SABBATH BREAKING.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 19 February 1913, Page 3

SABBATH BREAKING.

BIBLE IN STATE SCHOOLS

TO TIIE EDITOH. Sir, —In your supplement of Jan. 15th, 1913, you place befoie us an item that t think is of more than ordinary significance, will you allow me to make a few remarks on the same ? The article T refer to is under the heading: —" No Sunday Gardening.— Sabbath Breaker invaded by Police.'' One of the paragraphs runs about as follows :—"While an enthusiastic gardner was tending his plants peacefully on a Sunday morning last month, two policemen suddenly jumped over the fence and ordered him to stop, as some of the neighbours had complained that he was breaking the Sabbath." It appears that the police took action under the Lord's Day act, which says that, •' it shall not be lawful for any person on the Lord's Day to ... carry on or transact any business of his ordinary calling, or to do on that day any work, business, or labour.'' Your readers will notice that in the capture of this " lawless one ? " two great powers are engaged, namely the Church and the State. The Church is represented by those Christians ? who would punisn. their neighbours, for -working on what they call the 11 Sabbath or Lord's Day," and the State is represented by those policemen who are doing the bidding of the Church, Everyone who understands what thes9 things mean will be astounded to know that in this age of enlightenment, «,nd even in America the " land of the free "? such tyranny and slavery exist. It is a marvellous thing that there are people in the "World calling themselves. " Christians," who knovr so little about the Bible as to think they are doing good service by punishing a man who according to their way of thinking is breaking the Sabbath. The Lord has given no man authority to inflict fines, and imprisonments on Sabbath-breakers, or those who neglect Baptism, the Lord's supper, prayer and so on, for whether we do these things or leave them undone, we trespass upon no man's rights and are accountable to God only. From the article under consideration and from many others of like impbrt which come daily from the watchful " Press " we learn that dense darkness i» once more falling upon the Church and the world. The apostate, backslidden Church, refuses to learn the lessou taught by past history :— that when the Church controls the state and uses its iron arm to force the conscience, persecution always follows, and the righteous fall under the cruel hand of the wicked. An article in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald of March 1912 reads thus : " The people of Toronto are being treated to a great agitation, brought about by the Lord's Day Alliance, which is seeking to curtail the liberties of the people of Toronto and vicinity, on Sunday. The press reports many meetings being held in opposition to the restrictions the Alliance wishes to place on the conduct of the people during Sunday." Branches of the Lord's Day Alliance of the United States and Canada are very numerous, As early as 191 i there were 800 branches and 60 thousaud members. It should be remembered that whoever votes for Bible teaching in State Schools, Trill also be helping to bring about the dreadful evils which will attend-the " New Zealand Lord's Day Alliance" that is being built up throughout thu Dominion. Many good people are in this great Babylonian scheme, which might be labeled. " The wolf in sheep's clothing " to all those, who like Saul of Tarsus are unknowingly fighting against God, the last earning is sounding :— " Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not her plagues.'' (Eevelation 18.4.) I am, etc., G.J.

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. TO HIE EDITOII. Sir, —In a former letter on this subject you weie good enough to allow me to indulge in some reminiscences touching, my experiences in the first school wtiich I attended as a child of tender years, and in which, there was no Bible read, and in my next school in which the terrors of the Bible were added to those of the birch. The memory of that first Bible lesson school comes to me to-day, across the gulf of more than half a century of intervening years, s.veet as the breath of a dewy dawn across a held of wild flowers; the memory of the other comes as a whiff from the bottomless pit across the thermal regions round and about Mok ai on one of Mokai's hottest summer days. Ugh ! I cannot speak of a certainty of how the Bible in that school affected others, I know how it affected me, and it was'nt for good ! It had the effect of stifling legitimate ambition, of retard* ing me in my studies, and cf inspiring the most deadly fears. It taught me that this life and- this world—the only ones of which we had any actual cognizance—were scarcely worthy of the smallest consideration, and that our

affections must not rest upon even the worthiest objects that this world, contains. I " Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him," Nay more^ it taught me ' that I must '• hate the mother that bore me and the father that battled for me before I could become a dis~ ciple of Christ! "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Of course when I was emboldened, one day, \to ask a minister what his opinion was of such an unnatural injunction, he adroitly replied that, in the original, f<hate" meant "love less! " I did'nt wish to argue the point with the minister for whom I had a gr:at respect, regardless of his opinions, but I could'nt help thinking if its the Word of God there should be no ambiguity about it, but. in the interests, especially of school- boy humanity, it should say what it means " now," as well as in the "original." If one will substitute " love less " for <( hate '' in such passages as " Pray for those who hate you and despitefully use you," the difficulties into which this juggling with the transla*. tion lands its votaries wiU be immediately made to appear. '' I I repeat, such juggling had little effect for good in my school days on the mind of your correspondent. I am, etc., Clatjd Hopper. Mokai, 13th Feb., 1913.