BAPTIST CONFERENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 134, 24 October 1912, Page 5

BAPTIST CONFERENCE.

THE CimiSTOHURCH SESSION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Christehurcli, Last Night. The sitting of the Baptist Union Conference was continued at the Oxford Ter race Baptist Church to-day. In vacating the presidential chair 'the Rev. H, Knowles Kempton made reference to the personal worth of Mr. J. G. Fraser, and his loyal and earnest work in the Baptist denomination.

Mr. Fraser then assumed the presidential chair amid applause, and thanked the Assembly for the honor done him. The budget was then brought forward by Mr. A. F. Carey. Union treasurer, who announced that the deficit on last year's accounts had been covered through the energy of Mr. Chidgey, who had collected the amount. The estimated sum available for grants was £1405, which it was now proposed tn allot in amounts from £ls upwards, and assist causes through the Dominion from the outpost of Whangare! in the North to Gore in the 'South.

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS, By Telegraph—Own Correspondent. Wellington, Last Night. The Bible in Schools movement was condemned heartily in a speech delivered before the Baptist Conference at Christchurch. The speaker was Mr. J. Caughey, a well-known Canterbury teacher. He said that on results the New South Wales system gave less satisfaction than the Victoria system did, simply because in Victoria the churches shouldered their own responsibilities. The vcrv absence of friction in the New South Wales system was its own condemnation, and it meant that teachers who did not believe had to teach as if they did. The children could detect hypocrisy. A mutilated Bible was given to the children, r>nd it was impossible to inculcate a love for the Bible by teaching from the Bible. Some of them were paraphrases which seemed to show that the editors considered that the literary scale of the Bible could be improved. The New South Wales system had caused the. introduction into the Education Act of restrictions on teachers, making it impossible for them to become lay preachers; to take part in any denominational conferences, or to write to the newspapers. The New Zealand Educational institute had carried a resolution urging that the present secular system should be retained. The League stood pledged to stop its movement if it was unjust to any church, and lie challenged the League to stand to that pledge. The movement was unjust to Roman Catholics, who could not accept it without violating the principles of their own church, held by them for generations. Speaking with the authority of Bishop deary's pronouncement, he said that the Catholics could not accept a mutilated or altered Bible. The Catholics insisted that the Bible should he read by people whose beliefs and principles were orthodox, and in a religious atmosphere. The other churches should take the same care. The Catholics spent £OO,OOO per year now in support of their principles on the question of religious teaching in schools, and they were not likely to violate their principles readily. The League system was a Protestant system.