ON THE SEVENTH DAY
Sir,--Mr, PF. J, Alley’s conctusion that Sunday observance is silly is perfectly logical if one accepts the premise that God has died, or that He never existed, in which case, of course, religious principle ceases to have any value as a motivating power. Besides those who disparage Sunday observance for agnostic reasons there are many, I believe, who regard the matter as of merely religio-academic interest, when-like many other concerns which have their basis in religious be-lief--it is primarily of social importance, Addision, whose Spectator essays were written with the purpose of social (not religious) reform, wrote: "If keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for polishing and civilising of mankind, Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week." And Macaulay commented: "That day is not lost. .While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with
which all the contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour." According to the French atheist, Voltaire, England’s greatness rested on her observance of Sunday. By abandoning it we are losing one of the most valuable shaping forces of our national character.
D. A.
HOGG
(Te Awamutu).
(ihis Correspondence is now closed,--Ed.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 894, 21 September 1956, Page 5
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280ON THE SEVENTH DAY New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 894, 21 September 1956, Page 5
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