WE had intended to make some reference in our last issue to what took place in many places throughout the land on Sabbath, 11th November, but owing to our space being required for other matter, we had to hold this over to this issue. Far be it from us to utter a word that would indicate we did not owe a debt of gratitude to the flower of our nation who fell in the Great War, but neither gratitude to the fallen nor the common claims of humanity demand that we should exalt them to places where they divide honours with the Son of God. The daring blasphemy uttered by so many unhallowed lips that their sacrifice in dying was on a level with that of the Son of God is too monstrous to need refutation. But from accounts of services we read held on the 11th November it is evident that there are still multitudes under that delusion. But, we admit, we were scarcely prepared for scenes of such unhallowed revelry on the Lord’s Day as the following extract indicates. Here is what a writer to the “British Weekly” has to say about the manner in which the day was observed by thousands in London:—
“Earlier in the morning I had seen the worshippers laying poppies at the foot of the war memorial as they passed into church. The day was one that seemed made for remembrance and quiet thought—a day of autumn and Sabbath, of golden sunshine and still air. So far the morning. With evening came a jarring and discordant note. I visited some of London’s leading hotels to see how far the public would respond to their attractively-worded announcements of Armistice dinners, dances, and carnival novelties. It had been clearly indicated that no effort would be spared to make a gala night as successful when Armistice Day falls on a Sabbath as when it falls on any other day. I found the big West End hotels so fully booked up that it was only with difficulty I obtained admission. There were dense crowds on the pavements to see the revellers go in, and a “Mafeking” spirit in the streets, which expressed itself in the usual fashion with squeakers and fireworks, and in riding about on forbidden parts of motor ‘buses. Inside the hotels all was feasting and fun, the glitter of gay dresses, the noisy music of the day. Long before midnight the ballrooms were crowded. Licences had been extended, and the festivities were carried on into the small hours of the morning. Waiters were feverishly busy; the bandsmen did not get a moment’s respite; the dancers demanded incessant movement and din.”
Apart altogether from the dishonour done to God by these revellers, one would need to go to the uncivilised savage for a parallel in which pretended respect to the dead and mad revelry joined hand in hand, but it has happened to them according to the Scripture:—”And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Ex. xxxii. 6). That was the day when Moses stood in the breach and pled with God that He would not utterly consume Israel.