BISHOP WALLIS IN EXPLANATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8304, 6 December 1906, Page 5

BISHOP WALLIS IN EXPLANATION.

Bishop, Wallls writes as follows to the Evening Post with reference to his cabled remarks at the Melbourne Churoh Congress: —"I gather from a Sydney newsoaper, which 1 have seen this morning that words of mine spoken a; the Melbourne Churoh Congress last week have caused some perplexity, and possibly also some irritation, in New Zealand. Will you bo so kind therefore as to fiud a plaoe for thia letter in your columns, that it may he known what I really said? The subject we were discussing was 'Obstacles to Religion in Australia.' In the course of the discussion 1 stated that the most formidable obstacles in my own colony were the prowlug scarcity of religious instruction in our homes, and the total absence of re ligioua instruction from the curriculum of our State Schools; aiid that in consequence, deapite all tba effucts of Christian ministers, a large part of our population was becoming heathen. 1 believe this statement to be absolutely true, and have made it auain and again in New Zealand. I had no thought of com* .paring the religious life in our colony with that in Australia, of which I know next tu nothing, nor was 1 speaking unjustly or ungenerously of u land which has been my home for nearly twelve y«are, and has become very dear to me."