CONSCIENCE AND WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 43, 20 February 1942, Page 4

CONSCIENCE AND WAR

Other Services to State?

"The Church recognises and the State recognises that there are those whose conscience will not permit them to bear arms," the president of the Methodist Conference (the Rev. W. Walker) declared last night. "There is need for the Church and the State more fully to clarify the position in regard to the bona fide conscientious objector for the guidance of appeal boards. A little more sweet reasonableness on both sides would make for far more harmonious working. Surely it is not too much to expect that the objector to combatant service should be more than willing to perform some other form of needful service as directed by the State."

New Order, according to the philosophy of Nazism, there are to be two classes —the rulers and the ruled. The rulers are to consist of those who can I commit the most outrageous and devilish deeds without a qualm of -conscience. They are to be men of blood and iron. The ruled are to be those who do exactly and unfalteringly what they are told. Neither - education nor culture is to have a place in their lives. I Here are some words spoken by Hitler and given to the world by Dr. Rauscfrning. THE NAZI PHILOSOPHY. " 'To the Christian doctrine of the infinite significance of the human soul and of personal responsibility, I oppose with icy clarity the saving doctrine of the nothingness and insignificance of the individual human being, and of his continued existence in. the visible immortality of the nation.' "Recently a document from Nazi headquarters fell into the hands of the German Church authorities. This document reveals the Nazi plans for the regulation of the Church of the future. 'The plan provides that no religious instruction shall be given except in church buildings, and there shall be no religious organisations for youth, that membership in the Church shall be possible only through a declaration of those who are 21 years of age or older, and that there shall be no general church organisation for the nation as a whole.' "The clear intention is to allow Christianity to perish through attrition. If this teaching- cannot be described as utterly hellish and tyrannical then we have no valid sense of what is right and wrong. Seeing that force is being used to establish such an order, then our Methodist j Church is fully justified in* giving its wholehearted support to our nation and the British Empire, in using force in defence of those principles of liberty, truth, justice, and righteousness which we have learnt to value through the Christian religion. Just as it is right to maintain a police force for the restraining of crime and brutality within the nation, so it is lawful and necessary to use military force in safeguarding rights and liberties and institutions we value more than life itself. SACRIFICE NECESSARY. "The safety of our nation and of ourselves at this present time is being guaranteed to us only by the courage, the sweat, the sufferings, and the blood of those who represent us at the frontiers of the battle; of whom many are the sons and daughters of our own church. Let us not be guilty of that sacrilege which accepts sacrifice with indifference or ingratitude.

"But whilst victory cannot be won without force, yet just as truly it cannot be won by force alone. It is not merely a battle of armies, but a conflict of ideas and of ideals.

"It behoves every person to do all that lies in his power loyally to assist his country and empire in this time of dire need."