IS FRANCE A PAGAN NATION?

Dominion, Issue 1337, 15 January 1912, Page 7

IS FRANCE A PAGAN NATION?

.- {h "Are the governing authorities and the Government of Franco positively, dclilierately, and actively hostile to the Christian religion?" To this question Mr. W. Grinton Berry, writing in "The Sunday at Home," replies very emphatically in (he affirmative. The defenders of the Republic, he tsnys, commonly declare that the governing authorities "are neutral, and that it is a vile slander lo represent them as enemies of religion and Christianity. But ho shows, by citutions from the textbooks used in thr- State schools, that (ho attitude of nputrality has been abandoned, that the Roman Catholic faith is vehemently and scornfully altacked, and that Christianity in general is disparaged and inado difficult of acceptance by the children. Ho describes the three stages in the process, which,'beginning in "1881, has ended in this state of things. In the first, duty toward God' might be taught as Comprised in "natural and philosophical religion." In the next stage, the name of God was eliminated from the. textbooks, multitudes of passagesbcingrecast "in order that the offrnsivo word may bo got out of tho way," Then came the present stage, in which "the faith of a Christian is denounced and derided, the standard of unbelief is unfurled, God and Jesus Christ and religion are banished from tho schools of V ranee, and the vacant thrones are filled by abstractions called Reason. Science, Self-interest." Mr. Berrv shows by extracts how the thought anil sentiment of (ho earlier versions hnvo been debilitated by the revisions, and savs that all references to tho great figures of religious history and the great ecclesiastical buildings have been deleted. Then, having cleared the very name of God out of the way, the writers of the school books proceed to assault the Christian religion. "The fundamental fact," says Mr. Berry, "is that, the school books are inimical to the Christian faith, and that the spirit cf the elementary school in France is irreligious, free-thinking, and atheistic." In a manual designed for teachers, Christianity is described as inferior to Buddhism, prayer as a useless evaporation of energy, and religion as a soothing opiate, not a healing medicine.