Reaping the Whirlwind

New Zealand Tablet, 24 September 1908, Page 22

Reaping the Whirlwind

Almost every day,' says the Catholic Times, ' brings news of terrible crimes and disorders being committed in France Now it is a fierce strike of the workmen, whose violence causes the employment of armed force by the -Government and the shooting down of the strikers. Now it is a callous murder of an aged nun in a girls' boarding school, by burglars intent on nfluig the premises, and furious at being discovered. Again it is an armed band of strolling robbers, wandering over a whole province and committing murder and robbery as they move from place to place. Or it is the persisted, criminality of the hooligan ciass in Paris who hold up belated pedestrians in the street, - and rob them and murder them if they offer resistance The' police are powerless to crush down organised criminals, while the number of criminals of jo M thful age continues steadily to increase. Thus is France reaping the harvest she has sown Her statesmen have tolerated, where they have not directly encouraged, the propagandist* of atheistic teaching in the schools, and by their legislation against priests- and monks and- nuns have removed the representatives of those religious and moral principles which can alone repress the ape and tiger in man. They have . Permitted God to be dismissed from education, and now they find that they can no longer contiol those base and dangerous instincts against social peace and prosperity -which break out unchecked in the breasts of. youths who have been taught to disregard the bonds of religion and morality. A State without <-.od is a State without law and order in the long run.'