The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1873

Evening Star, Issue 3121, 19 February 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1873

We do not know which most to admire — tho Tokomairiro School Committee, or the Rev. Father Coleman, for they seem to be equally at sea as the Roman Catholic pastor. The Committee are highly indignant that one outside their body should bo deputed to examine into the allegations made by Father Coleman aneut the schoolmaster and his pupil at Tokomairiro. They seem to think the Education Hoard is their servant, and has no right to move without their permission, or without consultation with them. W c do not envy the position of a schoolmaster in the hands of such touchy gentlemen; he must tread very evenly in his shoes to keep straight with men who “ magnify their office ” and so mistake its obligations as to take offence at what was manifestly the proper course for the Education Board to follow. They have evidently misapprehended their relationship to the Board and the occasion that gave rise to the inquiry. Had Bishop Mohan or Father Coleman, as they ought to have done before publishing to the world what is now proved baseless, laid a formal complaint to tho Education Board that the Educational regulations were ignored at Tokomairiro, most probably the Committee would have been communicated with, and directed to make inquiry and report. But Bishop Mohan took another course and published a statement in his Lenten pastoral, involving a charge against the whole educational s} r stem, in support of which Father Coleman adduced the cock and bull story about a Roman Catholic boy’s sister telling him the boy had been punished for refusing to attend “ Bible reading and Protestant prayers/’ X£ it was' necessary to investigate the matter at all —whieli no one will doubt —it was bettor that .the inquiry should bo conducted by soine one wholly unconnected with the school, whoso position was a guarantee for its faithfulness, and for the imparthdity of hie report. W0 30T0jf had

any doubt about the charge being without foundation; but had the Committee enquired and denied its truth, it would have been said it was not likely they would acknowledge a transaction that in some degree reflected upon their own vigilance as a School Committee, and therefore such a denial was worthless. A little reflection, therefore, will shew them that, for their own sakes as well as the schoolmaster's, it was much better that the case should he investigated by the Magistrate, a man accustomed to sift and weigh evidence. They surely must have overlooked these very obvious considerations, or they would never have got upou stilts and passed the silly resolution published in the Bruce lin'd Id yesterday. With regard to Father Coleman s letter, we have very little to say. It is a very easy way of shuffling out of a dilemma to tell an opponent he states untruths, when that which is asserted is only a fair deduction from statements made by himself- “ Perfect love castoth out fear, and hypocrisy and lying are the children of fear.” Father Coleman charges Ins own people with hypocrisy and lying. It is not we who charge them. We assert that it is harshness, and intolerance, and interference with their Christian liberty that leads to the practice of such vices, and that a system that induces vicious attempts at concealment, lest penal consequences should follow, no matter whether spiritual or_ temporal, is responsible for the spiritual degradation induced by it. It is not we who have pronounced sentence: the condemnation is by the Reverend Father himself. But he has not answered our challenge: he has not shewn who the men are who, he asserts, fear to lose then employment if formal complaint is made by them of their children being forced to attend Bible reading and Protestant prayers. Bet him do that, and none v ill be more ready to condemn such proceedings than we. By the way, with regard to what the 11 ever end Father, we must say very disingenuously, terms Protestant prayers. From the use made of the epithet “ Protestant, many not acquainted with the fact are led to believe they are something exceptionalsomething in which no Homan Catholic cau join. If this were true, it would bo a practice that we should bo equally ready to condemn as the Reverend Father himself. But wo are happy to say that, widely as we differ from our Bomau Catholic fellow-men on matters of Church government, there are common grounds on which all professing Christians can agree. Now, these so-called “ Protestaut prayers,” if the children hear them at all in school, arc only the Lord s Prayer, differing in the translation, we believe, of a word or two of no material moment in the Douay and authorised versions of the New ‘Testament. It will be seen, that this charge, so blazoned forth to the world, is just as flimsy as all the rest, and that the real grievance is that, possibly, for we do not know whether or not, the prayer has been learnt by a child from the lips of a Protestant ‘instead of a Homan Catholic. "The mountain has been in labor, and a mouse is born.” We challenge Father Coleman to say whether he knows anything on the subject beyond what we have stated. As to the books which seem so sad a grievance, wc know that the Education Board arc quite as anxious to avoid just cause of oHence iu that respect as Father Coleman himself; that various school books arc under review, and that those freest from sectarian bias will be adopted. If such groundless charges are made the basis of grievances. Father Cowman must; not he surprised that the common sense and common honesty of mankind reject them as frivolous and vexations, %