CONTRADICTION OF REV. WM. MORLEY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4602, 20 December 1875, Page 2

CONTRADICTION OF REV. WM. MORLEY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir,—Despite, and, I must say. in consequence of the letter of your rev. correspondent, the fact of a public school building being converted into a Wesleyan Chapel does seem to me still a shameful wrong. There is on my part no want of candor and honesty. On the contrary. On my side is candor and honesty ; on theirs is a fatal want of it. What! a public building, put up with public money for only educational purposes, to become practically a Wesleyan Temple ! I ask still, In that where is honesty, where is justice ? I am told that the secretary of the Education Board has sanctioned it. So much the worse. If the Board by their secretary become part to such deeds, and if the public close their eyes, we are no longer safe. A precedent is laid down. After deliberation of local committees, and with the assent of Mr. Graham and his successors, there is not one school under the Board which may not be made a place for sectarian conventicles. Conscientious minorities who think it essentially wrong, shall be trampled upon by brutal majorities ; and before long, we will see the land studded with school buildings in which Wesleyans, or Banters, or Quakers, or Mormons, if supported by majorities, will make their nest, and thus the machinery of our secular education will become the instrument of proselytism and bigotry of the worst kind. The Rev. Wm. Morley laughs at the doctrines.'held sacred by some christians, being blasphemed and ridiculed by sectarians. Sir, certain sectarians speak no better; nay, they .speak worse than thev write. It is not long since I was accosted by a child, who evidently obeyed a venerable sanctimonious man, who was on the other side of the street. Of course it was on a Sunday, and the tracts had just been distributed. Well, sir, I was presented one of those tracts. It was headed " A Sham Priest." I need not say that the tract swarmed with blasphemies and scoffs. I agree, if they are consistent, a Catholic clergyman must be a sham priest. But, if he be a true priest of the living God, what are they, since they are a pure contradiction to Catholicity ? The argument of the Rev. Wm. Morley for appropriating the schoolroom of Ohariu to the use of his sect, looks very much like the following reasoning of a Socialist or Communist:—" Mr. Peter has a fine dwellinghonse, Mr. James has the like. As for me, I have no shelter. Well, there is in my neighborhood a public building, I must contrive to have it for my use, if not by force, at least by some stratagem."— I am, *c, A Protester.