A Great Social Force

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 47, 21 November 1907, Page 22

A Great Social Force

In a work*(' Heredity and Selection in Sociology'), recently published in London, Mr. Chatterton-Hill gives a fresh emphasis to the generally admitted" fact tha fc . the Catholic Church affords greater security against suicide than any form of creed that looks for 'its principle's rand teachings to the 'great, religious revolution .of the', ;sixteenth century.". -And he , appeals tb-the official .returns of suicide in many lands in support of his conten- • tion. ..The same persistent phenomenon has .struck Mulhall and numerous other eminent authorities on statis--tical science. " Here is a passage worth quoting from the same work :—: —

'-'■ The most representative form of .Chrijstuiiiity. Js v incontestably- the Church of Rome.. 1 Exercising universal dominion, having behind her twenty centuries - .of, glorious traditions, possessing a degree of cohesion and integration 'wholly unknown to the Protestant 'sects, the Catholic Church .exercises, on the minds v "o£ those ' who sincerely believe in, 'her dogmas, ah influence' which can.' only be estimated by those, who have known her. -from within.' ' " - •Further on in the same work, the author flays the inconsistent champions ■of freethought in France,' who ' oppress and persecute all "those who venture to. disagree with them '. His general conclusion runs as follows • ' The only organisation .capable of constituting a spiritual organisation of- idealistic and supra-rational principles adequate to the needs of Western civilisation, is the Catholic Church '.