ATTACKS ON ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18872, 26 May 1923, Page 18

ATTACKS ON ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

TO THE RDITOK. Sir, — Permit me to offer a few remarks on an address given by Mr G. P. Cuttriss on Tuesday night last. In the course of his speech Mr Cuttriss told the 17' persons who comprised his audience that ho had nothing against Roman Catholics as individuals, as he owed his life to the heroism and courage displayed by one of their number, but further on ho said that he had no more time for a Roman Catholic than he did for a burglar or a rattle-snake. Very complimentary from one whose life was saved by a Catholic! Fair-minded people will form their own conclusions concerning a man who could stand up and say a thing like that. Further on, Mr Cuttriss said he was greatly opposed to the infallibility of the ivonuyi Catholic Church, etc. Has not any fyunan Catholic a perfect right to believe in his Church, which to him is the pillar and ground of truth and to listen to the priest delivering to his congregation the infallible truth which God has revealed? Mr Cuttriss is opposed also to confessions, and denounces “Popedom” as a fraud. . Are confessions not held in any Church other than the Catholic? I would like to impress on Mr Cuttriss that confession wa s heard in the Roman Catholic Church long before the P.P.A. or even Protestantism ever existed. What puzzles me, after addresses by P.IAA. members, ministers, and others who claim themselves to bo good, upright, and loyal Christians is that they can . sneak as they do about_tho R.oman Catholic religion and those wuiose lives are consecrated to the sendee of the Roman Catholic Church, and yet profess to observe God’s Commandment, “Love thy neighbour, as thyself.” Mr Cuttriss referred to the' “next war.” Who wants another war? The Roman Catholic Church never contemplates war. It i s by persons like Mr Cuttriss and other P.P.A. followers that strife is stirred up, and I can boldly advise him that if religion becomes mixed up in war affairs it will not only be Catholics and Protestants who will bo concerned, but every nation on earth will he engaged in fighting the bloodiest war in history.—l am, etc., . Don. Waianaknrua, May 23, “FAITH-HEALING.” TO THE EDITOR. Sin,—The question of healing disease Is always one of deep importance to mankind, and those who give their timo and energies, physical or mental, to the studv of that question are deserving of all credit, even though their methods, and sometimes their conclusions, arc disapproved by the learned, and perhaps chiefly by able and learned medical men. And just now when the question is being brought prominently before us by. the mission of Mr Hickson in Australia, and his anticipated mission in Now Zealand, and the warning by Dr ■R. Fielding-Onld, which appears in this morning's issue of the Daily Times, your readers are once again interested in the subject. I shall bo glad, therefore, if you will spare me a little space to try to put the issue truly before thorn. Most people will perhaps be surprised to learn that, if the newspaper reports of Mr Hickson’s work are correct (and I assume that they are correct, but incomplete), Mr Hickson, Mr Smith Wigglesworth, who was here last June, and every other ■ teacher on the same side of the question, would endorse nearly every word of Dr FoildingOuld’s warning. “Faith alone will not cure a tuberculosis joint,”—no. nor any other joint for that matter. “Faith-healing and Christian science, and all those kindred methods of treatment, arc simply suggestion.” That the mind has a very gi-eat influence upon and power over the body none who knows enough to bo worth listening to, will for ii moment doubt, and that there are limits to that influence and Tower is quite patent. But all this is quite apart from and foreign to the real position taken and held by tile men I have named and many others who are this very day bringing Health and consequent ioy to disease-stricken humanity. The methods condemned hv Dr FcildingOuld are simply efforts to bring Nature to work nnori Nature, (he mind upon the body. This is “faith-healing” pure and simple, the operation of an attitude of the mind called “fnilh.” and the effect of that attitude upon the body. The message of Mr Hieksnn /if I understand him), of Mr Wiggle- -'ifh. and of many others who have visit--1 us, and of many less known persons, some of them amongst ourselves, is ns different from this as light is from darkness. It is that Rod has promised in Tib Book that nu certain conditions, ,on obedience hr certain' commands. He wifi heal (ho diseases of those who trust Him. That His Book contains those promises can easilv ho ascertained by each persoff. That God can do this will ho admitted by . iruvf and the issue raised is, Will Ho keep IBs word?—] mu. etc ■ A. S. D. Adams. Maori Hill, Maj 25.