MAN'S CONSCIENCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 2

MAN'S CONSCIENCE

"MUST BE FOLLOWED" BUT ACCEPT PENALTIES (0.C.) HAMILTON, this day. A reference to conscientious objectors is made by the Bishop Waikato, the Rt. Rev. C. A. Cher, rington. in his monthly letter in the church magazine this month. "A man in refusing on the ground of conscience to fight for his country or even to help fight for his country is obliged to follow his conscience He cannot go against that and be true to himself," he writes. "His conscience, we may think, may be guiding him wrong, but he has to follow it just the same. He may not have trained his conscience properly as every man should train his faculties. That cannot be helped. It is his conscience and he is bound to act upon it. but he must be prepared to be crucified for it. "His country if he is not prepared to fight at the call of it has a perfect right to punish him as the Government thinks best. A conscientious . objector has to prove the germing ness of his objection by submitting to banishment—a country can refuse to protect a man who will not fight for her—or to perpetual imprisonment for the duration of the war or to being made to work on peace time work with just enough to keep him alive and no awards, no pension! no anything. If he does not show himself willing, without complaint to submit to any or all of these he is no true conscientious objector."