AUTHORITY OF THE STATE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 251, 11 July 1918, Page 6

AUTHORITY OF THE STATE

j. ' Sir,—To-day one of your correspondents )_ makes a reference to my letter in your ]I issue of yesterday. I pass over as wholly Si unworthy of notice the epithets he uses. ,_ I also repudiate entirely the motive ho {. attributes to me. Such a thought never entered my mind, and the suggestion is i 3 wholly your correspondent's. My solo a motive was the expression of principles d that are altogether too little understood l. in this age of materialism and sycoi. phancy, yet aro nevertheless of the vaste est importance. As "there is no power v but of God," and "the powers that bo are ordaineTl of God" (Romans xiii, 1), it ,f logically follow that "the powers that be"—or civil government—we of less i. authority thnn God, who ordained them, f Tour correspondent does not seem to have r read my letter correctly. So far from 0 saying that the State has "no authority," I distinctly stated that "the State, or . community, has a. great, well-defined, and »■ lawful, sphere." In its proper junsdic--1 tion it has a perfect right to the obedif once of its subjects. The machinery of ■ government is perfectly legitimate in its , sphere. Laws and policemen are all right in their place-. They nro to restrain op- . pression and evildoing in the community . and to safeguard the rights of every in- . dividual in the community. But they i are wrongly need and altogether out of . place when ejnployed to oppress or coerce f conscience—of which the only Lord can » be God Himself.—l am, etc., I A. L. KING. ■Wellington, July 9, 1918.