Atheism's Christian Backers

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 17, 25 April 1907, Page 10

Atheism's Christian Backers

On February 11 Senator Beveridge, of Indiana, spo^e in part as follows iv a' discourse at the. Carroll Institute, Washington :—: — ■ ' With the purely governmental controversy between any nation and its citizens or subjects, we Americans as a nation have nothing to <k>. On such ■ questions, we Americans as * individuals may have our personal opinion, but not an official oninion. But when any Government^ on earth grounds its policy in an attack on religion itself, then it *is time for all men whobelie\© in the gospel to speak out in protest. For such an attack is the beginning of a movement against >all religion, and its . end is to - dethrone the Ra<- iour of the world as the Sovereign of the spiritual and moral em-, pire of mankind: It aflects the Churches equally.' 'It affects the Churches equally '. Quite true. But, alack ! some of the Churches (if one may judge from the utterances of their belted earls) go so far as to sound the loud timbrel in honor of • a movement against all religion', so long -asHhey hope that 'Romanism', may be hit thereby. • According to the London ' 'TaMst' of March 9, Dr. Rendell Harris was hailed with applause by th-e English Free Church Council when, in the course of his recent Presidential address, he warmly commended the French Donnybrook— ' whenever they see- -' a biretta ' (priest's cap), quoth .the exultant orator 'they hit it.' 'God bless the French "Republic! 1 J prayed the. President of the Free Church Council.

Thank God, fair-minded and well informed Protestants, and. a growing number of. the great secular newspapers,- think more kindly of a Church that is .sacrificing the last shred of its property" for the sake of a sacred principle, and that is fighting the battle of religious liberty against an intolerant Caesarism, and of Christianity against an aggressive political; atheism.. In view of a recent and .violent pronouncement by- an. Auckland L Christian ' newspaper, the following comment by the London *' Tablet ' is ■ worth reproducing : — '

' Apparently, while thus gleefully hounding on the persecutors of v Catholicism in France, Dr. Rendell Harris- remembered that he was addressing an audience that professes to be Christian, and that much could be said to prove the plain "fact that the campaign of the French Government was directed not .only against Catholicism, but against Christianity. He therefore proceeded -to ~ anticipate an objection by" reminding " his hearers that M. Briand did not wish to expel- Christ-, "but the caricature of Christ "—" fictions lik«e the Mass, and the papal right to govern souls in Christ's name." That such a plea could be made in such a place, would seem to imii-ly that the speaker's estimate of the amount of ordinary information possessed by his audience was a particularly low one. It is a matter of common knowledge that the French Government has - erased the name of God- and of Christ from its school-books, and only a few weeks a.co one of its Ministers boasted that they had made the. youth, of France unbelievers. Another of its Ministers, amid th© applause of the Chamber, made a blasphemous speech in which, ha congratulated the Government ion having, "by ,a magnificent gesture." destroyed , that h"ope of the next worhi for which the Christian peasant knelt in prayer after his day's labor. French Government has even gone so far as to strike out the . very name of God upon**the coinage of the nation. Now that it has thus exterminated all mention of the Lord and His Christ from all puqlic life in France, io will be satisfactory to the French authorities to know that they have received the thanks and N approval of a number 'of Christians and clergymen in England, known as the Free Church Council, _a n d that their President, havinb concluded his, allusion to the work done in France witb the words " God bless the French Republic " his benediction received the applause of the entire assembly. That the Frenoh Government should be asked to receive the blessing of, a God in Whom it does not believe and Wliiose name it never mentions, seems somewhat superfluous.'