THE TRINITY OF EVIL.

Evening Star, Issue 8084, 7 December 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE TRINITY OF EVIL.

TO THE EDITOK, Sir, —Canon Wilherforcc is a worthy son of a worthy sire. Tho three vices depicted in this book are infidelity, impurity, and intemperance. The terminology is not happy ; neither is the collocation of the evilß, A logician would have said that infidelity is the source of the other two. If a man cannot swallow a creed that is no reason why his inability should bo stigmatised as an evil, since it is only his misfortune. We quite agree with Wilberforce in assorting that " certainly it does not appear to have been given to the deniers of the faith to bless, enlighten, and elevate mankind. . . . The tendency of modern Atheism is directly immoral." Constitutionally, an Atheist may be, like David Hume, a moral man ; but he has really no rational motive for morality. He regards himself as a brute, and as a brute he is likely to live and die. There is no sin in his creed ; for the author of the 'Elements of Social Science' gravely tells us that " chastity, so far from boing a virtue, is invariably a great natural sin." Further, " Prostitution should bo regarded as a valuable substitute for a better state of things." In the decay of man and society may bo traced an " inability to distinguish between right and wrong"—between truth and falsehood. The Stoic boasted that he was a citizen of tho world, but the Christian claims to be a citizen of Heaven. Consequently, he is under a sacred " obligation to be light in the world and salt of the earth." If men were such, then impurity and intemperance would disappear from off the face of a regenerated society. The world can never be reformed by the " frivolous sceptical chatter" of Atheists, or tho denunciations of parsons. Even Voltaire could not brook the idea of a "world governed by Atheists. It would be as well to be under the immediate rule ot those infernal beings who are depicted to us full of fury against their victims." The Atheist revels in "the soul destroying immoralities inculcated in the ' Fruits of Philosophy,'" and in the Socialistic gospel of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Voltaire, the apostle of infidelity, says: "Atheists who have power in their hands would be as mischievous to the human race a3 superstitious persons; certainly their principles will not be opposed to the assassinations and poisonings which will seem necessary. They must tend to all crimes in the storms of life. The Atheist—crafty, ungrateful, calumnious, plundering, bloody —reasons and acta as if he is sure of impunity on tho part of men. For if there is no God, the monster is his own god; he immolates to himself whatever he desires or whatever is an obstacle in his way. The most tender prayers, the best reason, make no impression upon him" {vide works, vol. 1, pages 136 -139). Infidelity is a dangerous thing. Lord Macaulay, iu the House of Commons, declared that "the man who speaks or writes a syllable against Christianity is guilty of high treason against the civilisation of mankind." To promulgate Atheism, according to Lord Bacon, is like putting a blazing torch in the hands of a madman. Froudc, in his essay on Calvinism, told the University of St. Andrews that "'all that we call modern civilisation in a sense which deserves the name is the visible expression of the transforming power of the Gospel." Christ " never promoted a single rebellion, and never formulated revolutionary., propaganda. He quietly sowed moral seed, and gave impulses to human thought which havo changed the aspect of the world, and will, in the cud, subdue all things to God." Tho hollow emptiness of mere negation, says Wilberforce, starves the soul of man. Hence during the last thirty years we have seeu the conversion of " sixteen infidel leaders of London" to the ranks of Christianity. The Gospel is the true leveller of gin palaces—" dens of infamy and brothels in disguise." Impurity is fostered by " trashy inflammatory fiction," as well as by infidelity. Fiction weakens the mind, and drunkenness furnishes "the most direct stimulus to crime, lunacy, and pauperism." The craving for drink is " the fiendish epidemic, prolific of suffering, suicide, and murder." Canon Wilberforce asserts boldly "that the whole rental of the houses and of the land in England, added to the amount spent in household coal, hardly reaches the total spent annually in intoxicating drinks." He also adds that "in Ireland the sum annually spent in drink exceeds by two millions and a-quarter the whole rental of the island." There are " 470 Acts upon the statute book professing to regulate the curso of England —its great licensed liquor traffic "; and all have tailed, and must fail, for the root of the evil has never been touched by the superficial nostrums of teetotallers. How are we to regenerate society ? " Cast the purifying salt of the Gospel of Christ into tho foul pool of iniquity." This is the true panacea. It cannot be achieved by the vapid platitudes of total abstinence; nor even by tho sentimental "influenco of increasing knowledge and refinement." Religion—true religion alone—can reform the votaries of sensuality, inebriety, and infidelity. An ancient author wrote an oxcellent book on the philosophy of intoxication. It requires no apologist in these colonies, for the natives are not addicted to drink—certainly not in New Zealand. But in Dunedin, and, indeed, in the country, there is growing up a race of Sybarites, sensualists, gamblers, and practical Atheists. There is no taste for rational literature, and tho amusements of the people are singularly frivolous. There is no high appreciation of the inestimable value of life as an educational nursery for a Paradise of Immortality.—lam, etc., J. G. S. Grant. Dunedin, December 4.