SECULAR EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 127, 8 October 1875, Page 11

SECULAR EDUCATION.

It will be sften from extracts from Auckland papers which we publish to-day that the Rev. Father Paul's furniture has been seized and sold to pay the school rate. Father Paul is the respected and zealous Catholic pastor of Onehunga For many years this rev. gentleman has labored hard and successfully in the cause of Catholic education. His success however, has not been achieved without very considerable sacrifices, on his part, of both time and money. His people are well supplied with the means of an excellent Christian education. He has established female and infant schools, which are conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, and lie has also a very good school for boys conducted by a qualified master. Under these circumstances, one would have thought that Government, instead of punishing him for so much labor generosity, and zeal by seizing- on his furniture and selling it by auction, would have helped him in his good work But secularists are true to their godless principles; they have neither heart nor- soul nor . conscience. Father Paul and his people have, at great trouble and expense, provided admirable" schools for themselves, »nd they bravely support them independently of Government and taxation. But this does not satisfy the godless -in education. These gentry set up a secular and rival school, with the avowed object of enticing Catholic children i.ito it and rearing- them up so far as they can, without any knowledge of even the existence of God and his holy commandments, and they call upon Catholics to support- this g0.11.-ss school for them; thab is, they call upon Catholics to pay money to help them to destroy their own Catholic and Christian schools, to un christianise their own children if possible, and, at all events, to maintain in their midst an institution which daily proclaims that in secular matters man can very well do without God and religion. Father Paul objects to this degradation, and refuses to Contribute money to rivet en himself and his people the chain of degradation and inferiority. But the godless majority has the law on its side, and seizes on his furniture and sells it to satisfy the rate he would not pay. It is not enough that he has for years denied himself in many things that he mi^ht save wherewith to establish and maintain Catholic schools °he is compelled by the Government to contribute also to maintain purely secular schools, in. which all that he and hU people most value is absolutely ignored, and to which his Catholic children are invited by the offer of bribes provided in part by his and their money. This is a monstrous state of things. It is the worst of tyrannies and the most grievous of injustices. How lone* are the people expected to endure this? If all Catholics & and Christians were to do as Father Paul has done, the iniquity of ignoring God and religion in the midst of a Christian population conli not last long. His brave example ought to be a lesson fcr us all ; and.while we applaud the manly stand lie has made for honor, principle, and religion, we should resolve to do likewise.