THE SOCIAL EVIL.

Southland Times, Issue 17546, 9 January 1914, Page 2

THE SOCIAL EVIL.

To the Editor. Sir, —-The ‘‘Difficult Case” reported In this morning's issue raises the-'import-ant question. Should we make it safe to sin? The remark of Chief Detective Bishop—if rightly reported—about “endeavouring to prevent what amounted to a crime against the young men of the city” ought surely to be righteously resented by every young man in Christchurch worthy of the name. The implications of that remark are too awful to contemplate. The suggestion to revive the C.D. Act is no better than a suggestion that we attempt again to build a social fool’s paradise for ourselves. All that the Act referred to could do was to give the male sinner a false sense of safety, and in that'direction amounted to a public protection and encouragement to vice. What such laws meant to the female sinner it is difficult to express. To speak of brutality in such a connection would be to basely libel the brute. If the enforcement of such laws would secure the mere physical safety of the male sinner that it is claimed they would secure, that would not make either the law’s or their enforcement defensible. Why should the wholesome dread of the physical consequences of their sins be taken away from menr Why should society deliberately take down a God-appointed barrier? For "the Lord is an avenger in all these things,” and all the efforts of men to avoid the consequences of their sins are but defences of straw—refuges of lies—against His flaming anger, an anger that burns even in this day of His longsuffering grace, in the physical consequences that follow our wrong-doing. I am no sour-faced ascetic preaching a counsel of perfection. I do not shut my eyes to the tremendous driving force of passion, nor to the awful consequences of irregular lust; but I do say that there is only one way to fight this evil and that is God’s way. No man may lightly demand purity of the woman he intends to marry unless he is prepared to come to her with a like purity. '•Thou shalt not commit adultery” is as Divine a command for man as for woman, and the plumbing of the depths of the meaning of that command by our Lord when He said "Whoso looketh . . . to lust . . . hath already committed adultery ... in his heart,” makes it, if possible, bear more tremendously in its awful weight on the man than on the woman. if society is to be delivered from this due evil it will not be by taking down the Divine fences, as all laws for the medical inspection of women in this awful matter really undertake to do. Let us make our human laws as drastic as we like; but never let us dare to turn the Divine "Thou shalt not" into "Yes, with safety, you may.” for either man or woman. Let each sinner look the consequences squarely in the face and then sin if lie dares; hut don’t let society give him encouragement and false assurances of protection in his sin.—X am, etc., T. J. BULL.