What the Battle is About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 27, Issue 21, 27 May 1909, Page 809

What the Battle is About

A persistent feature in the ' erotic, neurotic, tommyrotic' literature of our time — both books and journals — is the hostility displayed to Christian teaching by the degenerates who produce that pestiferous sort of printed stuff. The noted Presbyterian organ, Hie British Weekly, gives, of this phenomenon, an explanation which explains. 'The truth is,' it says, 'that Christianity is hated, and reviled by many of our modern writers simply because H exalts chastity. Let us try every new doctrine by this test. Only a few have had the courage to come out into the open, but to those who read between the lines there is much that is suggestive. We are told that marriage is to be put on a new basis, that the causes for divorce are to be extended, that lives are not going to be spoiled for one mistake, and all the rest of it. This is the exoteric teaching. This is all that it is safe to say in the meantime in the presence of the people, but the exoteric teaching, and sometimes the practice, is much more advanced. There is a true instinct under all this. It was Christianity that created the virtue of purity, and it is Christianity alone that can save it. Christianity opposes the progress of Apollyon in this path.^ Christianity maintains the sanctity of marriage and of the family. It is no wonder therefore that it should be viewed as an irreconcilable enemy, to be overthrown at any cost. But it is just as well that we should understand what the battle is about.'