CHRISTIANITY AND REWARD [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Surely Professor Joad's description of Christianity as it is taught nowadays is an anachronism. I am seventy years of age, and my parents were devoted Christians, but I remember no single instance of our being taught " to be good " for the reward of hereafter. On the contrary, it was the love between parent and child that was the analogy, and the ideal of the relation between us and God. During four and a half years in Southwark I certainly came across ideas such as Professor Joad attributes to our teachers of religion, but it was only amongst women, and those of the most ignorant. I read much of the discussions between working Men and the clergy in the East End, and have never heard of the " bribe and threat " attributed to Christian teaching. Indeed those who know the British workman of to-day know that to come to him with that appeal would be an insult to him, which he would certainly resent.—I am,
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