THE EDUCATION BILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5131, 3 September 1877, Page 3

THE EDUCATION BILL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. giK ( One of your recent correspondents after making some disparaging remarks on the Holy Scriptures, goes ou to say, “It is necessary to remind the Hon. Mr. Bowen and others, that besides the Latin and Anglican Churches, besides the Presbyterian and Wesleyan communities, there exists a great scientific church the church of scientific students —not Jess intelligent and not less influential than these others, and that these will object to encourage •what they believe to be superstition in the way the Hon. Mr. Bowen’s Bill proposes.” It is very satisfactory at the present moment to obtain from an indiscreet zealot such a frank avowal of the object the Secularist sect have in view. The cloven foot here plainly makes its appearance. It has often been contended by those who advocate the opening of schools with prayer and the reading of a portion of the Bible, that for the State to prohibit these is to endow the Secularist sect at the expense of the rest of the community. In the words quoted above we have the admission that “there exists a great scientific evidently antagonistic to Christianity ; and the implied claim that this is the religious sect that ou"ht to be endowed by the State. The members of this sect, he asserts, will object to encourage what they believe to be superstition. Christians, on the other hand, will object, and that to an extent which perhaps secularists are hardly aware of, to have their children taught to believe the soul-degrading superstition of “ the great scientific church ” of the Pantheists. I trust that the mere thoughtful of our legislators will reflect on this aspect of this moat important subject, and will realise the fact tiiat absolutely to exclude religion and the Bible from a system of public education, would be to.widen “the great scientific church” of the Pantheists, and to sanction a species of persecution to which the country would not auiety submit. —I am. &c., 1 A Christian. September 1.

TO THE EDITOR OE THE HEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir,— “ Masterton’s” letter, which appears in your issue of this morning, I have read ■with considerable interest, and while I cordially endorse his reflections upon “Waira rapa’s ” stupid attack upon the Bible, I cannot agree with him in believing that it would-be either wise or expedient to repress the reading of the sacred oracles in our public schools. _ Why should the simple reading of the Bible without comment provoke either sceptical hostility or sectarian dissent 1 If our Constitution professedly is based upon the Bible, and if it is as “ Masterton ” states the Britons real Magna Charta, does it not appear strange and significant that any of Britain’s sons should be found anxious not only to suppress it, but to exclude it from its true place in our educational system as the t( nation s standard book ? As a Christian nation, we should honor God by dutifully assigning His “ Word ” first place in our schools. If there is not this recognition of Him upon whom we are absolutely dependent, I fear the worst. The careful student of history knows what, is meant by a “scientific church its votaries are clearly pointed out also by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans. “ Who when they knew God glorified Him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened 5 professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” &c. I fervently trust the House will not expunge from Mr. Bowen’s measure the clause relating to the reading of the Bible in our public schools.—l am, &c., August 31.