The Bible in State Schools

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 114, 6 March 1886, Page 2

The Bible in State Schools

A Lecture by the Bishop of Melbourne. The Bishop of Melbourne recently delivered a lecture in the Athenaeum Hall to a numerous audience, on the subject of "Bible Teaching in State Schools." Mr JV Balfour, M.L,C., presided. The following report is taken from the Melbourne Argus. The Bishop, who was warmly received said : — A clever young man asked me the other day whether I did not think that a man might live the life of Jesus without recognising the existence of the divine. lat once answered in the negative ; for what does the question mean ? It means, it is impossible for an ordinary man like me to attain to the spiritual height and moral perfec tion of Jesus Christ without his motive and his help. Hard enough it is to climb that steep of spiritual attain* ment with all the aid afforded and promised; but to attempt the task without such help is an enterprise not ouly presumptuous but hopeless. Why according to Lord Jesus, ought we to love all men as brethren, to forgive even our enemies, and to do good to them that hate us ? Because we have all a common Father, whose name is love, who made us in His own image, and who bk?s us to be perfect as He is perfect. If we have such a Father, and if we may call on that Father to 8 istain us in the effort to which He summons us, then human brotherhood has a distinct meaning to us, and the command to behave towards each other as brethren, has at once a divine authority and sanction. But suppose there is no such Heavenly Father, or none at least with whom we can enter into practical communion, what then becomes of the Christian system of morals, and of the hope of living by it ? Both at once fall into ruins, and we must not only cease to be Christians, but also to cherish the hope of living the life of Christians. (Hear, hear.) Now it seems to me that this is exactly the absurd and desperate position in which we place our children when we try to make Christian duty a powar in their liyes^ while ignoring Christian motives^ «nd aids. We say to them, in our seoular schools, do this and do that, but we refuse to tell them how and why. (Hear, hear.) The name of Christ, or of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, must not be mentioned in our schools. So great a horror, indeed, have we of wounding the susceptibilities of some 1000 of our fellow-oitizens, that we have carefully expunged the name of ;he Eedeemer of the world from the passages in our reading boolcs where t once occurred.

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