[To the Editor of the SpEcraton.] . •
SIR,—As some who are also responsible for children, as some also who " like to hear and tell the truth as far as they can," we feel constrained to point out that the difficulties of Mrs. Williams-Ellis in the religious teaching of her children, and her experience of the Church's attitude is not our experi- ence nor that of countless others. We and our friends have some loyalties too.
But it is not quite clear whether her difficulties arise from the Christian faith in its purity, or from the acknowledged imperfections of the human side of the Church. Mrs. Williams- Ellis would not be wrong in saying that some things are too difficult (or too deep) for children or even for herself to understand fully. If religion does not answer a child's questions satisfactorily what about the answers she supplies in their place ? Do they explain all the facts of life, mind and, above all, of spiritual experience ?
There can be no intellectual integrity too scrupulous for real religion ; its experience and its fruits, testified to clown the ages by every variety of person and race do not thin out under the test of everyday life or of intellectual honesty.
" The wages of sin is death" means the death of the things sinned against. The spiritual capacity of man can be destroyed by constant sin ; if one sins against beauty, against truth, against sincerity one's perception of those qualities dies. St. Paul, surrounded by those who were dying for their faith, would not be likely to mean that the death of the body was a judgment for their sins.
Why, too, does Mrs. Williams-Ellis assume that the Church sees nothing good in the experiment now going on in Russia ? It is true, the Church sees nothing good in cruelty. Also does she, supposing her to be in sympathy with the Labour Party, find it difficult to reconcile Mr. Snowden, with his political beliefs, inhabiting Downing Street, temporarily, for reasons of convenience ? She must know that the " palaces " she writes of lived in by Bishops are not their ,own palaces (when palaces at all) ; they are used first and foremost as centres of hospitality and meeting places in connexion with the Diocese.
" The majestic vistas of Science " enlarge the mind no more than the .majestic vista of the Christian conception of life, besides leaving the spirit unsatisfied.
To us it seems a fundamentally wrong idea of religion to think of it as a thing to be imparted to one's children rather than an inward growth of the spirit to be fostered and en- couraged. We believe that our children are spiritual beings with a natural capacity for the things of the spirit. It is surely a narrow tyranny that forbids them that freedom to worship and adore the Divine wherever it is found, and that says from henceforth they must go elsewhere " than to those great sources of joy and inspiration that have been the lifespring of countless saints and heroes.—We are, Sir, be.,
CONSTANCE SITWELL, VIOLET VERT:LANE, MAISIE FLETCHER, CECIL GLADSTONE, ItuTII LEIGH-MALLORY.
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