CHURCH NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 26 March 1901, Page 4

CHURCH NOTES.

The Yalue of the Sabbath.

(By Amicus.)

Some countries hare adopted a system of doing without the observance of Sunday and the effect has been a steady decline in national power, and there is no denying the fact that the people who disregard the Day of Eest plunge inevitably on the down grade. Last Sunday evening at the Wesleyan Church the Eev. Mr. Oxbrow preached a thoughtful discourse upon Sabbath observance. He said that we cannot make men do right by Act of Parliament. A man might refrain from working on the Sabbath, not because of sin, but because of the penalty attached as a member of society. Trade is suspended, shops are closed unanimously, because the law compelled it. But-unless a man kept the Sabbath through reason or hailed it with delight it could not be called true spiritual observance. Man needs to lay hold of that truth and make his Sunday a day of real piety, a sympathy with goodness, of deep study of the will of God that will make each day in the week a day of rest. Our Sunday was sent to be kept in the Jewish way. It was not a part of the week in which attention should be paid to spiritual life at the expense of other days, but that the day should be a foretaste of what succeeding days should be. There is no policy so short-sighted so disastrous for the individual or the nation as the disregard of the Sabbath day. It should be spent in the enlighten-

ment and cultivation of the mind for a higher spiritual life. It is a day when physical strength is renewed and it has been proved in a scientific way that a man or beast can do more work in- six mouths by resting one day in seven than by a continuance without that rest. God who understands our nature has divinely appointed the Sabbath from the creation. It can be used for the acquirement ot knowledge that will enrich the life ot man. The Sabbath was made for man and he ought to take care of it. it is not for man to destroy. It has special d-miflcencc in that it was made tor a holy purpose —to lead man into a higher and better‘life. He who observes the Sabbath is a benefactor to his race, while he who disregards it is an enemy. Great stress needs to be laid in the spirit with which the day is kept, and if observed rh'htly and its hours spent in doing good, the life would be enriched and the purpose for which it was created would be attained.

One of the problems the church has to solve is the reason of so few men attending its services. Every congregation is characteristic of its large proportion of women to that of men. Many reasons may be assigned for this, and it is obvious that men arc more and more drifting away from spiritual life. Some complain ot the ministers, who unfortunately arc not angels, that their preaching is not intellectual, that it does not stimulate thought, and that it oftentimes proves so commonplace that they lose all interest in listening to their quite probable that many ministers spend too little time in pulpit preparation, but it should scarcely be said of them that their preaching justifies a nonattendance at church. Many women arc as intellectual as men, and can appreciate a good discourse as well. They are the preacher’s best listeners, and to justify a man’s absence in weak preaching is to cast a reflection on the most devoted and regular attendants of worship. Business, the struggle for existence, is also assigned as a reason, but here again it fails, for of the few men who attend church, a large percentage are from those who arc poor and nearly all have heavy trials to meet in providing means’ for maintenance. It seems indifference is more the cause than anything. The mind becomes occupied with ulterior things and the spiritual life is crushed out, witli the result that indifference claims them. At a recent church service in this town there were eleven women to every man in attendance. Should this be a criterion of most congregations, the future of the chinch ■is threatened. It is well known that women are the great support of the churches to-day, but the ministers and members of every church need to turn their attention with increased interest in having in their congregations a large number of men.