by Douglas C. Hartley
a g ic a n d d e p l o r a b l e as assassination is, it is not the most dastardly nor the most common means of homicide. The assassin destroys the body, but he cannot harm the soul. The Lord Jesus Christ said not to fear him, “ but rather fear him [or that] which is able to destroy both the soul and body in hell.” 1 The awesome thing about this Double Killer, who made several frustrated attempts to destroy Jesus — in the temptation on the mount and in the crucifixion — is that he is able to beguile even the unwary Christian to work out his nefarious schemes. How does he do this? By leading him to assume that evils axe inevitable; that there is nothing the Christian church, individually or col lectively, can do about them; but, worse still, that there is nothing God can do about it. Satan seeks to inculcate a defeatist attitude into the Body of Christ. To assume this is to open gaps through which the Enemy of our souls is able to commit murder, not only of the body, but of the soul in hell. Probably the greatest weapon Satan has to-day is the legalized control of the manufacture and distribution of intoxicants. For example, today with 250,000 known addicts in my country of Canada among roughly 18 millions of people, 1 out of each 70 is an alcoholic. Many so-called Christian churches condone social drinking. Every alco holic starts as a social drinker, and each day in Canada some 35 become victims for a yearly figure of 12,000 or, 1 in each 1346 of population. For every 2 male addicts, there is one woman. Records of social workers indicate that for every alco holic 7 other people are directly affected by the tragedy. Thus practically every tenth Canadian shares disastrously in this universal blight. The Canadian national bill for intoxicants in 1962 was $961 millions. Thus $55.40 was spent for every man, woman and child. Fifty per cent of our high school popu lation habitually imbibes. Of the gross figure $492 millions, almost fifty per cent went for taxes to federal and provincial govern ments. That this amount was divided practically equal — $242 millions federally to $250 millions provincially — indicates that our legislators are equally guilty of be traying and degrading people they are entrusted to safeguard. Today there is a tendency to regard drunkenness as
an excuse, rather than a direct cause in accidents, mur ders, manslaughter and other forms of violence. Over the years our so-called Christian society has been so over whelmed by the incapacitating, degrading affects of in toxicants that any further willful interference with man’s normal capacities should carry full responsibility for wrong actions induced. If not legally wrong, it has always been and will never remain morally so. Only 1 to 2 per cent of highway mishaps are the result of mechanical defects, and a further 28 per cent arise from other causes where liquor is not involved. In fully 70 per cent the driver has been drinking prior to the accident. A local editor recently wrote that “ a drinking driver is as criminal as a hoodlum who shoots a rifle down a public road for kicks . . . he loads himself with a lethal weapon . . . he knows what he is doing.” The trend toward public sympathy for the wrongdoer, rather than for the victim and his family, is a mockery ■— a swift, relentless plunge into the jungle law that “might is right.” By inference, the victim is adjudged “ criminal” for allowing himself to be defrauded, robbed, murdered or victimized by sex perverts. American syndicated columnist John Crosby recently stated: “American law is a jungle behind which a well-heeled criminal can hide for years, if not forever. American lawyers . . . can always find another whereas to hide criminals behind . . . Everything is against the law in America except crime — parking, fornication, gambling, marijuana, speeding — but crime itself, the profession of crime, is not only NOT against the law, but we don’t even frown on it.” And we church people — many times simply so-called Christians — are just as guilty of our uncommitted and unchurched neighbors. There was a time when godly men (and perhaps more numerous and more effectively, godly women) refused to condone the wholsesale exploitation of the people legally or illegally; when public opinion, particularly the Christian element, would have effectively prevented mak ing respectable the destruction of bodily health and wel fare; the eternal damnation of unsaved sinners; and the holding by “ Christians” of stocks and bonds in breweries and distilleries. A few churches even now join with their members in perpetuating revolving benefit funds by such methods, perfectly proper legally, but supremely unholy
18
TH E KINO'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs