RUSSIA AND ATHEISM.

Northern Advocate, 27 July 1934, Page 4

RUSSIA AND ATHEISM.

| (To the Editor.) Sir, —I would like to reply to Mr "Williams's letter of the 21st inst. He certainly lays himself open to ridicule and laughter, but my aim is not to attack a fellow citizen or to show j my superior wisdom, education or inItolloct (to which I lay no claim). I wrote to expose what 1. sincerely believe to be the most accursed menace j to civilisation today. I met an honest local man a few weeks ago, who told me that lie had been to Russia. T asked him if he would like to see .Sovietism introduced into Mew Zealand. A look came into his eyes as if he had seen a reptile, and he said, “It is a thing that has got to be choked out.” He would not give me his name, as he may have to go to Russia, again. I am .British by nature and training, and by the grace of God 1 have loved truth from a child. To say that an opponent knows nothing, and has read nothing, when one is absolutely ignorant of that person and his habits of life, and to write a long tirade of abuse is to show that one has not reason, truth, evidence or usable material on his side, else he : would use it. Neither docs it answer the stubborn facts contained in my last letter. 1 challenge any professor, or Mr Williams, to prove to the contrary the statement I have made. I know it is beyond their /power to do so, seeing it is impossible to prove ■truth to be untrue. Falsehood will not stand the light of publicity. [ am pleased to know, and I believe the majority of your readers arc likewise pleased, that the British Labour Party now forbids membership to any avowed Communist, ami seeks to protect its membership from Communistic influence. This vast body of live, Intelligent and more i enlightened people, being closer to the j subject, have seen the skeleton in the Soviet cupboard, and are not so eager to swallow wholesale its pernicious bait. Your correspondent did not

prove that, the Russian experiment is not an insect civilisation, where individualism. is abolished. He did say that Mr D. Richards had criticised Cicely Hamilton’s book, but we have strong suspicion that Russia is using much of that £700,000,000 of stolen British money for propaganda purposes, and it is evident that those who write against the Soviet are receiving no dividends. To say that a man contradicted something is to prove nothing, but if Mr Williams had given the substance of Mr D. Richards’s book, as I did C. Hamilton’s, then the public, would have been able to decide for themselves which was true. There are plenty of men today who would criticise God’s perfect Book and its divine truth without payment because they are not spiritually minded enough to understand it. He did not prove that war and hate are not the natural fruit of atheism. Any nation not believing in the providence of God feels a mistrust and a sense of being defenceless; hence the rush to arm to the teeth. Dr. Paul Hutchinson, formerly resident in China, in a speech, said: ‘‘Russia is rushing her military preparations at such a pace that the Tokio War Office will hardly allow them to go ahead more than another year, if it is resolved on lighting. Japan is talking about and longing for peace. The Government is very pacific, and I have every reason to say that the Emperor is fostering the feeling for peace in every way open to him.” Nations do not develop armaments to put into museums as emblems of love: It is because hate is in the heart, and war is hate in action, which is hell. I had 2} years in the forward zone at the last Great War as a stretcher-bearer and abulanco man. Mr Williams did not prove that infants were not taken by force from, their parents to Soviet State boarding-schools to be reared and taught atheism in a godless atmosphere. I know that when a child feels the warmth of parental affection and realises the fact of the love of God, there is no creature on earth so happy, and that the same blessed assurance warms my heart and makes me happy, too. Now, if I was under the Red flag, instead of the dear old Union Jack, I should strongly resist their atheistic teaching to my children (for they arc our most precious possession). For daring to be a man instead of an insect, I should bo shot or tortured, to death. There is a local citizen who would substantiate what I say, but for fear of getting his relatives into similar trouble. Mr Williams did not mention J. W. Hird’s statement in his book “Under Czar and Soviet,” with regard to the 890,000 peasants, or the 1,608,608 put to death altogether. No, Mr Editor, a nation or individual can no more build a noble character without. God and His Word than a carpenter can build a house without a spirit level. I wish Mr Williams nothing but good, and I would like to see him use his energies and intellect in a fbetter cause,, following the heroes of faith who have gone before “contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, ” By so doing, he would find more satisfaction and be a far happier man.—T am, etc., IT. R. BARRETT.