PESTILENTIAL LITERATURE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16328, 26 August 1913, Page 8

PESTILENTIAL LITERATURE.

TO THX EDITOR. Sir, —Will you permit me to express my opinion that " Churchman" was mistaken when lie thought that Mr Justice Cooper referred to the Rationalist Press productions as "pestilential literature"? A judge, I presume, is well read, and necessarily a judge of literature as well as of law. He would be too well-informed to make such a stupid charge. I, who may be classed by " Churchman " as one of the "little educated," read some years ago a book by Colonel Ingersoll and also one by Thomas Paiue- Many publications of the Rationalist Press have I read since, but not one immoral line or suggestion have I over discovered. Indeed there is so much spiritual consolation to bo derived from Ingersoll that when in a despondent mbed } invariably pick up one. or other of Ins book's, and feel after a few minutes reading quite a hopeful aud cheerful being. Yet, were I to recommend auy of these books to a Christian friend, even an indifferent Christian f rl< V lc N ho would turn on me a look of shocked astonishment. Why? Because, like myself, he has been misled and is "little educated " —yet. , , It is o.uite probable that "Ohurcnman " has never read any of the hooks which he so unjustly condemns. *■ niav come as a shock to him to near that the " Encyclopedia Biblica practically embodies every criticism contained in Paine's " Age of »J» s ° n ;, Let me advise " Churchman , t 0 first and 1 think I may safclv ch,a cnge him to show one immoral l" will Rational Press literature. *£/£'' , find, like myself, that that which he

had only heard referred to in tones of horror is really the most just, ennobling and. enlightening literature it is our privilege to enjoy.—l am, etc., NON-SECTARIAN.