CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22256, 8 May 1934, Page 8

CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

TO THE EDITOB Sir, —In his reply to my letter “E. WF.” asks “Who is the judge of what is harmful to me?” God is the judge of what is harmful to each one of us. A time is coming when “ every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” “E. W. F.” continues: “W'hat I find quite innocuous and without effect, because my reason or experience reject it, will or may excite or mislead another.” Therefore, he acknowledges that some of these censored books are dangerous to some people. Christ said: “It is impossible but that offences will come; but woe unto him through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." Near the end of his letter E. W. F. lets us know what he believes to be the cause of the censorship. It “is religious at bottom.” In one of his books Xarl Barth contrasts religion and revelation in these words: “ Religion is the movement of man towards God. Revelation is the movement of God towards man.” What a world of difference between the two statements!—l am, etc., Liberty.