THE Great War has taught the nations of Europe many lessons, but if the manner in which the Lord’s Day is observed in France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland may be regarded as typical of how it is observed by the other nations of Europe, truly there is one great lesson which has yet to be learned, namely, that the Fourth Commandment is obligatory, without exception, on all peoples, races, nations, kindreds, and tongues. The Continental nations may continue openly to violate the Divine Command in respect of Sabbath observance, but the God of Heaven declares with unalterable authority, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”
To-day (as prior to the War) the so-called “Continental Sunday” stands forth an imperishable disgrace to any civilized peoples professing—as the Continental nations do profess—acknowledgment of the fundamental principles of Christianity. Any semblance, however, of the Christian Sabbath does not exist at all, but instead, one finds wherever one travels in the countries mentioned, that the Lord’s day is being turned—and turned rapidly—into a day of unholy resting, vice, pleasure, and public sports. Moreover, a sad feature of the Lord’s day on the Continent is this, that, as peace prosperity is being restored, the masses seem the more determined on spending their increased gains—small though they may be—in desecrating the Sabbath. There is also little indication of gratitude to God for deliverance from the hands of their recent enemies, the Central Powers.
With few exceptions the clergy, notably of the Church of Rome, act as leaders in the unhallowed task of rendering unholy that which the Lord of Creation has rendered, and proclaimed, holy. Truly, they shall reap their reward, for shall not the Lord—the righteous judge—”be avenged on such a people as this?” “Whosoever soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but whosoever soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” One is not surprised to find the Church of Rome figuring in acts of Sabbath desecration, but it is otherwise in the case of representatives of the State Churches of England and Scotland. It is illustrative, too, on the one hand, of the rapid strides which the Scottish Presbyterian and the English Churches are making Romeward; and, on the other, of the manner in which the Church of Rome is regaining a footing in France. Viewing the discreditable part (to put it mildly) which Rome played in the War, one hoped passionately that the “aftermath” of that War—the greatest in history, fought largely on French soil—would witness the recognition in the victorious countries of any form of religion other than that of Rome. That such, however, is not the case, and that France is returning rapidly to the bondage and mediæval darkness of Papal Rome, may be observed from the following notorious case of Sabbath desecration, the facts of which were communicated to the writer.
On Sabbath, 20th March last, Paris celebrated what was popularly and Popishly described as “Palm Sunday.” In the changeable weather, generally associated with Spring, and from an early hour, vendors were out in the streets offering for sale armfuls of branches of box, which in France take the place of the sprays of palm used in England as symbols of the day. Outside the Madeleine, one of Paris’ most fashionable Catholic Churches, there was an animated scene, and every worshipper bought his bunch of box, from one or other of the dozens of vendors, to take into the Church to be “blessed,” and then to be carefully kept in the home until the corresponding day next year. All the famous Churches had their vendors. In the street leading to Notre Dame de Lorette there were rows of barrows, piled high, shortly after dawn. By noon, on the Lord’s day, the emblems had nearly all disappeared. Special services were held in the English and Scottish Churches. The Rev. Father Talbot, of the Community of the Resurrection of Mirfield, preached the sermon at St. George’s Church, where there were a series of missionary and special services throughout (what was described as) “Holy Week.” At the British Embassy Church, the Rev. A. S. V. Blunt, chaplain, preached a sermon, dwelling on the significance and solemnity of the Festivals. A similar sermon was preached by the Rev. Thomas Wright, minister of the Scottish Church, 17 Rue Bayard, Champs-Elysée, Paris. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Joseph, in the Avenue Hoche, was filled at every celebration of Mass throughout the morning.
As to what happened after “Church Service” we leave the following quotation from the Continental edition of the Daily Mail of the following day to bear significant testimony. The quotation runs:—
“Fun of the Fair.—After attending mass many Parisians repaired to the Ham and Iron Fair. By eleven o’clock it was a fight to get near the stalls. Alsace and Lorraine made a great showing at the further end near the Bastille with stalls festooned with clusters and fringes of black, brown, or white sausages, square or round, thick or thin, savoury with garlic or mild without. ‘Come and taste!’ they cried, and Paris accepted the invitation freely. ‘I always bring some bread with me,’ one woman was heard to confide to a friend. ‘When you are tasting at thirty or forty stalls you are glad of a roll, and by the time you reach the Bastille you have had a good lunch!’ By noon the usual procession of taxicabs was threading its way through the city, carrying fares with bulky purchases; unthinkable odds and ends of tools or trifles, hunted out of the booths of this famous Fair.” The motoring season was also opened with a procession of motors.
To the foregoing may be added that in Antwerp (Belgium), with the concurrence of the Municipality, a Cat and Dog Market is held regularly each Lord’s day. As Belgium is essentially a Catholic country, one is, perhaps, not so surprised, for Roman Catholicism would appear to be Satan’s masterpiece in furthering the desecration of the Lord’s day, yet around the very name “Antwerp” there cluster hallowed memories. From this city, long ago, our English Bibles were secretly shipped to our ports, and Sir Thomas Gresham, in Queen Elizabeth’s day, said that there were 40,000 in Antwerp who would rather die than that the Word of God should be put to silence. Alas! they must have been silenced, for it was at Antwerp that the cruel Alva held his Council of Blood, with the infamous Juan de Vargas at its head, who boasted that he had put thousands to death. Verily, many saints of God trod the streets of Antwerp!
May the Blessed Redeemer bring to naught the works of “the Man of Sin” and the counsels of darkness everywhere, and may He be pleased, through the Blessed Spirit, the Third Person, to implant in the hearts of the masses of Europe a regard for the sanctifying and honouring of His holy day. H. D. G.
PARIS, 28th March, 1921.