BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 191, 7 May 1908, Page 8

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

HAVE AVE A NATIONAL RELIGION? , (BY TELEGRAM.—SPECIAL COIUIESPONBEKT). • Auckland, May 6. Tho Rev. W. Gray Dixon, Minister of St. David's Presbyterian Church, in a letter on tho subject'-of Biblo teaching in State schools, states: — " I maintain that if we are to have a national system. of education, that system must include, nay, havo at the very hoart. of it, our national religion. This is not a matter for the clergy. It, is a matter for the nation.; not for tho Church, but for the State; , not an-extra, but an essential. I have known clergymen (and my sympathies were largely with them) who havo deliberately but respectfully declined to take the -opportunity- given them by the State of "teaching the children at some odd hour rather than appear to usurp the functions of the State and eaicourago tno false impression that the State was by this concession doing its religious duty, but I hear tho question, ' What'is our national religion ? Have , we any?-' , "It is asked confidently with tho note' of an expected triumph in seeing tho above , argument entirely upset in its application i to New Zealand, and yet'.it'is positively Humiliating that such a question should be . asked. No national religion? It is true i we havo no. State Church, but that is quito another matter; We pride ourselves on l boinjij the most homogeneous colony in the Empire—purely soundly British. ' How can i we' then avoid having the British national ; religion? Doos not that religion,, a sane, ! broad Biblical Christianity, underlie our law, , our life, our thought? Sectarianism ? Sec- ; tarians on this point aro a hopeless . minority, and ought to bo a negligible quantity. A few years ago a conferenco of clergymen and laymen representing at least 80 per cent, of the people of the Dominion agreed with the utmost cordiality to the very lessons with text and_ v notcs' printed before them, which they desired to see introduced into the curriculum,, of our State , schools, but, alas! politicians are many ajid .statesmen are few." I -