OUTSPOKEN SERMON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9067, 16 April 1908, Page 3

OUTSPOKEN SERMON.

ARE WE BECOMING PAGANS?

BISHOPS AND CLERGY CRIIICISED.

The Rev. W. Beatty, of St. Mark's Church, Remuera, Auckland, in a sermon on Sunday night, gave expression to some candid views regarding the shortcomings of the bishops and clergy in respect to the question of the religious instruction of the young. "It is well known," he said, "that ministers of religion in general make no attempt to ava?l themselves of the opportunities afforded under the present Education Act for Scriptural teaching outside school hours, but prefer to declaim in the press, in the pulpit, or on the platform against the defects of the law, to exaggerate the evils and depreciate the existing system. In my judgment the agitation for the introduction of the Bible into the schools is largely insincere and artificial, and has little solid earnest conviction behind it. There is very little evidence that ministers of religion themselves know the Bible reverence it, seek to understand or obey it. If they did they would see and confess the evils of religious divisions, and they would set themselves to repent of their own sins.and amend their own faults, instead of attacking others, for the Bible all throuch bears witness that the spiritual and moral condition of a nation depends upon the spiritual and moral condition of religious teachers and professors; that the sins of the priest are the chief causes of the sins of the people; that judgment must begin from the House of God." He added that if what was called secular education was seriously defective it did not follow that what was called religious education must necessarily be good and wholesome. That depended entirely upon the nature of the religion,' There was, as there had always been, religious teaching that was false, superstitious, and irrational, which enfeebled the mind and perverted the conscience; which bred hypocrisy, dishonesty, cowardice, and slavishness in humanity, and contempt of others. "For my own part," declared Mr Beatty, "I say deliberately that I would rather send a child to a school where he received no religious teaching at all, but where by precept, example, and influence he was trained to be truthful, honest, and obedient, and unselfish and public spirited, than send him to a seminary whore his mind was filled with religious trivialities, where the principles of abject submission to human authority were inculcated, and where he was encouraged to consider himself possessed of exclusive spiritual privileges, and to hate or despise those who held a different form of belief or practised different rites of wor- i ship. No child need grow up a Pagan, even if he does not learn the Bible at school," the preacher said, "but if I had to choose between the two, I would rather be an honest, kindly, useful, and manly Pagan than a crooked, shuffling, treacherous, cruel Pharisee. So far as my experience goes, most parents in New Zaaland desire their children to receive a religious training* in public schools and in private schools. Bible classes conducted by Christian ministers are freely attended by children of all denominations, and no right-minded man would take advantage of the opportunity to draw children from the faith of their fathers to win proselytes to his own body. The religious difficulty," he concluded, "which originally called into existence aid still maintains the system of secular education, is mainly due to the want of confidence the ministers of the various Christian bodies, and the want of confidence on the part of the ] public in ministers generally. If the people are becoming Pagans it is bishops and clergy who are doing most to make and to keep them Pagans."