Progress in Sabbath Desecration.—Sabbath breaking in Scotland is increasing at an alarming rate and the Sabbath-breaker is getting bolder and bolder. Bishopbriggs Golf Club has decided to permit play on the Lord’s Day. This is the fourteenth in Glasgow district to allow golf on the Sabbath. There are now 67 courses that allow play on the Lord’s Day. Another form of Sabbath breaking that shows itself more and more is Air Pageants. Recently the Edinburgh Presbytery protested against a display of air-flying on Sabbath at Corstorphine. Flight-Lieut. N. Russell, Air Superintendent, said that his company, the Scottish Motor Traction Company, had no intention of stopping flying on the Sabbath. The only way to bring these people to their senses is by the Scottish people boycotting their machines. It is wonderful how suddenly their minds would change then.
The Day of Unrest.—One of the Edinburgh evening papers, commenting on the above, says: “A popular demand for air spectacles and even for flights exists . . . But is it necessary that in doing this they should invade the sacredness of the day of rest, a proceeding that is bound, even in these latitudinarian days, to hurt the sensibilities of many citizens? . . . The Day of Rest has become a ‘day of unrest,’ even in country districts that used to slumber blissfully and unrepentantly in the knowledge that they were a generation or two behind the times.” Such sentiments expressed in an editorial in the secular press show as clearly as anything the menace of Sabbath desecration for it may be said that generally speaking the secular press did its own inglorious part in breaking down the fences of Sabbatarianism in Scotland.
The Religious Situation in Germany.—The present position of the churches in Germany is not quite clear except in so far that under the Hitler Dictatorship Erastianism seems to be the order of the day. This brings Hitler’s Church policy into open conflict with the Hildebrandianism of the Church of Rome which asserts that the State must be in subjection to the Church. The Vatican, therefore, ever watchful of its interests has entered into an agreement with Germany in which freedom of conscience and of the public practice of the Roman Catholic religion is guaranteed. The Concordat was signed on Sabbath, 11th September, by the Papal Secretary of State. The Concordat forbids the priests to take part in any political activities. Hitler may be a Dictator whose word is law in Germany but while he can lay down laws for the Protestant Churches he must bow to the Vatican.
Minimum Stipend Threatened.—The daily press at the beginning of last month quoted a paragraph from Life and Work indicating that the Minimum Stipend (£300) of the ministers of the Church of Scotland was threatened. It gives us no particular pleasure to see the salaries of ministers or others reduced but in this case it cannot altogether be attributed to the financial distress through which the country is passing for we believe that other causes are at work causing the stringency in contributing to the Maintenance of the Ministry Fund. One of the arguments adduced in favour of union, both in 1900 and 1929, was that with the union of congregations it would be easier to give larger salaries to ministers. In both cases the prophets have miserably failed. With all the unions consummated since 1929 one would have thought that the long anticipated day when the ministers of the Church of Scotland would be enjoying larger salaries would have come but instead of this there is a cry going up from the central office throughout the land that the minimum stipend is threatened.
The Prayer Meeting.—In an article recently appearing in the Evening Dispatch (Edinburgh) from the pen of a “Country Minister” surprise is expressed that prayer meetings are held in the far north in August. He then goes on to say: “Many a minister in the south must covet such fidelity on the part of his office-bearers and congregation, for he knows that his prayer-meeting is crowded out before the onrush of countless meetings. In many congregations it has died in the stampede and been laid to rest without mourning. In other cases it struggles for its life during the months of October, November and December, but after the hectic days of the Christmas and New Year festivities are over it languishes, and by the end of February has once more to be abandoned, like some lost cause which the leader fain hopes will be retrieved in the somewhat distant autumn.” These words throw anything but an agreeable light on the religious condition of too many congregations in Scotland. The lukewarm way in which the prayer-meeting is regarded in many congregations is bad enough but when it comes to giving up the prayer-meeting because pleasure and
social duties call louder than religion then such congregations are on the high road to be like the Church of Sardis having a name that it is living while in the sight of the Lord it is dead.
The Law and Sabbath Excursion Traffic.—The transformation of the Lord’s Day into a day of pleasure is steadily on the increase, and the menace of Sunday ‘bus excursions, so prevalent in the south of Scotland, has now made its way to the Highlands. To their representations made before the Traffic Commissioners, to refuse road service licences to ‘Bus Companies to run such excursions, the Inverness and North of Scotland Branch of the Lord’s Day Association of Scotland have been informed by the Traffic Commissioners that they (the Association) had no standing. This state of matters being wholly unsatisfactory the Association communicated with the Secretary for Scotland who in his reply presents the matter in a clearer light. From his reply we quote the following:—
“The Ministry of Transport, and not the Scottish Office, is the central authority in regard to road traffic legislation and administration. Moreover, the law already provides for objections to the grant of road service licences—whether on Sabbatarian or other grounds—to be made by local authorities to the Traffic Commissioners (Section 72, particularly sub-section (3) thereof, of the Road Traffic Act, 1930); and where road service licences are granted despite such objections a local authority has a right to appeal to the Minister of Transport under Section 81 (1) (b) of the Act.”
The local authority referred to is the Town or County Council, or both, as the case may be, responsible for the roads of the route traversed by proposed excursions.—F. B.
Statutory Defence of Sabbath.—The Scottish Secretary in his reply further states:—
“The proper course for the Association, if they desire to object to the grant of road service licences for Sunday traffic services, is to take advantage of the existing statutory provisions by moving the appropriate local authority or authorities to
exercise their statutory right of objection to the Traffic Commissioners, and, if necessary, of appeal to the Minister of Transport.”
For this statutory means of restraining Sabbath desecration by selfish ‘Bus Companies we have cause for thankfulness. But as this restraint can be made effectual only with the approval of the elected representatives of the people, it means that effective resistance to encroachments on the sanctity of the Sabbath, can be maintained only by having elected to Councils, men who are favourable to the Lord’s Day. Sabbath observance should therefore be made a test question at all elections—town, county and district, as well as Parliamentary. At public meetings candidates should be questioned as to their views, and lovers of the Lord’s Day should make it their duty to support candidates who are sound on this question. This is imperative. We have reached a state of matters in which half-measures are worse than useless. It is a case of Sabbath or no Sabbath, God or no God. This is really the most momentous public question of the day, although few recognise it. Providence has conferred the franchise upon men, and privilege brings with it responsibility. The Sabbath question challenges the electors. Through the ballot-box they can decide whether the Sabbath be recognised by the State and the community as a day of revelry and toil or of rest and worship. The November elections are at hand. Who on polling day will stand up for the Lord and His day? To make candidates disclose their attitude it is suggested that electors put the following questions to them.—1. Are you opposed to the growing tendency to turn the Lord’s Day into a day of pleasure and indiscriminate work? 2. Are you prepared to have inserted in all County (or Town) Council contracts a condition requiring that no work be done on the Lord’s Day, other than works of real necessity and mercy? 3. Will you, if elected, use all your influence in the direction of upholding the Divine authority of the Fourth Commandment, thus conserving the Sabbath as a day for holy rest and worship?—F. B.