"SCANDAL"

Marlborough Express, Volume LX, Issue 232, 1 October 1926, Page 3

"SCANDAL"

MURDER OF WORST KIND. PRIEST'S TRENCHANT AT'TACK. A trenchant attack upon the social evils rampant in modern society was made in a vigorous sermon delivered by the Rev. Father McOarthy in connection with tlie jubilee mission (says an Auckland correspondent). His subject was "Scandal."

Scandal, he said, might bei committed by silence, commafid, flattery, jeers, and above all, by bad example in leading otliers from the path of virtue. This sin of scandal is murder of the worst kind. It is murder, not of tlie body, but of the immortal soul. lt is a more powerful agent for evil than all tlie demons of bell. "Wlio are those who commit the sin of scandal?" he asked. (CA11 those wbo, by their evil conduct, tend to leadi otliers into sin." Two sins were responsible for more ruin than probably all the otliers put together — drunkenness and impurity. Where disease slew its thousands, drink slew its tens of thousands. "There is no mbre harm in having a drink than in breathing the fragrance of a rose, but some -vveak wretches cannot use it witliout abusing this ,gift of God. "But ot women I would say, leave it alone altogether. I especially implore voung women nevei" to Jet men insult them by offering them strong drink. Such men have no honorable purpose. The man who tries to lure the steps of a maiden away from the paths of virtue is an assassin." As there were scandals hefore marriage, so people were guilty of this sin after marriage when tliey eonspired to defeat tlie primary purpose of that sacred bond, the jirocreation of tlie human. raoe. Tliis" besctting crime m tlie world to-day was a crinie against humanity and the sovereign rights of God. It was honeycomb ing civilisation to-day. God would wipe out tlie white race if it continued to offend against the law of Nature. In this respect this crime was surpassed in heinousness by only one other — pre-natal murder — which was an unspeakable and nefarious crime. The speaker, in closing, urged any who had been scandalising another to make restitution to God by lienceforth setting a good example to otliers.