WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE WAR?

North Otago Times, Volume CIV, Issue 13656, 26 August 1916, Page 7

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE WAR?

To the Editor of "The Times." ' Sir—With your permission, I will• try to answer the above question. Paul I says that the law was given to Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, If we read carefully the boolv of Genesis we' will find that a law was iriven in the Garden of Eden where our first parents were placed. This was given to test their obedience to tod. They were allowed to out off all tho 'fruit in the garden but one tree; but this one tree troubled Eve. She wondered why it was reserved. It looked nice and'the. fruit was beautiful and, at that moment the tempter came' in the form of a serpent, This mejnim spoke to her and told her that the fruit was good and if she. took some of; it, she would be wise aud that she would, be as .God knowing goo^^'™ l^ 10 with her husband was pat'-out#p6. ; garden ami" an Tree of Life, lest they should also eat of it and live for; ever. By, this one, act of disobedience our race, lost-immor-tality. . ~ , ~ At the commencement of this letter 1 promised to give a reason for the present dreadful war, and. have, partly d'ono it by showing that the laws of bod have been trampled under foot. If we take circumstantial evidence, we arc bound to believe'tKat although no written law was in existence before Moses lime, yet we are forced to the belief that there must have been given to our first parents a'nothcr law after they were expelled from the garden. This first of all laws was repeated by our Lord when asked by a lawyer which was the first law ami commandant replied: Thou "shalt love the Lord thy God with all "thy heart, with all thy soul, with all "thy mind," and lie added "and tho "second is like unto It: Thou' shalt love "thy neighbour' as thyself. On these "two commandmants hang all the law "and the prophets." These two laws must "have been given to. our first parents 'orally very early, : because we find in the case of Cain, when lie. killed his brother, and before he did this deedwhen he saw that his offering was accepted and his rejected. The Lord said unto him: "Why is thy .countenance fallen and .why art thou angry? If .thou doest well, wilt thou not be accepted, but if not, sin lieth at the door.' ? Again, when we come to the case of Enoch, it is said of him that, he walked with God, and God translated him to heaven. And so we come down to Noah, It is said of him that, Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God. But of the, people it. is said: ■" And Gow saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and every imagination of their.hearts Was. only'evil" "and it repented the Lord '' tiiat He had made man upon the earth 11 and it grieved Him at His : Heart. And "the Lord said I will destroy man whom"l have created from the face of the "earth," And so He did with a great flood. But Noah and his family were saved by building; an ark according to God's command!, God would riot 'have done this unless His laws had been broken. To trace all the proofs down to the time of Christ, would make my letter. too long. But the above ought to convince man that God gave a law to our first parents and the consequence of breaking it was the flood. To speak of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants we can only refer to them, How God kept his promise to them and scut- Moses to deliver them from their bondage in Egypt; of how Egypt was punished 1 because they refused to let Israel go; of the journey from Egypt through the desert to Sinai; how God fed them in the wilderness and gave them water out of the rock; how the law was given to them on the tables of stone; and how they sinned at the foot of the mount; of their wandering forty years, and when at last they entered the Promised Land, how blessings were promised them if they obeyed God's laws, but if they disobeyed they were told what would befall them. ' All the promises were fulfilled, and on their disobedience they were given into the hand of their enemies. Their bondage in Babylon, their deliverance muler Cyrus, and their return after seventy years' captivity, How they prospered, until the coming of the Saviour, whom they would not believe, but rejected and crucified. And thirty years afterwards Jerusalem was linaliy destroyed by the Roman armies, and how they were, finally dispersed to the four winds of liPaven. Need I say more of the .dark agps of persecution, when over sixty millions of Christians were slain. Until Luther nrose and faced all difficulties and dangers proclaiming salvations by faith and not' by penance, how'the princes of Germany

rallied round him. Then was Germany blessed and prospered immensely. But since they began the so-called higher criticism of the' Bible, until they'ha ye' left only the two boards, By preaching and teaching int'edilil.y in their schools and colleges they have degraded themselves-and become a-nation of savages, thinking to subdue all the rest of Europe and create a great German Empire, But this cannot be, as the only kingdom is the kingdom of Christ.— I am, etc., R. Mar.aiLLIV.BAY. Eakanui, August ill, TRIO.