IT IS A curious and instructive fact that, in every generation, moralists give the most prominence to those sins of which they themselves happen to be innocent: Anglicans are not racists nor are Methodists a wee Frees drunkards: Catholic moral theologians do not take "the pill" or have abortions, and the scribes, pharisees and lawyers of our Lord's day were not prostitutes or immoral tax-gatherers.
Unhappily, despite the enthusiasm and frequency with which moralists attack these faults. few people take any notice of them. I have wondered for. some time now whether the moralists of our day might not be more successful if they concentrated their criticism not on those relatively minor faults of which they themselves are innocent but on these much more serious faults which they share with the rest of us. principly our abandon ment or the poor and our worship of wealth.
I am not alone in thinking that the silence of our religious leaders in the face of our unChristian attitude to wealth in odd; in The Times, (July 4). Christopher Derrick notes this silence in an article headed: "The golden calf or our standard of living."
He seems to hope that our religious leaders might start to teach us about the Christian attitude to wealth so that we would give up worshipping this golden calf. That's a tall order! Perhaps while they are thinking about it we could set them an example in a small way, not by giving up our worship of' the golden calf — which is probably impossible — but by moderating the ferocity with which we criticise the lesser faults of others.
Gerald Danaher Leicester