The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1907. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1907. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

f. RENCH official atheism- sowed the wind, "and " France is now reaping the whirlwind. « Nearlyall the papers -in Prance,? sayg the" ' Catholic Times ' of October 18, - ' are expressing alarm at the growth of crime in the country. Outrages upon individuals in the streets of the cities are becoming common, /and principles and jtnorals are, so unblushingly laughed at by- ' some sections of- the" working classes that lovers of France are' sorely puzzled as to how the trouble, will end. The police seem linafrle to effect any real improvement. The' Right Rev. Bishop ." Wilkinson in thejcourse of an address which he delivered at the Anglican Church Congress gave quotations from official French documents which prove that the atheistic or Godless school is the soiirce of the mischief: - Here 'are a -few of the extracts he read : " Our .houses of coix rectionj are gorged with boys. and girls " ; ," there is a loss of all notion of respect and duty " ; " the - young criminals spring 'up like weeds between the cracks ol the ■ pavement " ; ,V juvenile crime 'is - increasing at a- truly frightful rate- >J> ; '" our prisons"- are:, crowded and' too small, 11 v.foOhe "alarming increase of^oimg crimin- ' als.!."^ -"..-.. '■: ;•■:/• _■•::■"-;:*' -^^M^l^l? ■.But as -Nero is- said to have fiddled- over the smok--ing ruins of Rome, ..'§q. the rulers of "the M "French. , Rer' public seem to care-U^tle what their country ;suffiers so ( long as they can get in their blow at religion. Such, in'

effect", is the jvritten^ thought of M/Emile F-lourens/for-mer:Prencti'Minister"for Foreign Affairs, in the course of an article :puibjished during last October in ; the London '-Daily .Telegraph.' \By' "sap "and mine,' writes he, 'the enemies of the Churcli are pursuing their work of destruction. Nothing. stops .the -Grovernment-^neith'er troubles at home nor dangers, abroad. The country may if only under her ruins, covered even with, her blood, religion can be stifled.'.

Compared with French officials atheists, there was wisdom) among- the scheming, visionaries of Laputa, who merely" allowed their;. land. to, run to waste, and their people to fall, into • poverty, in their efforts to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, to soften marble for pillows and pincushions, and to petrify the hooves of living horses to keep them from foundering. The philosophers of Laputa .had, for all their folly, the saving grace not to attempt to destroy religion and the sanctions of morality from the hearts of their people.