0
11
ELLIOTT ELLIOTT
OPTICIANS PI CCA P I fR YARg0 t John flliolt mgr Ex-117 oW Bros Sfudeal Tel.
i
WAVir -
;tests
B79Be
e'sJr.1w
RECORD
PERTH, WEDNESDAY,
NO, 8,162.
a
JANUARY 30, 19".
PRICE THREjrPENCE.
r_+ --s0
ELLIOTT ELLIOTT OPTICIANS Piccadilly Arcade Perth Tel. B7988
SEVENTYSECOND YEAR.
Irreligion is the Opium of the Feeble & Atheism aDrug Revolt Against Discipline in.Morals & Art is Symptom , of Tired Civilisation . tomb and discovered that the " wretchperfect citizen, and leaves it at that. ed effigy had only one hand and was The Utopia of Communism is the paraa mere block on the inner side ... it dise of the escapist taking refuge from having been supposed throughout the reality in a world of wishful thinking. work that the effigy was only to be seen "When the social order is like awellfrom below and from one side." Tooiled machine," writes the author of day the weariness becomes ever more "The A B C of Communism, "... there apparent. will be no need for special Ministers of The modern cult of simplicity in arState, for police and prisons, for laws chitecture has, given us some fine work, and decrees, nothing of the sort." Very but too much of modern simplicity true, but the problem is to produce the consists in the evasion of difficulties well-oiled machine, not to describe what by denying their existence. There is happens iw•hen the problem is solved, the simplicity which expresses as simIn asociety of angels there would be no ply as possible an idea which is worth need for " police and prisons," but those energy in diffose floods, now flows in expressing, and there is the simplicity who are interested in realities will waste a strong stream between restraining which hetrays the barrenness of men little time over Communist fairy books. hanks w•hi, It uiginecrs have strengthA good controvdrsialist, said Chester-- with no ideas to express. .ned and reinforced. "When people contend for their libton, must be a good listener, but you It is atired and enfeebled civilisation erty; said an earlier Lord Halifax, will search Communist literature in vain which chafes at restraints. The most "they seldom get anything for their for any evidence of "listening" to the striking characteristic of Medieval Euvictory but a change of masters." This case against Communism. Mr. John rope was the dynamic energy which apothegm illustrates the simplicity Strachey, to quote one example, is per. drew strength from a Christian source. which resolves complexity, for in these haps the ablest of modern Communists, Bergson, by race it Jew, and by con. 19 words Halifax crystallised what was but he is so busily engaged in explain. viction far removed from Christianity, true in the Marxian analysis of past ing what Marx meant that he has no praises " the energy and audacity, the history, and refuted what was false leisure to prove that the refutations of power both to conceive and to realise, in the \larxian prophecy of the future. Marx are unsound. which k the characteristic of the great The widespread revolt against discipThe Marxian revolt in the sphere of Christian saints. On has only to re. line in morality and in art is the uneconomics is paralleled in the sphere, member." he continues, " all that was mistakable symptom of a tired civilisaaccomplised in the realm of action by of literature and of art. " We are contion. In the springtime of our western St. Paul, St. Theresa, It. Catherine of fronted to-day," writes Mr. Alfred civilisation men believed that God had Noyes, " by the extraordinary spectacle Siena, St. Francis or St. Joan of Arc." made them a little lower than the of 10,000 literary rebels, each chained The modern revolt against that great angels, a belief which was at once a to his own solitary height, and each culture which was - - - ' - challenge to man's energy and "a safechanting the same perennial song of tianity assumes many forms, economic, guard of his rights. For if man is made hate against everything that has been ethical and artistic. The enduring ele• in the image of God, he has rights which achieved by past generations." This inert in these protean shapes is the no dictator is entitled to disreglyd, but revolt against the past is the revolt of appeal to sloth. if a man is nothing more than first idleness against exacting standards. DisThe basic cause of the revolt against cousin to the chimpanzee, he has no cipline is as unpopular in art as in life, civilisation is a failure of nerve, Cowredress if, like the chimpanzee, he is and the modern rebel demands that ardice is first cousin to sloth, for it is put behind bars. It is no coincidence same freedom from restraint in art as the coward who shirks the difficulties that those, who have refused to admit has been achieved in sex. From the of moral and intellectual problems. the obligations of man's high estate, regimented ranks of the conventionalFrom the difficulties of self-control have lost the corresponding privileges. ly unconventional rises the parrot cry: the escapist flies to the gospel of Free Irreligion is the opium of the feeble "Conventions kill art." On the con. Love, a gospel which bears nnw•itting and atheism adrug which dulls the retrary, without conventions there can testimony to the rejected code, -for the grets of those who have surrendered be no art. freedom which it proclaims is not the their birthright because they have The same symptoms of a tired civili. freedom to love, but freedom from the neither the strength nor the courage sation are apparent in the work of twinges of a conscience which even the to face the demands of a civilisation many architests of to- day. The great opium of a bogus philosophy cannot still informed by the fading vision of h medieval Cathedrals bear witness to wholly anesthetise. supernatural order. the patience no less than to the energy There is a close connection between of their builders. The foundations lazy living and lazy thinking. Verboswere laid by men who saw life sub ity and indolence are the distinguishspecie aeternitatis, and who were con. ing characteristics of revolutionary littent to work for the inspiration of un. erature. born generations. The medieval sculp. if Marx is quoted against me, Ireply Sister 11. Jeanette, O.P., for the past tor was no less conscientious when he that mental indolence deprived him of 35 years pharmacist at Mary Immacucarved some statue on a remote part the rewards of his laborious researches. late Hospital. Jamaica, V.Y., is the Malt, like other lethargic thinkers, took 'of a Cathedral roof, as at Milan, or the first recipient of the Dr. J. Leon LasChrist over the w•est'porch which every refuge from the complexities of life in coff Memorial Award for outstanding worshipper saw, and still sees, as he over-simplification. The social order contributions to the advancement of enters the Chartres Cathedral. . is the produce of many agencies; Marx professional pharmacy. She is the In the Renaissance we find the first concentrated on the economic agency, first woman and the first religious pharsigns of an ageing civilisation, The and ignored the rest. The average macist to be accepted as an associate new sprit finds early expression in the man, the raw material of the social enfellow of the American College of Apogineer, is a complex of avarice, selfish . tomb of the Doge Andrea Vendramin thecaries. She has made up over 75,000 in the Venetian church of St. John and ness, sloth and idealism; Marx postuprescriptions in her lifetime. St. Paul. Ruskin climbed up to the lates that Communism will produce the
Self-Indulgence is the Enemy of Liberty Verbosity and Indolence Distinguishing Marks of Revolutionary Literature — by ARNOLD LUNN, from " The Universe. • The culture of medieval Europe was the flower of a philosophy in which freedom was safeguarded by restraint. Private property was protected by a philosophy of social safeguards which condemned " the pursuit of wealth for its own sake." Christianity is a system not of uncomprising vetoes but of balanced restraints. The Church denounced ava. rice, but defended the legitimacy of private property against the predecessors of modern Communists. She en. deavoured not to abolish but to restrain the profit motive by determin. ing the principles of that Just Price which should be fair to merchant, worker and consumer. She condemned adultery and fornication, but defended the purity of marital relations against the Cathari who condemned sex as in. trinsically unclean. She condemned drunkenness, but refused to follow the Manichee in his condemnation of wine. She strove -for peace, but she parted from the extremer pacifists in her attempts So define the exacting,conditions which justified war or rebellion. The Christian ethic is , and has always been too exacting for the " average sensual man," but high standards are not necessarily valueless because few people attain them. There roust always be a lag between preaching and practice, and where standards are lowered, the practice is correspondingly lowered. Within the framework of restraint the Christian life flowers in an ordered freedom, all the more precious by contrast with the enslavement of mind and body imposed by atheistic Communism. It is not self-control but selfindulgence which is the enemy of liberty. The abandonment of self-control, which disguises itself as a crusade for freedom, has flavoured the word " restraint" with a sense of diminution. We are beginning to forget that restraints often serve to canalise power and to prevent the weak disintegration of force. As it nears the sea, the Rhone, which as in the past often wasted its
For Value and Service
G
NUN-PHARMACIST GIVEN -AWARD
uiltoyle's Hotel Australia Registered st the G.P.O_ Pertb, for transmission by post as a newspaper.
Murray ,, Perth