PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13750, 25 April 1918, Page 6

PUBLIC OPINION

CONSCIENCE OR COWARDICE? (To the Editor.) Sir, —It is satisfactory to note that tile person in the community has entered a protest against the farce of granting exemption to the Seventh Day Adventists. In the early stages of the war one could, perhaps, understand men appealing on religions grounds, though few would hold them in higher estimation for so doing, but after the years of callous cruelty the wo; id lias lately witnessed,- whac excuse can a man offer for shirking his obligations on the ground of conscience ? The effrontery of men claiming to possess a conscience when they are prepared, on religious grounds, to calmly look on and watch the slaughter of thousands ci innocents, without answering the call when their turn comes to lend a hand, ■-; inconceivable. Think of the manliness, the nobleness, embodied in a teaching which rises to such heights that it is content to watch, without effort, the vilest brutality stalking over continents, slaying, torturing and starving, not only (lie manhood of the world, but even the innocent little children. Truly, so-called religion, in these modern times, takes some queer turns. In Shakespeare's time I believe there were no Seventh Day Adventists, but one could almost believe the Hard lad them in mind when he wrote: "Thus conscience "doth make cowards of us all."—1 am, etc.,

A. C. BLACK,

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Kindly allow me to add my protest to that of "No*. 89,900," in today's issue of the Times against the ■•bsurd and unfair exemption of '•Seventh Day Adventists." "Why should these men ( ?) he granted exemption and sdn-Itcr behind their religious (?) convictions when so many <-f oit married men v.iih several children are going? I should Hhe to ship pll these "relicious objectors" straight to Germany, where they belonn:, for purely they are not British. Hoping some mor- 1 able pen m'y take this matter nr>. 1 nm etc., AN TNDTCXAXT BRITISHER. 23rd April, 1918.