THE most indifferent cannot help noticing that the Anti-Sabbatarian movement has been growing by leaps and bounds for a number of years back. There are, no doubt, many causes at work producing this state of things. The age is materialistic, its aim is to commercialise everything it can and failing this to remove it out of its way. It is well that lovers of the Lord’s Day should recognise the nature of the powers which are arrayed against them and we purpose to mention some of these in this article.
1. Lawlessness.
By lawlessness we mean particularly that spirit of restlessness which manifests itself where the so-called liberty of the subject is interfered with. We live in an age that emphasises the rights of man and shuts its eyes to his duties. The liberty of the subject is one of those rights which in the over-emphasis that is given it tends to sheer license. Those who travel along this road may say that this is an unfair interpretation to put upon their contention but if their logic is carefully examined it will be seen that it will lead them a good deal farther than some of them would care to go and which others would care to acknowledge. This over assertion of the liberty of the subject will be found when searched into to be a disinclination to submit to law. Strange things have been done both in the Church and in the State in the sacred name of liberty. But where liberty is synonymous with independence it may become a very dangerous prepossession and lead to endless trouble. When we look abroad on the world to-day there is a persistent and arrogant demand that the laws of God and men should be changed to suit the demands of the individual. It is not our intention to discuss the question from the standpoint of human law but to confine our attention to how this attitude is so seriously affecting men’s outlook as to their relation to divine law. The divine prohibitions of the moral law cut right across what many regard as their rights and liberties and immediately there is discontent and rebellion. They would scorn, it may be, to acknowledge that at the root of their discontent and dissatisfaction with the laws that limited their liberty, or to give it its true name, their independence, there was the spirit of lawlessness but by their fruits they shall be known. Look abroad on the world to-day, take note of the driving power in the Anti-Sabbatarian movement and he must be wilfully blind who does not recognise that spirit of lawlessness that is opposed to the holy and righteous rule of heaven. The Church of God is face to face with that spirit and it is to be a fight to the death. If it prevails the Church is done for but if the Church holds its ground the opposition, however strong it may be, will be only like tremendous seas dashing themselves in vain on rock-bound coasts. In revolutionary movements justice and righteousness seemed at times to be swept off the face of the earth in the mad frenzy of lawlessness that passed over the people but when the storm was over things began to right themselves again. In the battle being waged at present we are confronted by powerful revolutionary forces and if Satan gets his way we are certain that nothing short of the complete annihilation of the Church of Christ would satisfy him. But over against the powerful onset of the Enemy is the promise of the Church’s Divine Redeemer: “Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
2. Commercialism.
This is another of the forces that is a driving power in the Anti-Sabbatarian movement. By commercialism, in this connection, we mean the desire to make merchandise and gain at all cost. The spirit behind it does not hesitate to flout the most sacred associations and set at defiance the clearest divine laws if there is the slightest hope of gain. In the facilities given by the great transport companies of this country for the general public to travel on the Lord’s Day we have commercialism of a bad type unblushingly showing itself. The flimsy plea that all this was done for the benefit of the public is as barefaced a lie as ever was palmed off on any people. One can only hope that the spokesmen of the transport companies in giving utterance to such a plea blush when they do so. Let the services that are thus declared to be so disinterestedly promoted for the benefit of the public cease to be remunerative and we shall soon see whether they are run in the interests of the public or not. The only consciences such companies have is their exchequer and if they are hard hit there will be no more Sabbath excursions either by the railways, steamboat or motor companies. Their interest in the public is limited by what the public puts into their coffers. In recent years a tremendous effort has been made by these companies to get the people to travel on the Sabbath. Cheap fares were dangled before the eyes of a pleasure-loving people as a bait and it was greedily grasped at. Notwithstanding all this, however, it appears that the great transport concerns have to face the spectre of dwindling receipts and are at their wits end to know what to do. Commercialism conducted along right lines and within legitimate spheres is quite lawful but when it becomes such an obsession, either in individuals or corporations, that it commandeers seven days instead of six in pursuit of gain it is not only a menace to the well-being of the community but a direct defiance of heaven. Satan planned his campaign well. To make an attack on the Sabbath without appealing to the selfish instincts of his motley army would have spelt disaster. Hence he laid his plans and roped in the clever brains and smart intelligence of the business world and though the results have not been all that he promised to his duped lieutenants yet the effect on the people’s views of the sanctity of the Sabbath has been disastrous. The transport companies are not the only transgressors under this head. There are the Italian ice-cream shops and the “Sunday” newspapers. Behind these there is the same keen spirit of commercialism. Roman Catholic foreigners reap a golden harvest on the Lord’s Day and the “Sunday” newspapers circulate in their millions. Some of the imported dailies from the south, such as the Daily Express in particular, never miss a chance in their effort to cast ridicule on the Scottish Sabbath. We were bad enough in Scotland before the advent of these Southern transgressors but they certainly have not cast their influence with their boasted millions of readers on the right side.
3. Pleasure.
This is another of the great driving forces in the Anti-Sabbatarian movement. Sabbath desecration for long had to be engaged in covertly and especially was this the case as far as pleasure was concerned but the god of Pleasure numbers his votaries by the million and to give God one day in seven is considered so outrageous that Satan has moved his followers to agitate to have the laws of the realm altered so that they may have liberty to indulge not only in all kinds of sport but to attend theatres, music halls, picture houses. At present the Anti-Sabbatarian movement is being countered by a Petition to Parliament against the Bill before Parliament legalising the opening of places of amusement on the Sabbath. In Edinburgh, whose streets were at one time red with martyr blood, we find the city magistrates giving permission to the cinemas to be open on three Sabbaths to help the funds for extension of the Royal Infirmary. This was a cunning dodge of the devil for it was meant to hide the evil under the cloak of apparent well-doing. Needless to say the places were crowded and the thin end of the wedge was driven in. In England, at the time of writing, the question of the legality of the opening of places of amusement has been before the High Court and has been declared illegal.
4. The Churches.
Most of our readers will not be surprised when we reckon the churches of this country as responsible for the tremendous landslide in Sabbath observance. In England Hessey’s Bampton Lectures did a world of mischief and while he advocated the observance of the Lord’s Day he virtually evacuated the stronghold of its binding obligation under the fourth commandment to the enemy. The same happened in Scotland under the teaching of Dr. Norman Macleod in 1865 which raised such a storm at the time that Dr. Macleod winced under it. Yet his views came gradually to be adopted by many ministers in Scotland. These views had an enervating effect. They weakened the efforts of their exponents in going into battle with the well equipped and powerful forces arrayed against them. They passed into the conflict with a paralysed hand which had no better weapon than a wooden sword. In the first shock it fell from their helpless grasp and the Anti-Sabbatarian forces followed up their victory for the next attack. There was a culpable supineness on the part of the Presbyterian churches in this country and now when the empty pews preach more arrestingly than what comes from the pulpit the churches are bestirring themselves. But it will be well for the churches to remember in facing a determined enemy that we should do as Wellington did in his Peninsular campaign retire behind the impregnable lines of Torres Vedras—in our case the binding obligation of the Fourth Commandment. We are reminded as we enumerate the forces at work against the observance of the Sabbath of the remark of the old Scottish Colonel who led his troops up to an eminence and pointing to the enemy said to his men: “There is the enemy, lads; if you don’t ding them, they’ll ding you.” The Churches of Scotland would be well-advised to give heed to the old veteran’s laconic speech.
These are only a few of the forces that are strengthening the great Anti-Sabbatarian onset and were the battle waged merely for the interest of our own Church or in our own interest and to be carried on in our own strength well might we face the future with misgiving. But this battle is not ours it is the Lord’s. We can appeal to Him to arise and plead His own Cause. We can use His Word as the sword in the conflict and we can look to the Holy Spirit to make that Word touch the consciences of men. We have a good cause and He has not asked us to fight at our own charges or in our own strength and though the forces arrayed against us are numerous and powerful yet we are in no worse plight than Asa was, when confronted with the mighty Ethiopian host in the valley of Zephathah, he poured out his heart to God in that wonderful prayer of his which had a speedy answer: “Lord it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power; help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee” (II. Chron. xiv. 11).