Before a good audience in the Gymnasium on Thursday night, Mi. Lex Miller and Mr. Max Riske stood forth naked and unashamed—mentally that is—and made a statement of their creeds. Professor Miles, in the chair, probably expected a good deal of fireworks from the floor, but the students were tame to the point of apathy, to say the least of it. In the enduing discussion not a word was spoken, a fact which was very disappointing to those who expect students to have a lively interest in matters of such great philosophical importance. Mr. Riske started well by stating quite definitely that he didn't have a creed. He then proceeded to discuss this highly satisfactory state affairs for half-an-hour.

Mr. Riske:

According to Mr. Riske, Marxism consists merely of a scientific method of thought. It is the old statement that you cannot have an effect without a cause applied to world affairs. Karl Marx lived in a time when factory production was the dominant feature of the human environment, and he studied the causes of this state of affairs, and its probable results. Marxists study the conditions about them, realising that it is useless sentimenally to say, "I would like the world to be like this and this," if one is not prepared to get to work and understand that, just as present conditions are an inevitable result of the past, so the future is built on the present This is the statement of Marxian diatribes. This change takes place in two ways. There is a gradual quantitative change, and then a sudden qualitative leap; an instance of this being the gradual changes leading up to the Russian revolution, suddenly accelerated into tremendous upheaval by the Great War.

Another aspect of Marxism is the materialistic conception of history—we must find out how men made their living in any age. At present, the dominant mode is the social division of labour round the raw materials. Co-ordination in production is essential, but once the goods are produced, they belong not to the men who mad them but to a small group of owners. The result of this system is seen in Germany, where civilisation is being destroyed and if the process is continued, man will revert to barbarism. This problem can only be solved by the social ownership of the goods.

Mr Miller:

Mr. Riske believed nothing. Mr. Miller believed everything—well, nearly everything. According to him, the dominant mood of our time is resigned agnosticism; we have not sufficient data to answer the questions of life and death.

Not so the Christian. For him there is the actual historical fact of the birth of Jesus Christ. This one fact is for him a sufficient explanation of the purpose of life.

It shows him how God Himself has a personal purpose in the universe revealed in the life of Christ. If man does not submit to God in love and gratitude, he is false to God and to himself. This dogmatic Christianity sets a man's heart adame with a single burning purpose. It brings his mind to bear on the full facts of his glorious revelation, and the not so glorious world about him, for the Christian above all is a realist. But he is a realist impregnable in the integrity of his soul. Nothing in this world can destroy his belief, and he is armed with a courage that enables him to step across the barrier of death into whatever else the universe may hold for him. "There is but one God" And so the Christian lives his life in the fulness of absolute trust and gratitude. Marxism may be in accurate description of the world to-day, but there is conflict deeper than that of class war; the conflict beween sinful men and their Creator.

We must free men from this bondage of sin, for then nothing in the whole world can separate us from Jesus Christ our Lord.