The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1928 SUNDAY PLEASURES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 519, 23 November 1928, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1928 SUNDAY PLEASURES

IS there a demoralising excess of irreligious pleasure and selfindulgence on the Lord’s Day in this genial country? The question has been brought to the serious attention of two assemblies of representative churchmen this week in Auckland and given the inevitable answer that the pursuit of gaiety is more eager and much more jostling than the search for. spiritual happiness. The Sabbath Observance Committee of the Dominion Presbyterian Assembly reported to its church parliament last evening in plain words that all over the country pleasure-seeking in various forms was seriously interfering with a proper observance of the Sabbath. Pointed attention in particular was drawn by the committee to the distracting effect of motoring on church attendance, and also to the practice of promoting railway excursions and holding other picnics on Sundays. Then, almost simultaneously and with a similar expression of regret, the South Auckland District Methodist Synod at Thames resolved to enter an emphatic protest against the “deliberate policy” of the Deform Government in permitting the regular organising of week-end railway excursions, because that form of Sabbath desecration had a. deteriorating effect on the moral and spiritual well-being of the people. It seems rather late in the day now to submit a protest to the Reform Government in respect of a policy which “is opposed to all the best traditions of the British people, in that it helps to destroy the necessary quiet of the Christian Sabbath,” for that unhappy Administration will soon have done with protests and he able to devote its time to reflecting upon its own political sins. There is scope for a reasonable difference of opinion on the bristling question of so-called Sabbath desecration. So much could be said on both sides that it would be futile, if not altogether foolish, for anyone to become angry about it, and either indulge in a passionate denunciation of Sabbath desecration or express too unkindly a retaliatory spirit of scoffing at those who confess the sparseness of the people’s attendance at church. Neither would go far in helping the cause earnest Christians have at heart, and certainly would do nothing to draw a wandering horde of Sunday pleasure-seekers from their alluring open-air haunts. The thing to strive for is a national observance of true Christianity, whether it be in the pursuit of pleasure or in seeking the tranquillity and comfort of active religion. As everybody knows, there are. hypocrites oiCboth sides of the endless controversy—men who go to church who would be all the better in their everyday life if they saw more of the world and its spiritual beauty, and men who equally would be benefited if they gallivanted less on Sunday and sought the happiness of devoutly and honestly worshipping and praising God. It has to he realised, though it may be with vexation of spirit, that the ways of the world have changed, and that, whatever else may be restored to it, the old, dispiriting gloom of the Covenanters’ Sabbath Day will never come hack. Nor is it impious to express the hope that it never again will be allowed to make Christianity an ungracious and an irksome creed and task. Not only in the churches can a fretful and restive people realise Ihe good providence of God. There is the appeal that a still lake can make to the soul; and there is, too, the glory of green clowns and the majesty of mountains and the sea. God is everywhere for those who need Ilis presence and mercy, and those who forget or neglect tliat comforting truth will come to it before they are at the end of their noisy chase after ploasure. The churches need not protest too much against empty pews. There is a way to filling them with eager searchers of abiding happiness. That way is tolerance and faith in the poever of noble service. It may even be that a bugle call is lacking in their appeal.