MURDER STATES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4233, 19 January 1940, Page 7

MURDER STATES

UNIVERSAL DOMINION “The Rev. John Thom, in 1854, preached a memorable sermon on “The Religious Spirit that befits this Crisis’—the crisis being the resolve of Britain and France to resist the inordinate demands of Russia which, if conceded, would 'allow—to quote Mtr Thom’s words —'“Barbarian Power t» ma,ke a mighty step towards universal dominion.’ “Face <to face with that situation, this is what Mr Thom said:— “ ‘lt is true that we have but a ehpice of terrible evils and that war is the greatest of crimes. But are great crimes not to be resisted" Are great criminals to be the undisputed masters of the world? “ ‘The enormiity of wa,rs of ambition, of selfishness, of aggression, is tfye very circumstance that makes it a duty to withstand them. “ “True, war is the bane and reproach) of mankind, but so is all crime, in its measure—so is murder, so is robbery, so as lust. But is the murderer to be unrestrained? Is the robbeg to go at (large? Is the spoiler to spoil where he pleases? “ ‘And if war is all these in one, is

not the civilised world to band itself against the aggressor’ or is this world where God would set up His Kingdom, to be given over to highhanded wickedness? The more you prove the wickedness of war, the more you prove it to be the duty of the Nations to unite against him who unrighteously resorts to it, as against the common enemy of mankind.’

“For that virile statement of the case, we are grateful to a great and honoured leader,” says the Rev. Lawrence Redfern, in the “Inquirer.”