GHASTLY!

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 382, 7 May 1908, Page 2

GHASTLY!

Bishop Neligan, of Auckland, according to a Home correspondent, has not finished with the subject of paganism in “ God’s Own Country,” nor of expressing his views on the failure of New Zealand’s secular system of education. Speaking to a crowded congregation in the Old Band he said inter alia “At present they in New Zealand had the result of secularism, and the result—he chose his own word —was ghastly ! The result is ghastly, repeated the Bishop with emphasis. God forgive, as He will forgive out of His tender mercy, pity, and compassion, the men and women who, never having seen a State secular system and its results, are prepared to make the schools at Home secular. It was worth, be did not care what sacrifice, to prevent it. His experience for five years in the most English part of the British Empire was that there was no sacrifice Englishmen could make equal in importance to that for keeping religion, not as an extra, but as a normal element in the school.” To one who has been educated under our present secular system, Bishop Neligau’s remarks are, to say the least, highly amusing, and we have no hesitation in saying tint he speaks contrary to facts. The State is responsible for the secular education of our children, and the duly of the church is the spiritual welfare of the people, and Bishop Neligan or any other parson should blush to ask the State to do the work for which the churches exist.