SECULARISM.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume II, Issue 169, 18 April 1874, Page 3

SECULARISM.

TO TUS KtHTOH. bin, I should be obliged if you will publish the following extract front a letter by “ i’erieles,” which appears in a late issue of the Auckland lit raid Seenlarism is not an argument against. Christianity ; it advances others. Secularism does not say there ns no light or guidance elsewhere, hut maintains that there" is light and guidance m secular truth, whoso condition# and sanctions exist independently, avt independently, and act tor ever. Secular knowledge is manifestly that kind of knowledge which is founded in this life, which relates to the conduct of this life, and is capable of being tested by the experience of this life, and conduces to the welfare of this life. Geometry, algebra, botany, navigation, political economy, and ethics, are secular subjects of instruction (distinct albeit from secularism, which includes the education of the conscience). They are founded in nature, they relate to the uses of this life, promote the pnjoj'men( of this life, and can be tested by personal experience—that which is secular can be tested in time, that which is theological is only provable alter death. If a sum in arithmetic is wrong it can be proved by a new way of working it ; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is discoverable on the health ; if a political law is wrong, it is sooner or later apparent in the disaster it brings with it ; if a theorem in navigation is erroneous delay or shipwreck warns the mariner of the unstake ; if an insane moralist teaches that adnorence to the truth is wrong, men can try the efleets of untruth, when the disgrace and distrust, which ensue soon convinces them of the fallacy. Secularism trachea a man to acquit himself well in this world as the purest act of worship ; to study the truth, to judge by reason, to regulate human interests by considerations purely human, and to act on that rule of utility which conduces to the greatest good of others, thus endeavouring to deserve another lifo by the animating, unresisting pursuit of duty in this.'’ —I am, &c., Common Sense,