CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10015, 30 December 1895, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE PART OF A CHRISTIAN MINISTER. TO THK EDITOR.

Sir,—The ambiguous statement of J. 8. Mill quoted by Mr. Williams in his letter published today is either irrelevant or erroneous. Mill says" Ido not think it is part of the business of the Government to provide securities beforehand against the consequences of immoralities of any kind." If this means that no legislation should have fur its direct and primary object the providing of such securities, then it is undoubtedly true, but tins no bearing on the question at issue. If it means that the Government should refuse to take measures for preserving public order and safeguarding the public health, because the Secondary effect of these measures may bo the lessening of the evil consequences of sin, then it is false, and strikes at the root of social order and progressive legislation. My main contention is perfectly untouched. But the State, though it can preserve public order, and, to a large extent, safeguard the physical well-being of the people, has no weapon to war against the sin from which so much disorder and disease spring. That is the work of the Church. And while it is sadly true, that after nearly nineteen Christian centuries, statesmen are obliged to frame their laws 011 the supposition that vico exists, and will continue to exist for a long time to come, the Church is _ bound by its charter to have no truce with evil. As a citizen I may approve of measures which, recognising the existence of vice, aim at restraining the outward manifestations of it, and at mitigating its frightful effects 011 the health of the I'onitimnity ; as a clergyman and a Chistian I must say to individuals in the most absolute and unqualified way, "Ye must not sin.'' And I must do what I can by bringing spiritual influence and moral teaching to bear upon them, to strike at the root of the sin. In tho case under consideration, our task as Christians, and as men desiring the growth of virtue and goodness and the destruction of 6in is two-fold, prevention and rescue. The firnt is, perhaps, the more important, as tending to dry up the evil at the fountain head, hut the second is also an imperative duty. To apply effectual preventatives or remedies, it is needful lirst to discover the causes 01 the disease. In this case the causes are manifold. I do not thiuk with your contributor "Colonus" that the main cause is the lack of remunerative employment for women. I think the chief root of this as of other evils is to be found in the want of proper home training, pure home influence, aid happy home life. People often marry >vith little thought of the responsibility that may devolve upon them of providing for the right physical nurture of their children, with less thought of the even graver responsibility of providing for their moral and spiritual nurture. And schoolmaster, minister, Sundayschool, or all three combined, cannot no tho work which the parents leave undone, There is a permanent significance in the fact that the olliee of the forerunner of the Lord was to tutu the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to their fathers, lest the land be smitten with a curse. Modern religion has not insisted, as the Bible insists, on the sacrcdness of family life. Nay, even with the best intentions, many religious people are doing a deal to destroy family life. Numbers -'f young persons are being encouraged to leave their homes, night after night, to attend meetings of Bands of Hope, Christian lindeavour, Helping Hand, and other societies. These meetings are sometimes prolonged to a lute hour, and are often of an exciting character, and to those who know anything of the natural history of religious emotion, seem to be highly dangerous. In any case the tendency is to make a quiet -veiling in the family circle the exception and not the rule. Our passion for amusement and social enjoyment tends in the same direction. The theatre, the concert, the ball-room, break in far too much 011 our home life, and frequented to tho exorbitant degree that they are, create an unnatural and unhealthy taste for perpetual excitement. _ If ministers will recognise that tjie home is the training-ground for the Church no less than for the State, if they will inculcate family piety and family affection, if they will assert and act upon the principle that the only divine societies are the family, tho Church, and the State, then 1 believe that we may look for better things. Another potent cause of evil is that we do not recognise the dignity and worth of human nature. If a man looks upon his nature as divine and sacred, he will not deliberately Hilly and degrade it; if he believes that the nature of every woman is divine and sacred, he will not deliberately sully or degrade it. If lie accepts with wonder and thankfulness the message of this season, that Christ is in him and in every other human being, he will not defile the temple, of Christ. The words, " Insomuch as ye have done evil unto one of the least of these my sisters ye have dono it unto Me," will be a more awful deterrent than the material torments on which preachers used to dwell, or than the physical consciences on which some of them seem now almost exclusively to rely. But if a man is taught there is nothing divine in him unless he has passed through some emotional crisis, mid can satisfy certain tests devised and applied by men, there is a strong temptation to him to say, "You tell me I am merely carnal; I will live as if I wero." I believe that if Christian ministers and people bad the courage, the humility, the humanity, to appeal to men and to treat them as children of God, brothers of Christ, spiritual beings, the standard of purity, and not only of purity but of truth, honour, unselfishness, would slowly but steadily be raised among us.—l am, etc., \Y. Beatty. Remuera, Christmas Day.

TUB VENEZUELAN EMBEOGLKV TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— lucid and instructive leader in the Herald of the 23rd instant upon " the critical situation that has arisen between the United States of America and Great Britain over the Venezuelan question " sets the matter in its true light, and exposes the political manoeuvre of President Cleveland. Every reader of that article will arrive at the conclusion that the President is playing a dangerous game, evoking passions that may

pet beyond his power of control. It la evident that the Government of the United States is logically wrong, and has not the slightest ground in equity or national law, fot interfering with tho present disagreement between Great Britain and Venezuela, Tho Monroe doctrine has been invoked to enlist popular sympathy, to cover with the halo of patriotism an audacious and criminal attempt to make political capital out of an incident that in no wise upon the Monroe doctrine, and affects neither any political nor any territorial right of the United States.

If, as you so clearly put it, the strip of land, now the bone of contention, was captured from the Dutch in 1793, just twenty years after the United States had entered the comity of independent nations, and long antecedent to the inception of tho Monroe doctrine, by what right in 1895 can tho United States assume to interfere with, and dictate to, Great Britain, when simply insisting upon her right to hold her own, and rebuke the impertinent action of a disordered petty State, as yet incompetent to govern itself? It is simply a piece of Yaukee " bluff," a bid for political popularity, an act of moral turpitude, of political insanity, the last chance, desperate throw, of a moribund cause.

Regarded from a moral and religious standpoint, outside the arena of reckless political chicanery, ;he present move of President Cleveland is atrocious, and is aptly stigtip tised as tho "crime of the age, because inciting two kindred nations to mutual hate and murder. Can it be possible that a nation bo enlightened, so advanced in civilisation that it marches in the van of the older European empires, will endorse the action of a man evidently so lout to all moral and philanthropic sensibility' 1 Is it conceivable that, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, the leader of a powerful nation can bo so lost to all moral and philanthropic sensibility as to risk plunging two " kith and kin" nations into the horrors of mutual slaughter and ravage ? If a man can do so from sheer political wantonness, he is guilty of the greatest crime that human malignity can perpetrate, and should be held responsible for the consequences. It is to bo hoped that the moral sentiment of the United States citizens will expose the political ruse of reckless ambition. I pray God to interpose and avert internecine war between Great Britain and tho United States. It would be the calamity, the disgrace of the age! One shudders to think of human audacity in venturing thus to outrage every Divine and human law that should regulate the intercourse of nations. The incident, whatever its issue, will be a caution to John Hull not to trust Brother Jonathan, but rather to trust in Providence and keep the powder dry. la other words, in these erratic, electric times, Great Britain should bo prepared for every emergency by possessing an overwhelmingly preponderating navy. " Mistress of the seas" should be a reality, and not a legend of the past. " Federation " should be the racial watchword. The security and the permanence of Grcit Britain and her colonies depend upon federated unity. Self governed, and, to all int-entj and purposes, independent, but still one family, of one blood, one interest, allied for mutual defcuce, and mutual vindication. And it lies within the limit of possibility that, ere awhile, tho United States would join the family compact, bury the hatchet with tho baleful memories of the past, smoke tho calumot of peace, and the Anglo-Saxon brotherhood of nations become an irresistible potency for peace in the comity of the civilised nationalities.—l am, etc., W. R. V. To Aroha, 26th December, 1893.

IRISHMEN PLUS LOYALTY. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Your uncalled for attack upon Irishmen generally in your issue of to-day in unmerited and unfair. Mr, John Redmond is endowed with a share of common sense, and is not likely to have tnrde such an absurd statement knowing well the uses, tho base uses, to which the word loyaltly is used for party purposes in the British Isles. There it is bandied about as a politics! fulcrum till it has become nauseous. It is probable that the cable may be at fault. If it is disloyal in Irishmen to denounce, and everlasting protest against; and to seek to overthrow the present system by which their country is ruled and ruined, they are most assuredly disloyal. Tho public works expenditure of Ireland at this moment is entirely in the hands of a Board nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, to whom alono they are responsible, and by whom they cau be removed. Their (the Board's) political opinions are at variance with the vast majority over whom in matters of general and parochial government, they ride rough-shod like so many Turkish pashas. Three-fourths of the revenue of the country is spent in its administration by irresponsible oligarchy, which ostentatiously flouts Irish public opinion. They fill with their friends every office of emolument in the State. In short they run the whole island. Would New Zealanders prove loyal to such a system? How would they relish having their public money expended by a Board nominated by Lord Glasgow! Disloyalty in Irishmen, as applied in general terms to the Empire, carries with it its own refutation. It caunot be denied that they have done their share in its construction and administration. Irishmen have their imperfections, but ingratitude is not one of them. Treat them as men should be treated. They disdain favours, but claim, aud ever shall claim, their inalienable right to manage their domestic government. Two score of autonomous communitus in the Britisn Umpire have been made loyal; why, then, deny it to Ireland ?—I am, etc., Justitia, Auckland, December 28.