Bible-burning

New Zealand Tablet, 24 December 1908, Page 9

Bible-burning

Our readers will readily recall the storms of frantic fooling -which a few years ago circled around the burning of some worn and torn and battered Bibles at Naililili in Fiji. A small box, containing old and soiled Catholic prayer-books, a few damaged Bibles (Protestant version) belonging to some converts to the faith, and other pious objects, was treated with that cleansing mark of respect with which the Catholic Church has from time immemorial treated sacred vestments and other things that have gone beyond their use. And now (according to the Melbourne Advocate of December 5) the Bible in the local District Court was ordered by the magistrates to be burned. And yet, curiously enough, none of the people who stormed and raved over the Naililili affair have gone on fire. ' This action,' says the Advocate, ' was taken at the instigation of Dr. Kauffman, who, by the way, is an Orangeman.' But the clergy who steamed like Whakarewarewa fumaroles over the Fiji incident are now as undemonstrative as so many dabs of putty.