INDIA AND RHEIMS

Taihape Daily Times, 19 July 1918, Page 6

INDIA AND RHEIMS

KAISER’S VANDALISM BINDS. MAHOMETANS TO BRITAIN. NEW YORK. The bombardment of Rbeims Cathedral, according to Bishop Warne, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was the greatest blunder the Germans could possibly have made so far as India is concerned Bishop Warne, who has just returned from India, where he has a ■missionary for 30 years, says that the shelling of the Cathedral shattered the possibility of uniting Mahometans in a holy war on the side of Germany, India, in common with all the civilised world, stood aghast when she heard of it. “What kind of people are these Germans asked the native Indians “They have no respect even for places of worship, no reverence for God himself. If. they came down here they would destroy our mosques and violate our sanctuaries too.” The bishop declares that if the Kaiser had any sense of Indian psychology, he would have realised that the bombardment was a fatal mistake. “An incident occurred in Cawnpore a few years ago, ’ 1 he says, which might have given him warning. It- was decided to straighten out a street, which ran past a Mahometan mosque, and to avoid cutting off a great prayer platform it was resolved to tunnel under it. “The protest aroused invoked the intervention of the Viceroy, who overruled the Governor. His action did much in winning the Mahometan world to loyal support of Britain in the ‘‘’war. ”