MR SHAW AND RELIGION

Hokitika Guardian, 24 July 1925, Page 1

MR SHAW AND RELIGION

EOXDOX, dune pi. "What is Coming:-'’ was the title ol a debate between those intellectual pro. I diets Air Bernard Shaw and Mr Hilaire Belloc held at Savoy Theatre on hehalt ot King Edward's Hospital Fund lor London this morning. There had heen an abnormal demand lor Velvets, especially from American visitors, and hundreds were unable to get into the theatre. .Mr Shaw’s speech was tor (lie most part an attack on the Churches. lie maintained that if Mr Belloc. Mr Chesterton. Dean luge and himself were to lake par; in a debate on religion their listeners would at the end describe them as— Four roaring atheists Four first-class intellectual play hoys Four disgruntled Dissenters; ot Four dangerous firebrands. They would not. he said, he accepted as Protestants or Catholics. These categories wort' now obsolete. .1 minister of religion might he a fool, .scoundrel, or a .saint. The Conclave of Cardinals was a mixed job lot of men subject to the errors of other men. The most incompetent body of men can he found in ihe Vatican, and the most competent, on the executive commit lee ot the Fabian Society. (Laughter). We have not got enough saints to go round. We have a little nucleus of saints, the rest: are very tiresome, snobbish, stupid, and often downright scoundrels. Therefore the world gets tired of them. And that. I am afraid, is going to heat the Church. We are tired of the parson and the priest. T don't care twopence if . all the churches crumbled and scattered. Our souls, as the Americans say. will go marching oil. Mr Belloc, spoke from the text ‘‘We do not know what is coming: If we did it would not he good for us.” lie said : Op back In your twentieth year, How did you look at ibing-V- li i~ now uticrly different. Among llie curious things that come oil', prophecy is the ot l lv tiling; that, doesn't. Fundamentalism, introduced in the United States may conn* off. It you give up till beer and wine anything may happen. The only person who is reasonably sure of the date of his end is the condemned criminal—and lie is not happy. To see into the future would mean mi-fortune. If everybody knew i Irvin uer of next year's Derby there would he no gambling.