Church and the Week-end Habit

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 288, 31 August 1929, Page 19

Church and the Week-end Habit

j j yi. in HE week-end habit, following Upon the iihsettlement of tradition- | al ideas aiid customs caused by the war, has certainly reduced ft church-going to a minimum,” writes the Rev. J. C. Hardwick, fl in the “Evening News” of Loudon. “If present tendencies pro ceed unchecked for another ten or twenty years, that custom may become merely a memory.

“Religion, of course, need hot necessarily be identified with churchgoing ; but probably the number of people who can retain a more or less religious outlook upon life without indulging in any sort of public worship is very small.

“Of course, wireless services have to be taken into consideration, and even religious or seini-religious articles in newspapers; but the fact remains that the old habit of Sunday clltireh-going is dying, or dead, amongst large sections of the community. What effect this will have on morals and conduct generally, it is impossible to say. It depehds very much whether the decline in religion is followed, as is not unlikely, by a recrudescence of superstition. A rational and spiritual religion is a far greater asset to a community than is often realised. If it disappears, its place may be taken by something far less healthy,

“Of course, it is quite possible—though not, perhaps, very probable that the popularity of motoring has reached its peak, and will decline. Weekend motoring is not an unadulterated pleasure as it is; and conditions will not tend to improve when, as in the United States, every family has its car. “It is not unlikely, according to some observers, that as more and more people go to live in the country, as yearly becomes more practicable owing to improved communications, the public will settle down at week-ends to cultivate its garden, and the craze for speed will ease off a little. After all, the mere getting over the ground is an amusement which palls. “As the novelty of joy-riding wears off, it ceases to be a joy, and becomes a bore. The mere getting from one place to another without any particular reasfin for going there will be seen to be what it is.—a piece of fatuous imbecility. Also,; it will be recognised that speed, save as a means to an end, has nothing essentially valuable about it. “Why is a run of 120 miles, covered in three hours, more enjoyable than a run of half that distance covered in the same time? One covers more ground; but does one see more? It is very doubtful. And is any motor run equal to a good walk over good country? Does it give you the same appetite or the same feeling of physical fitness?"