SEMPER IDEM, ALIAS THE OLD SIXPENCE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 116, 28 August 1877, Page 2

SEMPER IDEM, ALIAS THE OLD SIXPENCE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE AKAROA MAIL. Sib, —Dr. Moran, Koman Catholic Bishop, Dunedin, lecturing a few Sundays ago, and referring to the Education Bill now before Parliament, said, ■ -'Ajie had some further remarks to make .regarding reciting the Lord's Prayer and reading the Bible. He agreed with the statement that siich a mode of religious instruction amounted to a farce ; but complying with i% was a recognition of Protestant principles, and for Catholics, to adopt it would amount to a denial of their faith, because it would be equivalent to saying that. the Government and others . tM'ides the Church nad the right to give religious instruction. It also inv6lved the further principle that each had a right to read the Scrip'tiires and juatfe 'for himself. That was a of a heretical -principle, destructive of the,faith, and, if accepted by Catholics, would be tantamount to an act of apostacy" Compare with the above the following utterance of Pope Clement VII, regarding, tlie Art of Printing :—}\ That His,-Holiness could not be ignorant of what divert effects tins new invention of printing had produced. For as it had brought in and restored books and learning, so together it hath been the occasion of these sects and schisms which daily appeared in the world, but ehietiy in Germany, where men. oegan to call in question the present faitft and tenets of the Church, and to examine how far religion is departed from its primitive institution. And that which was particularly to he laiiieiited, they had exhorted lay. and ordinary men Lo read the hcirip'tiires and to prfty in their vulgar tongue. That if men were persuaded once they could make their own way to God, and that players h\ tlieir native and ordinary might pierce Heaven as well as Latin. How much would the authority of the mass tall ? How prejudicial might this prove t6 all our Ecclesiastical orders." Yours, &c, DAYLTGHT.