THE FAITH AND THE FAMILY-

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19662, 23 August 1935, Page 9

THE FAITH AND THE FAMILY-

(To the Editor.) Sir—No human law can abolish the natural and original right of marriage, ordained by God’s authority from the beginning. Hence we have the Family, the society of a man’s house, a society limited in numbers, but no less a true society, anterior to every lcind of state and nation, invested with rights and duties of its own, totally independent of the civil community. Further, any alteration by the State of ■the fundamental laws which govern marriage and family life will lead to the ruin of society itself. No doubt a State will gain in power and prestige as the family declines, but State and society are not identical. In faot, a Slate is often most omnipotent and universal in its claims when society is dying, as we see in the last age of the Roman Empire. At the present time we have reason to ask ourselves whether modern civilisation Is riot threatened with a similar danger owing to the absorption of the whole of human life in the artificial order of bureaucracy and industrialism. The introduction of a new moral code would remove the last obstacle to the complete mechanisation of society and lead to the final supersession of the independent family by the State, No amount of governmental organisation can supply the place of the natural reserves of vitality on which social health depends. If the hypothesis of the Faith regarding society is true, the supersession of the family means not progress, but the death of society, the end of our age, and the passing of Occidental civilisation- —I am, etc., JUNIUS. Hamilton, August 21, 1935.