HALCOMBE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8853, 2 July 1907, Page 3

HALCOMBE.

Prom Ocr Own Correspondent. Our School Committee [met on Saturday night. The visiting committee Reported repairs to offices had been effected and gravelling done. Their recommendation to farther improve interior of former and trim overgrown trees was acted upon. Letters from Education Board re change of teachers were read, aiict' the assurance that Mr Robson would remain until Mr Stracliau is able to resume work was received with satisfaction. The Board’s, grant of £5 towards the cost of forming and metalling road to the school residence’ was also considered satisfactory, Mt Hobson reported that during the late heavy rains the school roof 'near ventilators leaked so badly as to partially flood the chts'S room. The secretary was instructed to notify the Board of defects in roof and to request that same be remedied. Accounts totalling £3 173 3d were passed for payment. The suggestion that a school dance be inaugurated to rliiso funds to cover increasing demands upon committee’s resources was favourably received and the matter was loft in the capable hands of Mr W. A. I 8011. Th 6 Bible reading In schools : question was submitted by the League and unanimously atisWCred in the negative. The proposition of the League.,was in brief that a selected portion of the. Scriptures be read to the children by a school teacher without comment further than to correct grammatical or historical errors. The chairman said that apart from other objections he would not bo a party to place the teachers of our youth in such a humiliating position and would prefer that the Bible in Schools League supply corrected records with the necessary phonograph to perform such mechanical work.

Touching upon this question I note that a writer in the Nineteenth Century says that—‘ ‘ The Churches will have to face the question of the best methods of ..themselves undertaking that task of. - religious training which they have- sought to foist upon the State.” He thinks that ‘‘ If they are to fulfil this duty in a wise anci effective manner they must follow ..the guidance of biological psychology at ..the point whore it is at one with the teaching, of their own most ancient traditions; and develop the merely formal rite of confirmation into a now true initiation of the new-born soul at i puberty into the deepest secrets of ; life and |the highest 'mysteries of religion.” The .writer also contends ‘ ‘ that tiro first twelve years of life must bo loft untouched, by ail conceptions of life and the world which transcend immediate experience. The child’s spiritual virgin- ; ity must not be prematurely tainted. Some day, perhaps, it may be thought worth while to compile a Bible for childhood, not a mere miscellaneous assortment of stories but a collection of books as various in nature as are the books of the Hebraic Christian Bible, so that every kind of child I iu all its modes and stages of growth may here find fit pastures. Children would not then be .wholly at the mercy of the thin and frothy literature which the contemporary press pours upon them so copiously. They could possess at least one great aud essential book 'which however fantastic and extravagant it might often be, would yet have sprung from the deepest instincts of the primitive soul, aud furnish answers to the most insistent demands of primitive hearts. Such a book, Mr Ellis says, even when finally dropped from .the youths’ or girls’ hands (as they drop' dolls aud milk foods) would still leave its vague perfume behind. ’ ’

Mark Twain has for years been studying the life and work of the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, founder and leader of the Christian Science movement, and he says that “Closely examined, painstakingly studied, she is easily the most interesting person on the planet, and in several ways as easily ! the most extraordinary woman that was ever upon it. She controls about G4O churches in America, to which number one is , being added every four days, Mrs Eddy’s character as revealed by her 1 ‘ genuine writings’’ does not command Mark’s admiration. Her varying statements lead him to believe she is the most untrustworthy “the world has heard since the late lamented Ananias quitted the witness stand.” Mrs Eddy has deliberately aggravated every difficulty that stands in the way of the acceptance of her religion and yet notwithstanding this Christian Science flourishes to such an extent that I believe the new religion will conquer the half of Christendom in a hundred years. The secret of its success is because it seems to free its possessors’ life from frets, fears, vexations, bitterness and all sorts of imagination-propagated maladies and pains and fills his world with sunshine and his heart with gladness. If Christian Science, with this stupendous equipment, and final salvation added, cannot win half the’ Christian globe, 1 must be badly mistaken in the make-up of the human race. ’ ’