What The Devil!

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1938, Page 2

What The Devil!

ByRev. C. W. Chandler

On Religion

SIXTEEN hundred miles of tunnels at a depth of 60 feet below the earth, and costing approximately £400,000,000, is the considered proposal of Professor J. B. S. Haldane in his much-discussed book "A.R.P."

He deal* most exhaustively with every phase of the question of air raid precaution*. and the book, from start to finish, bears the stamp of authority. He is inclined to mistrust the proposal of the llnti-h liovernment to organise a wholesale evacuation of London in the e\cnt of a raid. He suggests that it would lead to panic and confusion, congested highways and serious loss of life. The one impression that the book leaves on one is the diabolical ingenuity of lliosit chemists and scientists who are engaged in perfecting the means of wholesale human destruction. He calls it the ''technique of mass murdef." Women and Children First A\ omen and children first has always been the axiom of the chivalrous, and modern warfare does not in any way offend these gentlemanly instincts. Up to May of this year it is known that IO.TtiO children have l>een killed in Spain. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Cry of tin? Children" is still up to date, and should re-echo a* a challenge to the world ill this generation. "Do you hear the children weeding, O my brothers. Kre I lie sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers— And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest. The young fawns are playing with the slia (lows. The young flowers are blowing toward the west — But the young, young children, O my brothers. They are weeping bitterly ! — They are weeping in the playtime ol the others, In the country of the free."

This strong appeal wa« addressed to England at a time when children were working in factories an<l mills at an age when they should still have been at school. Those social ills have all been remedied, but a greater danger, a deeper injustice, will confront them in the event of future war. How we long to hear a protest from the united Church on tlie grave antiChristian nature of modern European States. The magnitude of the evil should be sufficient to override the doctrinal barriers which keep us apart. A clarion note should be struck marshalling the Christian world to prayer for the conversion of those who are directly responsible for the present insanity. What About the Devil? Has the idea of a real devil been finally exploded? If the beauty of sunsets and flowers should turn men's hearts Owl ward, what about the sight of battered, lifeless human beings rotting in the sun? Should not such a sight turn their thoughts devilward? There can be no doubt that our "ghostly enemy" was taken for granted during the 10th century. Have we not greater reason to believe in him in the 20th? How else can we explain the situation ?

The world is full of well-intentioned people. Indeed, it is hard to find those who are not so. The murdering' of innocent children is far removed from thoee parental instincts which we know to be common to our race. Amongst those who are occupying the centre of the stage in human affaire it is hard to find one whom we cannot feel is as well intentioned as ourselves. The world has always had it« scapegoats in the persons of such people as Napoleon, Kruger, Kaiser Wilheim, Lenin or Museolini, but just how far these men were and are individually responsible i* hard to say. V*o must blame somebody, and aonw

of those wTiom we are Ma miner have shifted the blame from themselves to the Jews —but what about the devil? Could anybody less devilish than the devil himself be responsible for driving nations headlong into catastrophe? Consider Milton's sublime picture of his Satanic Majesty in "Paradise Lo^t": "High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus. and of Ind ; Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her King's barbaric pearl and gold— Satan exalted sat, by merit raised To that bad eminence."

Dr. A. E. Garvie, in an article in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," says that "the possibility of evil spirits, organised under one leader Satan to tempt man and oppose God, cannot be denied." It is true that in the same article he deals with the opposite argument also, but he leaves us in no doubt that the matter has not by any means been settled either wav.

Even those who, in times past, have laughed at the devil, have yet believed in him. St. DuiLstan, who was a serious statesman and a strict churchman, is reported to have played a practical joke on the devil with some red-hot tong«. St. Teresa, a woman of profound common sense and spiritual experience, said that the devil hates being laughed at, almost as much as he hates holy water.

Says J.A.B. in the "Church Times," '"'Let me say at once that, as I see it, the people who treat the devil as a practical joke because they believe in him are far less ludicrous than the people who see nothing funny about the devil at all, because to theni he is only a myth. Anyhow, Christian tradition and Christian experience suggest two points which are fitting matters for us to reflect upon. It is better and more

Christian to treat the devil with contempt and to laugh at him than to be afraid of him. There is no more helpless plaything of the devil than a gloomy Christian."

Jesus acknowledged the existence of demons as He also did of Beelzebub the

"prince of demons." The author of a book entitled '"Evil and Evolution" attempts to turn the light of modern science on to the ancient mystery of evil. He says that the best explanation for the existence of evil is the assumption that God is confronted with Satan, who, ''in the process of evolution, interferes with Divine designs."

The ugly-looking gargoyle® that are found on ancient churches were placed there to frighten away the evil spirits. How like those grotesque images do look crowds of human beings (including infants) in gas masks.

Meanwhile the search for the scapegoat goes on. Dearly would we love to place our hands upon those culprits who, led by the gory hand of Mars, are daily driving millions of mother's sons nearer to -the shambles.

Aldotis Huxley, in "Ends and Means," draws attention to that innate human tendency to reduce the diverse to the identical. '"Our intellect, which hungers and thirsts after explanation, attempts to reduce this diversity to identity." Hence the devil provides us with some tangible and not altogether unacceptable explanation of the vast phenomenon of evil.

Taking a "man's-eye" view of things. the whole of life presents. a scene of utter confusion. A mad welter of ideas that cannot be sorted out, or tabulated. or reduced to a common basis of agreement.

Taking a "God's-eye" view of things, the whole of life takes shape, and all man's restlessness and confusion since the Fall, point to sin and the need for a Saviour.

These basic tenets of Christian theology, from whence men in their pride have departed, do at least provide eom« reason for the presence of evil in the world, and some hope for man's ultimate redemption.