REPLY TO MR. SANFORD.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 207, 30 August 1905, Page 10

REPLY TO MR. SANFORD.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I decline to father Mr. Saniord's work of fiction as expressed in your last Thursday's issue. It was himself, jot I, who said, "Leave the problem to Christ." He put the expression within quotation marks to imply that I said it; but it was the product of his own fertile imagination. I said distinctly, and I repeat, that Christ is the only rectifier of this world's wrongs, and that He holds the key of poverty problems. But I showed that the Church, which is His mystical body on earth, in which He works on human hearts and minds spiritually, is the most powerful organisation iv the world, and it can do exactly what Christ did on earth, and what He now wants done in making this world into His kingdom. If the hundreds of millions of Christians would cordially unite to loyally do God's will on earth as in heaven, this world would be rendered happy and prosperous. There would then be fair work for fair wages. Men's bodies and souls both would be cared for, and I said there would then be no need for Nihilism, Socialism, and Trade Unionism. I urged, not the idly leaving it to Christ, but the vigorous doing of His will in going about doing good as He did, I said and say. religion is the only remedy. That alone can stamp out injustice, trusts, preference to unionists, cut-throat trade competition, hardness of heart —that alone can bring social salvation and avert a war between rich and poor. The Church will soon be aroused to do that is necessary, and all that Christ means here to do as His only earthly visible representative. She will revive, unite, and conquer by His cross of selfsacrifice for others. The contrary rule prevails too much now—civilised cannibalism. Powerful nations prey on the weaker, trusts and rings try to crush smaller traders, trade unionists com bine to crush unorganised labour and to capture legislatures, political parties make a shuttlecock of the nation's weal for their own petty purposes, and generally selfishness prevails instead of self-sacrifice. It will not continue so long. Tbe spirit of Christ will awaken, vitalise, and energise His Church, and she will become an irresistible organisation or kingdom, coping successfully with poverty. There will be hosts of men like George Muller, Dr. Earnardo. C. H. Spurgeon, who have done an immense work for orphans; there will bs hosts of men like General Booth, Bishop Patteson, Lord Shaftesbury, and Edward Denison, who have raised the fallen and* outcast; I urged all that; hence Mr. Sanford had no warrant for saying my scheme was tantamount to praying for the removal of plague and sickness without actively working. I showed that Christ would probably act only, and probably could act only, through His Church, and that she could" be all that was desirable or necessary if she were willing to be used by Him to resist and remove poverty. The world's hope is not in science, or human wit and strength, but in Christ's divine power working in and through hundreds of millions of His followers called the Church.— am, etc., F. G. EWINGTON. —