WE have received a copy of a leaflet issued by the Committee of the Lord’s Day Observance Society, London, with reference to a Weekly Rest Day Bill which the Government are introducing to Parliament. The Lord’s Day Observance Society have done well in calling the serious attention of the public to this Bill which, if passed into law, will in nowise improve the rest and sanctity of the Sabbath as observed among us, but rather give the strength and encouragement of legal enactment to the many forms of Sabbath desecration that are already too prevalent. Truly we live in a deplorable time when the divinely-provided safeguards for truth and purity in our national life seem to be heedlessly thrown away one by one. The first day of the week, with its rest from worldly toil and its opportunity for observing the worship of God and hearing a preached Gospel, has been one of the strongest barriers against the inroads of practical atheism, gross materialism, and flagrant immorality, that our country has ever possessed. But this strong barrier is now being rapidly removed, and that by those from whom better things might be expected.
The Committee call attention at the outset to the title of the Bill as the “Weekly Rest Day,” a title which indicates that the object of the Bill is “only to secure a weekly day of rest, not the sanctity and observance of the Lord’s Day.” It is quite plain that our legislators have chosen to take no responsibility whatever for the religious observance of the Sabbath; it is only the material side of it they are concerned about. We suppose the most of them profess to be followers of Christ. They may yet find out when they stand before His bar, that they could not throw off that weighty responsibility without dreadful consequences to themselves and others. The traitorous conduct of thousands, high and low, who name the name of Christ, calls loudly for dire tokens of divine displeasure. And even when the framers of the Bill go to work as to the material side of the Sabbath, professing to seek its preservation as a day of rest, they make no adequate attempt to preserve poor fallen humanity from themselves, but only give them greater liberty than hitherto to do evil on a large scale.
The first clause of the Bill’s Memorandum states that “the object of this Bill is to amend and consolidate the Acts relating to Sunday employment, and to regulate the conditions of labour upon the basis of six working days in the week with Sunday as the normal rest-day.” (While we object to the word “Sunday,” we leave it unchanged in quotations.) The Committee point out that, as “a matter of fact,” the Bill proposes to repeal or modify Acts already on the Statute Book, drawn up in earlier and more careful times, for the preservation of the Lord’s Day, and so “to render them valueless.” Our supposed reformers of the day of rest are only destroyers. It would have been nobler work, and more likely to benefit the country, if our rulers were setting themselves to revive many of the ancient Acts which are allowed to become obsolete in a reckless generation.
The following are some of the liberties granted by the Bill:— The second clause, section iii., gives facilities to license “street markets and street hawking by costermongers, and other itinerant vendors,” . . . “to open shops or street stalls up to 2 o’clock” on Sabbaths, if they have done so for twelve months prior to the passing of the Bill. The third clause states that “any person may do any work of necessity or mercy on Sunday.” When we enquire as to what is considered a “work of necessity or mercy,” we find, according to the first schedule, that such extraordinary works as the following, among others, are included under the terms: “The sale or delivery, continuously or during specified hours, of bread, newspapers, and periodicals. ‘Conveyance and delivery by rail or other means of transport’ of perishable dairy and farm produce for immediate consumption, fresh fish, perishable fruit, flowers, vegetables, horses, cattle, poultry, and other live stock. The hiring and letting of horses and other animals for riding, and the hiring and letting of carriages and cabs of all kinds, and any unavoidable work incidental thereto.” Similar license is given in connection with the hiring, letting, and repair of motor vehicles, airships, aeroplanes, and such like. All these acts and things are to be made legal on the Lord’s Day, and as the Committee well says, are “strangely and erroneously described as works of necessity or mercy.”
But the above is not all. The fourth clause, section ii., gives authorities in towns, etc., power to make bye-laws legalising such other occupations on Sabbaths as they may deem desirable, while the sixth clause sanctions employment for twenty-six Sabbaths each year.
Such, then, is the latest attempt by our political rulers to improve, by the way, the conditions of the sacred Day of Rest and Worship in our country. Could anything be a greater travesty of the word reform? It would be well that Church Courts and other societies would lift up their voice by way of protest against such a sham measure of protection for the weekly day of rest. The Redeemer, when on earth, gave the authoritative declaration that “the Sabbath was made for man,” not for one section of the race but for the whole, and it is the duty of every Christian person to do all in his or her power to preserve the Lord’s Day as a Day of Rest and Worship for all ranks and classes of the people. If we are to do this in any degree worthy the name, we must discountenance every system of things that manifestly infringes upon the sacredness and rest of the Day.
We cannot do better than conclude our article with the sentences which close the leaflet referred to, and quoted from. “Serious objections might be taken to many other provisions in the Bill, but the extracts given are enough to prove that the Weekly Rest Day Bill repudiates the teaching of the Word of God in favour of human expediency. Its proposals so set at defiance the Fourth Commandment as to call for the strongest protest from all who regard it as divine and obligatory.” Copies of the Bill may be obtained from Messrs. Wyman & Sons, 28 Abingdon Street, Westminster, S.W., price 2d. post free; while copies of the leaflet and further information may be got from the Secretary, Lord’s Day Observance Society, 18 Buckingham Street, Strand, London, W.C.
“A LADY who was present at the dispensation of the Lord’s Supper where the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine was assisting, was much impressed by his discourse. Having been informed who he was, she went next Sabbath to his own place of worship to hear him. But she felt none of those strong impressions she experienced on the former occasion. Wondering at this, she called on Mr. Erskine, and stating the case, asked what might be the reason of such a difference in her feelings. He replied, ‘Madam, the reason is this: last Sabbath you went to hear Jesus Christ, but to-day you have come to hear Ebenezer Erskine.'”
“If all beings had spent all ages in endeavouring to imagine some action by which God could manifest His love, and consequently His greatness, to the whole universe, I do not believe they could have discovered anything to equal this—that He became man to save us. . . . Oh, immortal beings! that which should astonish is not that God has appeared in the flesh to raise you up unto Himself, but that you should not feel the need of it; it is that you should be satisfied with the things which now satisfy you; it is that you should not rise toward Him who stooped toward you. This assuredly is strange; and this ought to be an almost inconceivable idea.”—D’Aubigne.