THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1904. THE DILEMMA: ONE HORN

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 48, 1 December 1904, Page 17

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1904. THE DILEMMA: ONE HORN

/j#jn£^jp PASMS and jerks of controversy here and VSS^x. there serve to still keep languidly alive the JJv^SvW} interest in the recent declaration of the T|few. chief spokesman in the Bible-in.scjiools j&£>W&f League t,hat, his party will now have no siuch <£S> thing as direct ' religious instruction ' in Uie £&-j£ public schools ; neither will they permit the teachers to ' enlarge upon the language of the Bible ' This latest, gyration in the party's- programme will, we ween, bring them small surcease of trouble. It shifts them from one horn of a sharp dilennn.a M but at lands ;them fuli Siqufire upon the point of another. At the very outset 'of discussion they are met with the pertinent inquiry : What translation of the Bible do you pr,op,ose to place in the hands of children attending the public schools ? An,d we learn that it is the Protestant Authorised Version, with all its sins of commission, omission, a«,d mistTiansdatiUp, which were in great part intended to justify certain distinctive teachings of the Reformed creeds a,nd to antagonise the doctrines of the Ancient Faith. Moreover, the Bible-in-s/Ohools League serenely propose to forcibly pick the ppekets of Catholics and other redusants for the purpose of printang, distributing, and teaching this 1 sectarian version of the Scriptures to the budding youth of New Zealand.

Let ;us suppose that — as set, fort|h some time ago in the oilicial (pronouncements of the League— the fecripture lessions would be accompanied by ' simple explanations of a literary, lystorioal, and ethical character.' Such explanations would necessarily, iw the vast majority of clases, be given by Protestants of various creeds. 'it would,' as our Bishops remarked, 'be obviously impossible for the teachers— of various creeds and of no creed— t^crf wh.om it is proposed to entrust tihese lessons to do such watchful and continuous violence to tiheir comvictiDlns as to avoid coloring tiheir " literary, nisifoorical, and etjhiical " explanations witih their owm beliefs or unbelief. In a great number o£7 cases they would, n!o doubt, derive from the lessons conclusions