A PARSON ON SPORT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1028, 10 August 1911, Page 3

A PARSON ON SPORT.

“The meddling Puritans and the sport go,” was the subject of a stirring sermon delivered by the Rev Howard Elliott in one of the Baptist churches at Auckland on Sunday. He led up to au attack on the movement to organise a sports protection league by referring to what he claimed to be the first occasion in history, as recorded in the 18th chapter of the Kings, in which the prophets, now called meddling Puritans and “ wowsers,” protested against the dancing, drinking, licentiousness, debaucheries, corruption, and contamination prevailing in Israel 4600 years ago, and declared that the conditions in the Dominion in the twentieth century were not very different to those of the ancient time. He said he considered the presence of the president of the New Zealand Amateur Association at the recent meeting held in Wellington would do more to damage amateurism in the Dominion than anything else that had happened, and he contended that the abolition of the bookmaker and the curtailment of racing days from 325 to 250 a year by the racing commission was the sole reason for the present movement to organise, though avowedly to prevent sport from being squeezed out altogether. Personally, he said, he would enjoy nothing better than to see a horse race, provided it was disassociated from the existing evil conditions and contaminating influences, and if the old Greek rules prevailed that when a man who dared to bet or offer a bribe was shot out of hand. It was regrettable that in Auckland the amusement bill for a year totalled ,£459,000, an average of £6 per head, and the most part should be spent in pleasure and evening entertainments, while only £,'28,900 was spent in healthy athletics. It showed that the people were not worshipping the god of sane recreation, of pure pleasure, of healthy, active, athletic development, but were going in for insane recreation. He painted the stage and the painted lady, and the light and airy music, all that attracted the carnal, not the intellectual and moral, but belonging to the emotional and of the lower order. Mr Elliott wondered how many of the dignified ladies who carried boxes to sit on, and their breakfast to eat, waiting for two hours for the booking office for the pantomime to open recently, would do the same for a church service ? Yet some Christian people had done it, and had the effrontery to justify themselves. He did not want, nor did any Puritan want, to deprive the people of one day’s pleasure so long as it was clean and pure, and towards this end they should concentrate their efforts.