PAGANISM AND RELIGION

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21086, 10 February 1934, Page 9

PAGANISM AND RELIGION

TO TKH EDITOR OK TIIK MESS. Sir,—Your correspondent "Giuseppe" has quite clearly a bitter prejudice against the Christian churches and Christian people. Why that is so I cannot say. I am sure that churches and Christians alike would do much to help him to find life.a saner, sweeter! experience than ever Voltaire's philosophy would. It is a question which he might ponder for his soul's food whether the Voltaire he reverences was in any way that counts the equal of the humblest Christian of his times. His name does not sweet to-day. He was certainly brilliant—as a snake may be in colouriilg, but there are other qualities than injtellect that count in the final analysis. '•Giuseppe's'' vci'y mixed theological notions I do not think worth discus-

sion. The average man knows well enough what the Christian religion is; knows that it gives him a philosophy of life which makes him a better man and better citizen. He prays to his God and finds comfort in praying. "Giuseppe" would drive him from church and from prayer with jeers to kneel at the feet of many unsavoury pagans like Voltaire. Well, he can have his choice. It is not mine. He is against ministers; he is against the God of the Christian churches; but I would wager that if we> followed him we should find him worshipping some bizarre, fantastic god fashioned to some weird design by "Giuseppe." There is real humour in his remark that ministers have no sense of humour, for a more humourless writer has never appeared in your correspondence columns. The very slightest sense of humour would have saved him from the absurdity of sketching us a god after Ihe image of "Giuseppe " His whole letter is directed against Christianity and Christian churches and ministers. Will he tell us what he wiil give us in their place?— Yours, etc., CHRISTIAN. February 0, 1934.