THE WAY OF RECOVERY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 June 1932, Page 2

THE WAY OF RECOVERY.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I was an interested reader of the letter in your paper to-day from Mr. C. S. Powick, Tangarakau. To deal with the present depression on Christian principles one thinks that we need to go further back to get at the root of the matter. A glance at the “Grand Old Book” that gives the origin of true Christianity tells us that God always had a care for the poor. See Exodus 22, 25-27; Leviticus 25, 35-37; Deuteronomy 15, 7 and 8, etc. This shows the gracious provision made for the poor, even under the God-given Mosaic law. Later, when Christ was on earth, He paid special attention to the needs of the poor, both spiritually and temporally. See Luke 7, 22; Matthew 15, 30-39; Mark 6, 34-44, etc. The Acts and Epistles record occasions when the early Christians with their gifts manifested a practical care for the poor. But departure from the principles of Holy Writ in many things has brought the Church into disrepute. And the Epistle of James, chapters 1-9, gives a solemn prophetic warning of a future day when God’s judgment would overtake certain holders of enormous wealth which would be stored up idle. Verse four shows that much of that wealth would, be obtained by under-paying and defrauding the poor of their just earnings. Has anything like this occurred in our own day? We think of the time when, as a boy in England, we saw good honest labourers, married men with young families to support, working from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. for a wage of 2s per day. My father was, I believe, the first in our district to raise the wages of his men, in accordance with Colossians 4, I, “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal.” By so doing he incurred the displeasure of other employers around, but a clear conscience as a Christian employer enabled him to treat their displeasure with contempt, and as many in Taranaki since knew, he never got rich. Huge fortunes were made in those days from the profits of under-paid labour. These fortunes were handed down to the generation following, many of whom have not ’been very considerate of the poor. Even here in New Zealand it is not so long ago that first-class ploughmen could only get 17s 6d to £1 per week and found, when large land-owners were doing fairly well. Can we wonder that the workers have banded together in unions, and gone to the other extreme?

When we read of the enormous wealth in gold, and the millions of bushels of wheat now hoarded and stored up in different countries, with millions of people almost starving, we think that the day is very near when the judgment forewarned in James 5 will be let loose in all its fury. There is one only sovereign remedy and way of escape, a personal faith in Christ, and a return to the genuine principles of true Christianity. This would right the world’s wrongs in a month, but we live in a day when another prophetic warning is being fulfilled world-wide, that “they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy, 4,4) and the latter-day fables are being swallowed wholesale by unbelievers to their eternal loss. I am not a pessimist nor a Communist, but as an almost daily reader of Holy Scripture for nearly 50 years my advice to fellow travellers to eternity is to give the precious volume a reverent and careful reading, and they will find that “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light to my path” is still blessedly true. —I am, etc., A. C. HILL, Stratford, June 15, 1932.