The Secularism

that would only give God a secondary or subordinates, place in the world, that He has created for Himself and for his representative man upon earth cometh from the pit of blackless and to that pit it must be [unclear: erded] if we would save society from becoming like Sodom or Gomorrah, [unclear: eye] like ancient Greece, with her high intellect and refined arts, which was yet the abode of similar [unclear: nations] and licentious conduct and, unmentionable crimes. Had I youth and ability, I would, like another peter the Hermit, raise a [unclear: crased] from Auckland to Stewart's Island to go up and wrest the possession of the very fountain head of society the demon of secularism and destroy and take away the elements, for they are not the lord's,"and erect in place the hundred of truth, righteousness and every taught in the everlasting Word of the Triune God. But I must not join you much longer, yet I have somewhat to say of the absurdity of missing our young children on the [unclear: ks] of secularism, and sending them out into the world with no [unclear: art] to guide them, and no habits or [unclear: cter] framed on any true prin [unclear: le]hence larrikinism etc. William [unclear: this]of London, the great educa-[unclear: sist] says: "To reform a character [unclear: truly] a more arduous task than to [unclear: one] and how can we look for success in the greater and more [unclear: ult] undertaking from those who [unclear: are] equal to the easier," and let me [unclear: know]his words, who are unwilling [unclear: the]in many cases hostile to the [unclear: tion] of good character in early [unclear: th]?

But we have been acting a principle the very antithesis of what [unclear: a] question involves. We let the largest portion of our children grow up in ignorance of the sound principles of morality and duty, and then, when the natural and inevitable fruits of our neglect of the primary task manifest themselves in overt acts of vice and crime, as in gambling, fraud, drunkenness impurity, and blasphemous language and every other evil thing, we set ourselves the impossible task of eradicating these by prohibitory and restraining enactments and laws of men's device. If the cancerous root of man's natural disinclination for good remain unchecked in its growth, or, if we omit to supply an effectual antidote by grafting in God s eternal law of good so long are we engaged, like Sisyphus, in a never-ending and a barren toil, and furnishing a spectacle of mad folly to God and men, and to angels, fallen and unfallen alike. "The idea out of which the future civilisation must grow is here, there and everywhere in the Book of Life. That idea is, the moral regeneration of the individual. In this one aim lies the rudiment of all that is practicable for the amelioration of the race. This is the germ of the whole tree. The wisdom of God is to begin at the beginning. The wise master builder starts at the foundation and builds up." We are in short, raising the structure of our