THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43066, 9 March 1907, Page 4

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

-•> In connection) with the Bible in School agitation attention is being r esxtraotj fifom Huxley’s" essay oh the , - School Boards,'which is considered' as doiiblvi interesting as coming from an , ; .in -/bjelief. ;“The- 'religious’ party is crying for a mere theology., ■ •' all,, when; they onlw want it to Be free fromi theology. . vi ßurning ybuir *jhip to get rid of the ho human being, and no soeiet y of bum an beings, ever did, or evet will, . .cbme .to much,. unless their conduct wm gpyprned itod! guided by the love oi somie efchapal ideal. Aindi if I were ‘Z oompdlled to choose for one of my

v"o«wii -children between a school in ■ : brjwfiach real- religious instruction is I given and one without it, I should pre■j % ..fqr’jtihe former - ,, even though my child >< 'noigh^i to take a "good deal of ■■ '■l -tbealogy with it;’- Nine-tenths of a •• dose of hark is'mere-half-rotten, wood, y-lwifc one Wallows 5 it for the sake of l the quinine, the beneficial effect of v-iTwhioh may tie, weakened, but not der J • by the wioodien-dilution. And if thereadihgof the Bible were . and ; l think it is, consonant with ; * X .po!iJfc*e«l -reason and justice, anid with toact in tfjna spirit of . the ii b * ediiicationi measure, I am' disposed 1 to ’ bb-tfiLnlc it might'Jetill be well to read that book ini the elementary schools. ; vv||3jlave 4dway& been strongly .-in favour ' thieoI' navel been no ■y ••'erpleccedi to know by 7- v~pflMJtioali.meaisurea the religious . j» Jhejee#eintiai basis of ■ doojJuet, was to be kept up, in the - present utterly chaotic state of opbn- these maftters, without the of Bible. TWei Pagan moral- . ;|3/ wits lack life and?dslour, . and .even rV; the nobler Stoic, Marcus Ahtonius, is too high! aa&, refined for "an, ordinary pi:-. r.'.-ohUd.,. Take as a "whole,' elfMinate, as asen sable. lay teacher would* <fos oil thalw pot desirable, for chtlidien to occupy themselves with, and thieve still in this old literature ai vast'. jreaiduum of moral beauity and grandeur. And then considler this historical fact, that for three centuries this book haa beeh woven into the life iof all that is best and : noblest in English history; that it hag • ~ become the national epic of Britain; I -'that it ia written in toe noblest and purest English, -and abounds in eac-p-k quisite 'beauties of mere literary jHp • i form ; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left has . . village,to beTignorant of the existence of .ther countries and other ciyilisar lions,, andl of al great past,. stretching hack to the furtberest limits of to'e tidiest nations' in the world.” Profeestojl&jadey holds that the study of ;*; the Book' would k the children, and on the whole is in favour of reading the Bible with such gramV; : mafica!,'; geographical, and historical %> a lay teacher as may however in a - Sense nmijifiedi - titexalboVe by insisting on a. riVd l of;. any further _ tofeor logical; toachlngvthan that contained And in 1 -the Bible V : ?n SpoolsLeagqk"^school committeesnto > question of Bible | puMicf schools' '"ilk a 1 » Snd 4 4ts moral teftOWngt?. whiled ti atoaiso^-toco^perato.