THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 66, 3 February 1883, Page 3

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

! The Bishop of Melbourne, speaking on the subject of education without the ;;i K r-a'id— * Within the last year a upw n ovoment lias been set on foot toseciu-o nililp-r^rulin^inStateschooU It is i-nrii- jy -v- layman's movement ; It bewail in" uuth Australia, and has I there. 'oTixni'iledfd "wonderfnl shccrss, ! (Gradually it .=}>rea;l across our western j borrt^r to Warrnambuol '<ial Geelong, and the piher day some members of It; c" committees of those western j:towu.s, caKed together the ministers ! «>f 'the Protesfart denomination's in Mrllx ump. -o listen to srv-tal pro- ] osals. It seems not unlikely tliar this ngiration among 1 our pious laity ! may spread. Wliat'is likely to be the iutme of those chldrcn, nearly the lialf of our children of school age, who never hear about. God at all? We know what their homes are. The mere f.iet of their absence from Sunday School tells us this You know what are the special temptations of youth, and you know, I suppose, that some of the most attractive and sensational literature of the day is litile el?e than a Satanic irritation of the strongest and most destructive passions of our nature. Well, then, here if a child, who has never been taught to think 61 any obi Rations to Gcd, turned loose in the midst of this literature to choo.-e for himself. Tell me, as an Itniest man, whether you think the power to read under these circumstances a blessing or a curse. For my part, f say at once, that to call our present readinr, writing, and arithmetic business an education is nothing belter thiin a cruel je3t,. So strongly ao 1 feel this, that at times when I see the iresti younar creatures swarming out of the doors of our schools, a dull heavy pain settles jver mj' heart which T curi hardly master"