The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4041, 8 February 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1876.

Political action, is nqt confined to public meetings or writing articles or letters to newspapers. ' There is an agency at work that is not so controllable, because not exactly, so open to criticism. That agency is the pulpit. Last Sunday, in Dunedin, at least two sermons were delivered, Laving for their leading object placing the' education of children in public schools under the control and supervision of the clergy; in other words, advocating denominational education. There is difficulty in dealing with this class of political advocacy. A man cannot stand up in _a church and tell the officiating minister that his logic is bad, that his quotations are misapplied/ that texts are overlooked which, collated with those referred to, lead to' a directly opposite conclusion from that. which he arrives at. .Yet all this could very often be shown, with perfect truth, to be the cajsse. For dbes any head of a family like to comment adversely upon a. sermon and point out the errors enunciated. He feels that to shake confidence, in the teaching of the clergyman oil one point is to prepare the way for weakening his influence on all; and thus ; . to cause him .; to . be listened to with indifference; or, at least, with |suspicion. Perhaps, therefore, 'the. pulpit, skilfully used by: a political' : clergyman, is the most potent of all political engines. His words, because of his office, are regarded reverently, and because they are professedly based .upon revelation they are received by lan admiring and devout congregation as inspired. On this account it is to be regretted that in matters political and social, no teachers are so frequently in; error as the clergy. On the question of; public education, especially, are they to be mistrusted. .. This is evident Iwhen two churches* opposed to each! other in the doctrines held, claim each to have the control of the education of children. Each bases its claim on the same authority of Scripture, and each in dealing with the question leaves out precisely those passages which modify and explain the limits of the others. One point is, however, common to both —denunciation of a "godless press j" and because, fortunately for society, clerioal interference in : public education is rejected, the system! is called, V godless." The narrowing tendency <?f sectarianism stands out in strong reKef in view of these denunciations.. If it be true that everything is godless, that does not directiy allow religious doctrine to be incorporated with it, the actions. of mankind are mayaly inade up : of ungodliness; : To the mass of sound thinking and acting men, it is sufficient that theyiknow the requirements-* of religion just as they widerstand the. rules of grammar ;>and aS through ..habit they have learnt Unconsciously to speak correctly, so they habitually fulfil ther higher obligations, It has become part of their do so, and tbW do not offensively protrude their excel-upon-others. Occasionally su perflation tries to lug w,here worldUijess seems especially to reign r as wl»n a ma a called his oreditow

And asked them to commence by prayer. We should hardly suppose, however, that thoße who replied they had not dome to a but to a "dreditor'a* meeting, wo]ttld'be^nerefpr« ; denounced as r ac|nowledged that; there was another to Jbe answered, in whiefcthe religion to be brought into exercise was the fulfilment of a duty to society, tempered with due consideration for the bankrupt—to do unto others what they would have others do unto them. Just in the' same the duty of education -of.-the young is divisible into secular and religious, neither contiadictirig, but each aiding the other. Hie <lay school and the schoolmaster are intended to teach the one, the Church ; and; clergyman the other. But when the clergyman claims to use the j educational machinery provided by society for the purpose of propagating his peculiar views, he overlooks that others, who do not acknowledge his church to be "the church," have an equal right—in reality no right whatever—and that the day-school is neither the fit time nor place for his ministrations. The term " godless," applied to the school or to the Press, either or both are engaged in teaching truth, is simply misapplied,: and far more pertinently indicates the character of teaching, in which bigotry leads to sophistry and superstition, If secular education meant the suppression of religious teaching, there would be reason in what is said; but, instead of that, it proposes to help it by training the minds of children to understand and think. Nobody objects to religious education. All that is objected to is teaching one man's religion by, the help of another's money, which, twist and wriggle it as one may, called by its right name is " religious swindling."