RUSSIA AND RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21469, 18 April 1933, Page 13

RUSSIA AND RELIGION

Sir, —You ara to bo commended for issuing in your columns tho faithful utterance of Dr. Downey, the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, tho insensate attack of tho Soviet State upon religion in all its forms. Nothing more purely dooms Bolshevism to ultimate defeat than its utter atheism. Religion is too deeply rooted in tho human heart to bo ever completely eradicated and expelled. No nation, from the most primitive to the most cultured, has ever existed without belief in unseen powers, to which they owed reverence and obedience. The Russian people have been for centuries a deeply religious people, eyeu if addicted to superstition and infantile ceremonies. Many of thorn accepted tho evangelical teaching of such men as Dr. Baedeker and Lord Hadstock, and the Baptists reckoned some four million converts among them. Thousands have perished through the ruthless ferocity of the Soviet and thousands are now suffering imprisonment, banishment and impoverishment, because of their Christian beliefs and practices. But tho blood of the martyrs has ever been the seed of the Church and one cannot believe that the Russian soul will be permanently crushed bv the merciless atheism of Bolshevism. The terrible thine; is that the activities of this avowedly godless State are "as übiquitous as they are pernicious." Tho rulers of Russia are bent on poisoning the whole world with their atheistic dogmas. Atheism lias become their religion and they are proud to bo its flaming evangelists. There is urgent need, therefore, as Dr. Downey says, that Christian folk should maintain their faith in God and defend it with all tho resources at their command. Professor Robert I'lint declared 55 years ago, in his masterly lectures on' "Anti-Tboistic Theories," that "Materialism —atheistical materialism —may at no distant date, unless earnestly and wisely opposed, bo strong enough to undcrtako to alter all our institutions and to abolish those which it dislikes." This baleful forecast appears likely to bo fulfilled in these perilous days of ours. The archbishop's warning and appeal arc, therefore, most timelv, and merit tho studious attention of all who regard religion as the supreme element in human life, and who can still utter tho sublime creed, "I believe in God tho Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." H.H.D.