THE MODERN SUNDAY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5130, 25 May 1927, Page 2

THE MODERN SUNDAY.

METHOD OF OBSERVANCE

MAKING FOR A LOSS.

In England recently there has been an interesting discussion on the decay of Sunday observance. ‘ Tne former atmosphere of peace and restfulness, when all shops were closed, all ordinary traffic suspended, public games prohibited, and places of amusement shut up, has gone—apparently for ever,” writes Dr. Frank Ballard in the “Methodist Magazine,” in regretful contemplation of an inescapable fact.

Then he quotes some figures. In England every Sunday, he asserts, 250,000 shops are open for trading--40,000 in London alone ; publichouses and drinking clubs, employing 350,000 barmen and barmaids ; there are 13 Sunday newspapers in London, employing 50,000 persons ; 500,000 people attend the Sunday kinemas in London : altogether, he estimates, two million people have given up their Sunday rest. It is not quite so bad as that in til’s country (states the “Dominion). It is nevertheless true-, however, that a definite change lias come over th'e general attitude of the public towards tlie Salibath Day. Staunch adherents of the churches still attend the services, especially in the evening, but there appears to lie- an increasing tendency on the part of non-church-goers to regard the Seventh Day of the week as a day of recreation rather than of rest.

The English discussion lias been kept free from religious feeling by confining the issue to the question whether mankind, apart from all questions of dogmatic sanction, can afford to give up the period of complete rest which the compulsory observance of the old-fashioned Sunday assured. The defenders of the modern Sunday holiday defend their freedom of action with the quotation that “tlie Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath,” but this does not relieve them entirely from the controversy. The question still remains, what kind of Sabbath is good for Man ?

This is a tearing,, hurrying age. Modern science and modern transport have altered completely old-fashioned measures of time and space. The motor-car, the. Sunday trams, buses, trains, and ferry-boats have provided the modern town-dweller with a means of escape from the week-days’ environment of work, worry, and domestic stress. As Dr. Ballard very honestly declares : “It is worse than useless simply to lament or denounce. There is,” he says, “very much that is also good in modern developments, both in the correction of former religious mistakes ami the bettor understanding of the Christian Gospel.”

But if there has been a gain, lias there not also been a loss ? If tlie modern idea of Sunday has meant to many people the personal and absolute control of tlieir leisure it may not have given them a right conception of its value and use. Witli the gradual passing «£ rest, in the sense of bodily and mental abstraction from worldly activities, are- departing also opportunities for quiet contemplation. People nowadays citner have no time, or do not take- time, foi thinking. The old-fashioned Sunday, in many cases, may have imposed irksome- Puritanical restrictions, but it certainly gave, men time for reflection, a vanishing luxury in these modern bustling days of work, stress, and pleasure-seeking. It might be worth while to recapture a fc-w of these lost luxuries of leisure. Complete relaxing of bodily and mental activity, we are assured, is essential to tlie avoidance of that nerve strain to which the present generation is so conspicuously subject, and which the younger generation seems likely to inherit. Yet it is a fact that many people nowadays do not know how to relax even if they have the time, it is a habit worth reclaiming.