IN the Magazine for August, 1896, we chronicled the fact that over 60,000 persons had assembled at Glasgow, on Saturday, April 4th of that year to witness a football match. The event thus celebrated was the yearly contest between England and Scotland for supremacy in the sport, and every year since then we have noted that the crowds flocking from the four winds to see this folly have become more multitudinous and mad. On Saturday the 5th of the present month (April), this carnival was again on foot in Glasgow. The local crowd, swelled by contingents from Aberdeen, London, and all places far and near had risen to over 80,000 in the Ibrox Football grounds. The game was proceeding briskly when suddenly the staging, overstrained by the surging and swaying of such a mass of people, gave way at the highest point, and over 500 spectators fell to the ground—a distance of 40 feet. The results to life and limb were terrible; 23 deaths have taken place since the accident, and many of the survivors who now crowd the infirmaries of Glasgow have been maimed for life. We do not agree with the press writers who interpreted the accident merely as a regrettable example of the effects of insufficient woodwork. No doubt the managers of the Football Club propose to build a much improved range; but we suspect their inward thoughts are quite erroneous. When Ephraim and the people of Samaria said, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars,” they uttered these words in the pride and stoutness of their heart, and their improved masonry and carpenter work, in due time, fell about their ears. So will it be to all those who do not understand the Lord’s work nor regard the operation of His hands. The Ibrox football accident was not an admonition regarding the insufficiency of certain timbers, but it was a sermon to the times on some forgotten points of religion. The 80,000 sinners who gloated on the imbecile spectacle of eleven Englishmen and eleven Scotchmen diverting themselves with a child’s plaything had deeply forgotten God. But He came suddenly into their midst and spake as on Mount Sinai. As at Belshazzar’s feast when the revelry and riot grew high, the God of heaven revealed Himself by the handwriting on the wall, and the king’s knees smote together with terror, so solemnly did this same God invade, with His terrors, that scene of abandonment at Ibrox. The present day passion for sport has become a national vice. Children may make pastime their business and grown-up people may recreate themselves soberly in due season, but that the course dissipation of the football field or the race course should devour the time and absorb the thoughts during the seven days of the week of the rising manhood of the nation, is, we are sure, a thing intensely provoking to the righteous Ruler of the skies. By reason of gambling, swearing, general moral coarseness, and total eclipse of reason and conscience, the Ibrox football field was probably on that fatal Saturday afternoon, a scene unmatched under the sun. It was a spectacle of congested ungodliness, and we are not astonished that a thunderbolt of the Divine vengeance was launched into the midst of it. The reckless violation of the fourth commandment so plentifully displayed in connection with this national mania would of itself suffice to bring swift destruction from the insulted Majesty of Heaven. Of the thousands who came from distant places to see the match, the greater number intended to return per Sabbath train. If, instead of careering homeward in full health, exchanging notes on the game, and inflaming with oaths and jests the depravity of their fellows, some of these devotees were forced to spend the Sabbath groaning in the hospital, it was a spectacle of sorrow, but also an exhibition of just judgment. Let the youth of Scotland beware, and especially the youth of our own Church, who may be experimenting in the popular vices and vanities. The thunderclouds of divine anger brood over all such scenes of abandonment and riot, and the affair of Ibrox shews that the life of such presumptuous sinners is not worth a moment’s purchase.
J. M’N.