8 APRIL 1916, Page 12

REVERENCING LIFE MORE THAN MORALITY.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")

SIR,—Are not the following words of Dr. Martineau (in a review on the Ethics of Christendom) worthy of our careful consideration at the

present time 1—

" The reverence for human life is carried to an immoral idolatry when It is held more sacred than justice and right, and when the spectacle of blood becomes more horrible than the sight of desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypocrisies. . . . A religion which does not include the whole moral law ; a moral law velfich does not embrace all the problems of a commonwealth ; a commonwealth which regards the life of man more than the equities of God, appear to be unfaithful to their functions, and unworthy interpreters of the divine scheme of the world."