The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1913. THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS DEMONSTRATION

New Zealand Tablet, 20 March 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1913. THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS DEMONSTRATION

M/37 ■»p» 1 &(p<frf?\h S we briefly indicated in last week’s issue the Wl/rXwk Bible-in-scliools ‘ demonstration in Duny/ralVV' edin, was from the point of view of numbers, effectiveness, and general impressiveness, what would be colloquially described as a * frost,’ and must have been very disappointing to its energetic promoters. They - had pitched their hopes, if not their expectations, sufficiently high. At the microscopic ( public meeting ’ held on the previous Sunday Canon Garland had declared that ‘ according to the papers there were 3500 people at his Wellington meeting, and was Dunedin going to allow itself to be beaten by Wellington? The hall was a small one, so they had better come early or they would have difficulty in getting a seat.’ The Rev. W. Gray Dixon, the secretary of the Dunedin branch of the League, conveyed the same impression as to the high anticipations that were entertained in regard to the demonstration by announcing that in view of the smallness of the hall arrangements had been made for an ‘ overflow ’ meeting, and First Church would be made available for that purpose. As it turned out the exhortations to come early and the other precautionary measures were quite unnecessary. Burns Hall is said to be seated for only 500 people, and we personally counted several scores of empty chairs. Yet the chairman declared that this was the largest and most representative meeting they had yet had in Dunedin in connection with the present movement. We have no wish to under-rate or in any way under-estimate the resources of the Bible-in-schools party, and we do not, of course, suggest that the two meetings we have been referring to represent the full strength of the organisation in Dunedin. But we do say that they evidence a lack of vitality and motive power in the movement in the southern city. If a similar demonstration had been arranged for on such a subject as, for example, prohibition, what a different response there would have been!

The speeches at the demonstration were not of the kind to carry conviction or to make a single convert. They were either composed of more or less irrelevant generalities or, where the speakers did ' condescend to details,' they dealt with matters that were almost trivial in their import. The chairman (Rev. R. E. Davies), for example, devoted practically the whole of his speech to showing that by a recent alteration of the regulations in New South Wales a teacher was now graciously allowed to hold the office of lay reader or local preacher, inpidentally demonstrating how for the last thirty years the teachers had been tyrannised over in that particular. The Rev. G. H. Balfour, measuring other people by the League's bushel, declared that if there was any truth in the statement that if the League's demands were conceded it would give Catholics an irresistible claim to a special grant they would in that case have the Catholics on their side.' Evidently the idea that a Christian body should be true to us principles and fight against what it conceived to be wrong even though it stood to lose by its attitude did not occur to him as being even within the bounds of possibility. Canon Garland delivered the speech which we have read so often that we now know it almost as well by heart as does the Organising Secretary himself. After listening to him for ten solid minutes descanting on King Alfred and his ' Book of Doom ' we concluded that life was too short to allow us to wait until he had reached' the present-day proposals in which we were really interested, and we quietly made our exit. The only speaker who made any attempt to face a vital issue was Dean Fitchett; and his . remarks are being dealt with in the daily press. The Rev. W. Slade (Methodist Central Mission) admitted that ' at one time he did not like a portion of the New South Wales system' and that ' objections (still) existed in his mind,' but as his friends on the other side spoke well of the scheme ' he would not allow his own predilections to influence him in a matter of the kind.' Thus the effect of his contribution to the proceedings was little more than to ' damn ' the movement ' with faint praise.' Altogether, as we haVe said, the speeches were not calculated either to inspire or to impress; and except for the attentionmostly of a hostile character which it has secured for the movement in the papers the demonstration has not advanced the League's interests in these parts in the slightest perceptible degree.