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moral contradiction. Wliat l>e possible is coinpletel} barred by our sectarian differences. It should be noted that the educationists generally quoted speak in countries where, as a natural result of State religious education, there are State-aided denominational schools. Bishop Gore, of Oxford, stated in the London Tunis ihai no evstein including religious education could be truly national unless it satisfied types ot religious conscience. Tins i> an impossibilitj without denominational schools, if justice is to be done. Religion not neglected. We claim thai where the Slate leaves religion and religious instruction to the proper agencies those agencies are most active and make H more effective effort to meet theii reeponsi bilities; further, that wherever the State takes a direct hand in religious work it deadens religion, and clamps its free voluntary nature by the rest net urns that are necessanh imposed. All the church returns and reports, as well as tin 1 State year-books, show that in Victoria, where the State tines mi! meddle in religion, there is a far higher Level of religious activity, a keener sense of responsibility, and thai the spiritual needs of both adults and children are better responded io than is the ease in New South Wales, where the people depend mi the State to give religious instruction. In church attendance, Sabbath observance, missionary activity, and contributions for religious purposes Victoria is tar in advance of New South Wales. With about .'iUU,OOO fewer population than New South Wales. Victoria lias gome thousands of Sunday-school scholars more than New South Wales. In New Zealand we have as high a proportion of Sunday scholars as any country in the world. In 1909, when Rev. .1. bi. Jupp compiled the hist published Dominion Sunday-school returns, we had over It).(too Sunday-school teachers, or one lor every sixteen pupils on the State-school roll. One person in every six of the whole population was connected with a Sunday school. In the State primary schools in 1909 there were 135,000 children, ami in the Protestant Sunday sel Is Hurt were 121,000, in round numbers, The Presbyterian proportion of the primary-school roll in 1913 was about -1.'!,T00. and in tin , Presbyterian Sunday schools there were in the same yea r .'57.000 scholars. Yet Rev. Mann, ez-president of the New Zealand Methodist Conference, publicly declared that " four-fifths of the children of New Zealand are growing up without religion and without a knowledge of God and of the Bible." If half the zeal, organization, and money were put into Sunday-school work thai is being put into this paltry scheme there would be even a larger proportion of children in our Sunday schools under real religious instruction by people who are anxious to give it. It was recently declared that the music of the ('hristchurch Cathedral cost £1,000 per year. This is more than the annual income of all the Sunday schools of that denomination in Christchuroh. Yet this denomination is the leader of the cry that tin , children's religious education is neglected. By Its Fruit. Surely those who are making all this stir should prove that our system, which leaves the whole duty and privilege of religious instruction to the home and the Church, is thereby doing an injury to the children, and that deterioration of character results. WY welcome any fair test. Can the League show that we do worse b> our children than those Slates that have adopted the League's or any other system of State-given religious instruction I Vain attempts have been made by lJible-iii-schools advocates to show that crime, arid especially juvenile crime, was increasing in New Zealand. The Chief Justice' and others have completely disproved such slanders on our children and such libels on our schools and Churches. The late Honourable I!. .!. Seddon. in 1905, when similar charges were made in support of State religious instruction, called them libellous, and declared that, though he venerated the Bible, he was confident that the Slate school was not the place where is should be taught. The Rev. W. Kcay. of Auckland, declared that since the State religious instruction was introduced into New South Wales in 1885 the number of convictions for crime had fallen from 20,740 to 11,361 in 1912, and claimed amid applause' that this was the result of State religious instruction. As a matter of fact, the number of summary convictions alone in 1910 was 63,671. He also declared tliTit the closing of thirty-seven gaols in New South Wales spoke well for the moral effect of the New South Wales system. The fact is ilia; in the New South Wales Year-book, 1909-10, page lIS. we read. "The various gaol establishments have been graded with a view to concentration. As a result of this grading a large number of establishments have been closed, their population being removed to other centres." We find also that, even after the thirty-seven gaols were closed for this reason. New South Wales still had thirty-one gaols to Victoria's eighteen, and that ill I.HI New South Wales had seveiil v-one people ill gaol per 10.000 of population to Victoria's sixty. Another leader of the League declared that a good test of the moral tone of two Communities was the percentage of convictions to arrests. In Victoria the proportion of convictions by juries is 60 per cent., but in New South Wales it is 56 per cent. The editor of the New Zealand Methodist declared that the birth-rate was a good test of the moral tone, and pointed to the slightly higher birth-rate in New South Wales than in New Zealand. He omitted to state that New South Wales has over 50 per cent, i c illegitimate births to each 1.000 unmarried women, and that he was counting illegitimacy as an evidence of the moral tone. The pure birthrate of New Zealand is higher than that of New South Wales. Many have declared that the adoption of secular education in France resulted in a large increase of juvenile crime. This was done by taking the results in the first three or four years after the change was made, which was really a count against the old system. The Royal Commission on Education of New South Wales. 1904. on page 150, Chapter xv. in the midst of a glowing eulogy of the French system of moral instruction on a secular basis, gives abundant proof of a remarkable reduction in juvenile crime in France after the new system was well established. This report was compiled by the Common-