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Apathy of the Churches,
to prevent the general adoption of this practice. Two objections are, however, urged :
| 1. | That it is impossible to detain some of the children and keep their attention after school hours, when their companions are let loose to play. To which the answer is that it is not a law of nature nor even statute law that the attempt should be made after hours. In Nelson a morning hour has been allowed and made use of for years. It is surely a smaller thing to follow this example than to turn the whole educational system upside down in the effort to get other people to do your work. |
| 2. | It is also said that not all ministers are qualified to teach children. No; nor are all schoolmasters qualified to teach religion—which is the alternative proposal. But if the clergy would really work as they should work for the children whom their Master loved, instead of looking round for excuses for putting their own special work on to other people, there are few of them who could not soon show themselves as efficient in teaching children as they now are in preaching to adults. Excluding the Roman Catholics, who stand aloof altogether, there are about 700 Christian ministers in the colony
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as against 1,330 public schools, so that 50 per cent. of the schools could each be provided with a clerical teacher of religion; and if in every case the minister was doing ill he could, his congregation would surely see that the work did not fail for lack of helpers. When we think of the baptism of fire and blood which the church underwent in the early days of the Gospel, is it not a melancholy ad shameful spectacle to see it in these days deliberately rejecting the opportunities which are given it of taking charge of its own children, and appealing to a secular power to undertake the sacred work for that by that very appeal it confesses well unworthy ? Assuming however that, whether from apathy or whether from necessity, the church continues to neglect its trust, what is to be done ? |
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as against 1,330 public schools, so that 50 per cent. of the schools could each be provided with a clerical teacher of religion; and if in every case the minister was doing ill he could, his congregation would surely see that the work did not fail for lack of helpers. When we think of the baptism of fire and blood which the church underwent in the early days of the Gospel, is it not a melancholy ad shameful spectacle to see it in these days deliberately rejecting the opportunities which are given it of taking charge of its own children, and appealing to a secular power to undertake the sacred work for that by that very appeal it confesses well unworthy ? Assuming however that, whether from apathy or whether from necessity, the church continues to neglect its trust, what is to be done ?