FEARS FOR CIVILISATION

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 458, 16 June 1937, Page 2

FEARS FOR CIVILISATION

Indifference To War Horrors The fear that the world is getting ! “hardened 'to cruelty and that human I nature is 'becoming brutalised” was expressed by the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Henry Wilson, in his Diocesan Chronicle recently. “It is taken as a matter of courto,’ he writes, “thait if this country be comes involved in war, London will I be drenched with poison g»a-s and set on fire by incendiary bombs. The I wholesale slaughter of women and children will be (the matter stroke ol i the next war. i “All the decency and chivalry have i departed from life, and our civilisation has become bankrupt. It is often said -that Ithe next European war will end Western civilisation. ' “The cynic might well be excused if he replied that if Russia, Germany, Italy, and Spain are samples of ‘Western civilisation’ the sooner it is destroyed the better. “The moral clearly is that ‘civilisation and progress? divorced from the control of Christianity, is the gravest danger to humanity. “We are not nearly so wise at' we ' thought we were, and instead of our | civilisation and education turning -ihe | world into a paradise we are rapid ly making it into a hell. “That is the lesson poor, distract, ed mad Europe is leaching us, and 1 believe we are learning.”