3 JULY 1947, Page 20

SIR,—The words of the late William Temple are a pleasing

answer to Violet Hammersley's condemnation of voluntary death. In a letter written in November, 1938, the Archbishop takes a different view. " The ideally right course, at which alone a Christian may rightly aim, would be to refuse to take advantage of this permission (i.e., to take his own life) and leave himself in God's hands. On the other hand, I should not want to condemn as in any conspicuous way sinful a person who gay.: way to the temptation of incurable pain . . . . There are always many grades of wrongness and it would seem to me monstrous either to say that the practice of euthanasia could be absolutely right for the Christian or to say that it ranked, with suicide committed in order to escape disgrace or something of that sort." Janus is certainly not alone in his unwillingness to condemn.—Yours faithfully,

Wynnstay, Edward Avenue, Camberley. NORMAN C. RIMMER.