Motor Racing in Aberdeenshire on Sabbath.
Twice in recent months Aberdeen and District Motor Club has held race meetings at a disused airfield less than half-a-mile away from the Aberdeenshire village of Crimond, the place of the well-known Psalm tune. These meetings were held on the Lord’s Day. The most recent one was held on the 17th June, and scenes as described in the public press were simply appalling. Early in the morning, long lines of cars, buses, motor cycles and bicycles streamed into the village. There were dozens of touring buses and hundreds of private cars. Visitors came from Wigtownshire in the South and Caithness in the North. By three o’clock on this Sabbath afternoon, it was estimated that the attendance for these motor races was about 50,000. This is the “Continental Sunday” and no mistake, and one more evidence that the devil and ungodly men, the enemies of God and His glory, are flooding Scotland with their wicked, vile and God-defying conduct. These thousands of responsible and accountable creatures before the eyes of the divine Judge of all the earth, have apparently, no God, no Sabbath, no Bible, no moral code. They are blinded by the god of this world and their own carnal minds to the fact that God is, that He will in no wise clear the guilty, and that judgment from heaven may be expected against such as are responsible for and concerned with such awful disregard for the holy day of God. It is a great relief to read in the press of 5th July, that the ministers of the Deer Presbytery of the Church of Scotland have appealed to the Secretary of State for Scotland to ban these race meetings on Sabbath. They have also acted commendably in seeking the support of Mr. Robert Boothby, M.P. for East Aberdeen, Aberdeen County Council, etc. May success attend their endeavours in such notorious and wicked race meetings being forbidden by those in authority.
Korean Peace Talks.
The press, as we write, has been giving special space and headlines to the news from the Korean War zone, respecting the peace proposals to be discussed between the Chinese and North Korean Communist leaders and General Matthew Ridgway, United Nations Supreme Commander. The following headlines have appeared:—”First Korea Truce Talk on Sunday,” and “Peace Talks on Sunday,” as the Communists suggested Sabbath, the 8th July, for preliminary discussions in the town of Kaesong, south of the 38th Parallel. It seems that no other day of the week could be found suitable for beginning these military discussions about peace. The Communists do not, of course, recognise the Christian faith or what is related to it in the practice of Christians, and many so-called Christians entertain the false view that “the better the day, the better the deed.” We do not presume to know the peculiar difficulties confronting the United Nations officials in these delicate matters; but at the same time we fear that genuine and lasting results of a satisfactory nature will not eventuate from peace talks on the Lord’s Day. In an Independence Day speech on the 4th July, President Truman said that the world faced a long period of “great international danger” even if peace came in Korea. It was still too early to say whether the Communist rulers really wanted a Korean peace, he said. And thus we find our own Government and that of the United States heavily burdened with an unwanted and grievous arms programme and the tremendous financial outlay thereby called for. Is this not one of God’s rods upon our respective nations, in part, for our disregard of the claims of the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”?