SCOTLAND was at one time in its history famous throughout the world for its quiet and peaceful Sabbaths. Its inhabitants were regarded with respect by other nations as a sober, reverent, religious people who loved the Lord’s Day, and gave it its chief and honourable place as “the pearl” among the days of the week. Forty years ago there were few towns and hamlets in this highly-favoured land, where there was not a band of truly godly people who went up to the house of God each sacred Day of Rest with the voice of joy and praise, and who exercised a gracious, subduing, and elevating influence on the minds of the general community among whom they lived. But the scene, alas, has changed, and there are many parts of Scotland to-day where the fear of God is conspicuous by its absence, and where it can hardly be known that ever the true Gospel visited the people, or that ever vital piety walked up and down in their midst. The enemy has come in “like a flood,” and there is overwhelming need that the Spirit of the Lord would lift up an effectual standard against him.
On a recent Sabbath, the 10th of May, the banks of the River Clyde were witnesses to remarkable scenes of lightness and irreverence which have proved to a demonstration that disrespect for the Lord’s Day, and for religion in general, is making rapid strides among us. Among others, professed ministers of the Gospel of Christ were, by the circumstances of the case, put to the test, but they were found deplorably wanting. “Like priest, like people,” and like people, like priest. The whole affair arose in connection with the first movements of a large steamship, newly built at Clydebank, the “Aquitania,” now the largest British liner afloat. It was arranged that the “Aquitania” would be guided out of dock on the Lord’s Day, down to what is known as “the Tail of the Bank”—a distance of fifteen miles. The reason given for the employment of the Sabbath for this purpose was that there would be very little traffic on that day on the Clyde (which is narrow at the widest), and so the passage of the immense “Aquitania” would be more easily accomplished. Of course it did not seem to dawn on our modern men of the world that it would be a nobler and more Christian thing to stop the traffic for a few hours on an ordinary day, when the “Aquitania” could go down, with equal facility, the necessary distance. No; nothing of a worldly kind must be sacrificed for the sake of righteousness, but the Sabbath must preferably be torn to shreds rather than that “the world” should be in the least degree inconvenienced.
Shortly after the steamship started a meeting of directors was held on board, and speeches were made, while the banks of the Clyde were lined with spectators, gathered from Glasgow and neighbouring places, cheering the progress of the huge vessel. Bands of music at Clydebank and Greenock played “Rule Britannia” and “Auld Lang Syne.” It is reported that no less than half a million of people were out to see the sight that Sabbath morning. The Glasgow tramway cars going in the direction of Clydebank—on both sides of the river—were crowded to an extreme. Many people were left behind owing to the lack of room, though one hundred extra cars were put on to meet the demand. The “Aquitania” left the dock at 10-30 a.m. and was opposite Greenock at 1-30 p.m. During this part of the day it is stated that many places of worship were almost empty. But what is even more deplorable is that the ministers of several churches altered their hours of service so as to accommodate their Sabbath-desecrating hearers. Some held the forenoon service at an earlier hour; others at a later. Could anything show more effectively to what a low ebb the cause of Christianity has come in our time? The Church’s cringing and pandering to the world in this fashion is a wretched sight—enough to make one to blush for shame or to kindle into just indignation at the thought of it. Is there any other suitable way to describe such ministers and people than “blind leaders of the blind,” ready to fall into the deep “ditch” of a lost eternity? It is impossible to associate saving grace with such men, no matter by what name they are known. May the Lord awaken them, or their final account will be dreadful beyond expression!
Our readers will not be so much surprised that the newspaper press viewed these proceedings with complacency. One Glasgow paper, “The Daily Record and Mail,” waxed very bold. The leading article on the following day sounded a note of unhallowed delight over Scotland’s murdered Sabbath. The editor had no hesitation in describing the ancient reverence as superstition, prejudice, and Pharisaism, and the latest laxity as marking “a new phase of the emancipation of conscience in Scotland.” Truly, the name of freedom is being ignobly prostituted in our time. The hasty progress downward into the mire of gross materialism is acclaimed as emancipation. What mockery of truth! No power in earth or hell can emancipate the conscience of any rational being from responsibility to respect the Moral Law, of which “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy” is a command of equal authority with such as “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,” and the truth of this will yet be seen, if not in time, at “the judgment-seat of Christ.” The editor of “The Daily Record” casts the utmost scorn on those who think that jollity on the Sabbath “will draw down the anger of the Almighty,” but he gives away his case entirely when he makes “the cravings and the longings of the people themselves” the chief test of righteousness, and remarks with approbation that “they are abandoning themselves to the spirit of carnival when there is the chance.” The spirit of “the flesh” is truly the animating principle of such licentious ideas of liberty and of such newspaper articles, as it is certainly the destroyer of the Lord’s Day in our once Sabbath-loving Scotland.
Some reports of the scenes referred to bore witness that the crowds behaved in a more subdued manner on the Sabbath than would have been done in other countries in similar circumstances, and that no demonstration in response took place from the decks of the “Aquitania.” But what of all this? The outletting of “the waters” has begun, and the proceedings noted will assuredly be the forerunner of still more disgraceful scenes in like cases in the future. In fact, we do not fail to see in what has taken place not only the emergence of the spirit of licentiousness but also of that of idolatry. There is unmistakably a species of idol-worship in the enthusiasm and acclamations with which the advent and progress of the “Aquitania” were hailed. Men are beginning, in an open and marked way, to worship “and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever,” and there is no saying to what extremes of paganism they will yet go. The claims of “the one living and true God” are being cast to the winds, and we may be sure that many idols will be needed to fill the place that belongs to Him alone. May He, in infinite mercy, arrest the course of iniquity!
WHEN the deluge of water had defaced the great book of nature, Noah had a copy of every kind of creature with him in that famous library, the ark, out of which they were reprinted to the world. So he that hath the favour of God in the Ark of the Covenant hath the original copy of all blessings; if they could all have perished, yet so they might be restored. God is the best storehouse, the best treasury. O happy men, that have their estates laid up there! Though friends, goods, and life forsake us, yet if God’s gracious countenance shine upon us that will be life and goods and friends unto us. These benefits and comforts flow from His favour.—Adams.