The Wrong Conclusion

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 14 March 1907, Page 22

The Wrong Conclusion

•♦ I recently Wad to examine some boys ', said the Rev. Mr. Garland at the Methodist Conference in Christchurch last week, ' and one of the questions asked was the names of the Apostles. One of the boys replied as follows : ".Peter, the \lrgin Mary, Pontius Pilate, Timothy, Matthew, Mark, Moses,- John, BaraJWbas." No doubt,' added the speaker, * that boy is a disciple of the "" New Theology "—and probably he has a large heart.' The inference drawn from this really fine schoolboy « howler ' is that the Protestant version* of the Bible should be taught, on Protestant lines, in the State schools, by State officials, and that Catholics, Jews, and cither dissidents should be compelled— under the usual alternatives of distraint or imprisonment— to contribute to the cost of the proceeding. The conclusion is not contained in the premisses. A" much easier, more direct, and more natural inference is this : that

parents and the clergy should, follow v the Catholic example, wake up and do their duty, to the children, and ncit scheme to pick their neighbors' pockets for the cost of performing an elementary religious obligation of their state.