refrain*si from being amenable to their officers. Now 1 think good manners, the Holden Rule should be (lie first teach ing. Manic i s are the same all the world over. Habits may !►*> anyone’s. There wou'd be a grea’ roar at anyone putting a knife into his month when eating: but that is not manners, merely j terminal habit. But consid*'ration for others seems to lie a loot art in our bustling days, and a man is usual’y looked on with suspicion or contemt t that trios to consider his iieigbYsnint. A man to tie imposed on, if possible.

T think it com os from a wrong 1 prisonta t ion of the Bible message. They sot we are a short time here. and a long time dead, but act as if this were nu»only time, because the message has not been logically put to then). Surely the (Iron* (Yoator of the Universe can be logical!

Sir Oliver Lodge says Genesis is ou'y poetry. But the jxx»t or writer must have ha«l extraordinary knowledge or inspiration to perceive that happiness, JOdon, was full trust in the Creator, but submission of self. But try our own w<iy, selfish ness, our strong right arm. so-valled progress, eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Im* great people it*, gardless of all the attendant misery it entails, and regardless of the fact that they cannot discover anything that is not already in the Ini verse always In, ts*en.- Yours truly, SAM A. BROWN. (We much regret that any stud nts should behave as our correspondent writes, but does not this prove that an hour or two’s instruction on the Sabbath cannot take the place nl the Bible banished front our schools, iltd alas! in too many cases from our Homes also? Kd. “W.K.”)