The Brotherhood of Man.

"What are some of our dreams and visions? There is one that has captivated the great men of the earth. It is the brotherhood of man. Kindness everywhere peace reigning war unknown, all struggling and working for all, and to tribe vexing another, and no man looking with unkindly eye on his neighbour. What a glorious vision! Is it any wonder that prophets nave foretold and poets pictured this gllorious vision? Do we realise its beauty or its grlory? I read the other day in a Wellington paper the report of a meeting called by the Church of England Men's Society to discuss: The present crisis and Christ's message of peace.' I wished to see what dreams or visions our fellow-citizens of the Anglican persuasion had, and this is what I read in the words of the only bishon or overseer who seems to have spoken: 'Bishop Sadlier proceeded to urge that the Church must become closer and more compact. It must be a body of spiritual mind. We shall never be strong as a church until we are smaller in number. The census figures alleged that a great mass of people belonged to the Church of England. The majority of those people appeared in page 5 actual fact to belong to no church until they were dead, when their relatives asked that a church burial service should be read over them. The Church of England was not benefited or helped by mere census members. He would like to see a clear cut line between the Church aud non-Christians. He would like to see the Church made a compact organised body containing only real members. When that was realised the Church could establish its own schools for its own children.' This does Lot look much like a vision of brotherhood. The goats and the sheep are to be divided and church schools are to be the mainstay of the vision.

"What church schools have meant to England I will call upon a former English president of the Board of Education—the Hon. Mr Pease—to state. I believe he is an orthorox Christian, He said: 'The defects of our so-called national system of education are in the main two. The first is that it is not national: the second is that it is not a system. On the one side we find our educational activities hampered by considerations some of them sectarian and some of them social—difficulties with denominations and difficulties of class feeling which have or have nothing to do with education at all. On the other side we find, at point after point, gaps and deficiencies which prevent us getting the full value of the education which does exist: there is in fact a back of co-ordination and of completenets in our educational system which I am convinced must be taken in hand if we are to avoid stagnation and reaction, and if we are to meet on fair terms our better educated foreign competitors,' It is surely very peculiar that the denominational system which has failed in England is to be introduced here. Will sectarian schools train our children to love one another? As to the value of theo-logical instruction in our primary schools we know what has happened in Ger- page 6 many The Government of Germany insisted on theological instruction being given to German boys and girls compul-sorily up to. I think, six hours a week, and the records of this war do not show the progress of love and brotherhood amongst the German people nor do they indicate that honesty or honour is revered. Further we may take the opinion of Hugh Miller as to the effect of theological education in Scottish Parochial Schools, He said;—"Though I now hear a good deal said, chiefly with a controversial bearing, about the excellent religious influence of our parochial seminaries. I never knew any one who owed other than the merest smattering of theological knowledge to these institutions, and not a single individual who had ever derived from them any tincture, even the slightest of religious feeling."

"It is not in the past the men who have wanted watertight compartments in our social life, a clear-cut line between a church party and a non-church party, that have won the lovo and admiration of the best of our race. Let me take two names, one a native of Palestine and one of India. Jesus Christ took his meals with publicans and sinners. He did not desire a clear-cut line between his apostles; and those who were not his followers. The High Priests of those days were shocked at his conduct, just as much shocked as Bishop Sadlier is at Church of England men fraternising with men not under the rule of his Church. There was, Buddha, who was careless of caste and who associated with all kinds and classes of his fellow people of India. Both of these great men went about preaching love and kindness, and they are revered to-day throughout the word. Mahomet, it is true, wished to have nothing Jo do with infidels—is his religion to be the dominant religion of the world?

"No your vision of things that are to be must be of a brotherhood of men, when all creeds and no creeds have equality in the eye of the law, and when page 7 no one separates from his neighbour and joins a close corporation or trade union because he does not see eye to eye in the mysteries of life. Let me quote the view of a French philosopher, a follower of Auguste Comte, M. Buisson, as to what freedom means. He said in 1902—(I translate it into English)—"Free thought is not a school, a church, a sect or a chapel. Free thought is open to all, it is open to all opinions, it is open to all countries, it is open to faith and to disbelief. If it had a lav pope he would be the most odious of all popes if that were possible. In the name of free thought let us demand that no opinion is suspected or privileged, that one can be an athiest without being treated as a scoundrel, and be a believer in God without being treated as a fool." That is the attitude of the man who has a vision of the brotherhood of men.