OPEN WAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19783, 5 March 1927, Page 2

OPEN WAR

BEAUTY OF FAMILY LIFE PRIMATE AND BOLSHEVIK ATTACKS. The Primate, preaching at Canterbury Cathedral recently, says a London paper, said there rang out from the earliest Christian days the note of what Christianity might and could mean in the brightening and sanctifying of the home, and in the twentieth century the enemies of Christianity in our own day had come to note it. The promoters of Russian Bolshevism who deliberately told us that it was their purpose to root out Christianity were from their own standpoint quite consistent and logical about this. They attacked as part of their open war against religion the whole idea which Christians cherished of the sanctity and beauty of home and family life and the upbringing of children. Some sentences of their own plan and purpose ran thus: “When parents say, ‘My daughter, my son,’ the words give expression to the parents’ view that they have a right to educate their children. The parents' claim to bring up their children must not merely bo rejected, but must be absolutely laughed out of court. We must not rest content with tho expulsion of religious propaganda from the school, but we must see to it that the school assumes the offensive against religious propaganda in the home.” Then there was the repeated declaration which ran like a refrain through their anti-Christian plan and policy: “Religion and Communism arc incompatible both theoretically and practically. ”

It was well, said the Primate, in view of the rather common inattention to what Bolshevism, which was now trying to spread its principles East and West, really meant, that those frank statements which he had quoted from their own Russian exposition of the official programme should be borne in mind. Our ideas and ideals of real Christian home life were now being challenged and confronted by a persistent and outspoken foe.