MILITARY PREPARATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 269, 14 April 1914, Page 3

MILITARY PREPARATIONS.

To the Editor. Sir,—Would you permit me to voice the gratitude of what is a very (small minority in New Zealand? I refer to those who believe it to be wong for j them to use .the sword or go in for military work. And in doing so I would like to .point out that I have no sympathy whatever with those agitators, principally of socialistic tendencies, who are trying to stay the military movement by militant demonstrations, street agitations, etc. From a nation's point of view there does not appear to be any other course open than for it to lie prepared for war ; and no socialistic, svndii'ealistic or 'any other movement, could found a form of government that eould weather the present stormy times on any other principle. I believe, Sir, that God has decreed war (Joel 3rd chap.) and no Peace Society can prevent it, no matter what they may do, so that war it will be in ,the near future, and on such a scale as the world has never seen before. The leading men on the wor'.'l'n stage to-day are appalled at the 't.is pect before the nations, and many them hare voiced the opinion 11 is. '' must end in a cataclysm. . Yet they av-; powerless to suggest a practical ren ■ ] and it eould easily be shown from tlie Scriptures .tha.t none will avail for the nations until the promised time when God Himself will interfere in the aff.iir« of man in the person of Christ returned (Tsa. 2nd chap.) But. hanpilv for the man of peact. tSere is alao another joist of view tkftn the national, and that is the imdividual. Content to put up with the disabilities and odium which such a position entails; lie will refuse to shed the blood of his fcllowmen at the dictate of any government, knowing that Christ would have done tile same, and so refuse to allow himself to be trained for such a purpose. whether for defence or ajrsTession. It is a wise gOTern- ' made provision for such :\ man, for the mere force of constituted power will not change his views in the face of the commandments of Christ, and any insistence of the compulsory clauses of the Defence Act would mean a revival of persecution as bad as tnat which disgraced .the Komnn Empire i" the ea.rly days of the Christian era Right down the ages, .here and there, in one country or another it has been true t3mt—

"Through the nigged march of time. Marked by misery, sin and crime. Error stalks with lipreitral head O'er her fields of slaughtered dead. But beneath'"her bloody tread The Truth lives on."

We are not, however, insensible or ungrateful for our freedom under the British flair, the emlile 111 of the best and most humane government that has so far set up on the earth, and no true follower of Christ would refuse to do the work provided as an alternative for military service, whatever it may be, so long as l it leaves lis to work out our salvation in the way we believe the Scriptures have laid down. Thanking yon in anticipation.—l am, etc., W. HOLMES. Tikorangi, April (i, 1!I14.