"THE WORK OF GOD."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 405, 30 August 1918, Page 4

"THE WORK OF GOD."

Prussian Religious Cant

A day or two before the Kaiser described Hindenburg and Ludendorff aa "gifts from heaven," a Prussian religious journal, "Reich-Gottes-Boten" (Imperial Messenger of God), exulted blasphemously that the recent defeat of the Election Reform Bill in the Prussian Diet was "undoubtedly the work of God." This is what is said: "That was a tremendous event when a majority of 52 men recruited from all parties rejected the Bill for conferring universal suffrage. We cannot interpret this as anything else than the solicitude of God, We believe that it is against every Divin« principle that all human beings are to be considered equal. We are convinced that any moral statute which sought to set up such a standard would be an offence in the eyes of the Lord, which would be sure to call down damnation upon us. It would be a crying injustice to impose such a law in the midst of our mighty struggle for existence. Finally, we know perfectly well that universal suffrage would transfer power to the anti Christian elements of the community - a fate from which we wish our people preserved as long as possible." Democracy, in other words, is now excommunicated in Germany sa something akin to heathenism. Socialist Vorwaerts, which reproduces this priceless bit of Junkerism, publishes underneath it an account of the discovery of a great secret hoard of food in a church in Hanover. Under the headings, "Is This Christianity ?" and "Was This God's Will, Too?" it is related that the police, on receiving a denunciation from a "heathen Democrat," found hidden under the large baptismal font 60001b of oats, 1001b of rye, and 1001b of beans.

A Government newspaper is reduced to saying that "the struggle for our daily bread is now so bitter that even good Christians, despite the admonitions they hear from the pulpit, evidently feel impelled to violate the law."