CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 174, 26 January 1897, Page 2

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

TO THE EDITOR. Oar Primitive Methodist friends are evidently a very aggressive lot. Some* times they are attempting to deprive ua of civil, sometimes of religions liberties. To day it is liquor prohibition. To morrow a complaint against other religion* ists because they will not act as seams right and proper from a Methodist stand point. What right has the Rev Mr Lyon or his friends to complain of a Christian body who, acting according to their lights, do not take an active part in either local or general politics. These men are among the very best oettlers and citizens of Feilding and district, although they do not aspire to local or general political honours. Unlike Methodists they don't seek to invoke the strong arm of the law to perpetrate an injustice by compelling others to bow down to any fads and fancies having no foundation either in common sonse or scripture. No Prohibition fads with its fines and imprisonments in direct viola* tion of truth, justice, and humanity do we find these men advocating. On the contrary their propaganda is based on voluntary and cot compulsory principles. My friend complains that they nse the roads and schools and other advantages of civilisation peculiar to the times and place. Don't they pay for these ? Then what right has he or any to complain. I will venture to say, taking Feilding as an example, that they will compare very favorably with my Primitive Methodist friends in point of industry, frugality, honesty, and general respectability. I will go further and say that they have done twice as much for the tamporal prosperity of Feilding and district than either the Rev Mr Lyon or Unpeople. His remark with regard to Oliver Crom* well is merely a proof of his ignorance of dispensational truth. Where under the New Testament dispensation do we find any encouragement for Christians to nse the sword. Does he forget the Saviour's injunction to Peter. Are we to accept on the mere assertion of this gentleman that the God of Battles fought for Cromwell the regicide and ruthless oppressor of three nationalities? The man who drew his sword against his Sovereign nnder pretence of assarting the rights of the commonality and then most flag* rantly violated those rights by ejecting a public assembly by military force, putting the key of Parliament House into his pocket, and constituting himself king and commons, sorely could not expect and did not receive Divine assistance, nor can be cited as freedom's champion. Why, sir, Timour the Tartar, the ruthless destroyer, claimed precisely the same help when discussing with the Mahometan theological faculty at Aleppo. Who were the martyrs, bis sect or the Sennite division of the Mahometan religion, to whom he was opposed ? " Yet by my arm (says this monster) the Almighty has been pleased to snbdne the kingdom ot Tran Tonran and the Indies." My friend will see that both Oliver ana Timour were fighting for the same object— vis., self, or the freedom to do as they liked, irrespective of the feelings or interest of others. It would be more in keeping for professedly Christian ministers to quote the example and teachings of Jesus than a man who was so obnoxious to his fellows as to live in constant dread of assassination, and who wore a coat of mail under his clothes and changed bis room nightly as precaution* ary measures. My friends have yet to learn that this religious system is by no means perfect, and the latest addition thereto — viz., Prohibition — has not strengthened their position, being alike unscriptnral and impolitic and a stand* ing menace to tb.6 civil and religious liberties of the people of this colony, and consequently a measure which every lover of freedom, irrespective of sect or party, should oppose* I am, Ac,, J. B. Boots. P.S.— I shall further oritdcise my friend's utterances on another occasion*