SUNDAY GAMES.

Evening Star, Issue 18052, 21 August 1922, Page 4

SUNDAY GAMES.

Saiicataiuaxs and religious bodies may protest against the action of the London County Council in permitting games in its parks on Sunday afternoons, but the example has been set, and the probabilities are not only that it will be continued; but that it will spread. “They know that it was pleasant, though they felt that it, was wrong,” has been a general attitude towards Sunday sports. If tho London County Council says that such games are not wrong, millions now in doubt will bo disposed to let it decide tho question for thorn, when the decision it has given squares so completely with their inclinations. The London County Council certainly is not tho Lambeth Conference or tho Free Church Council or a body of divines of any sort in whom a special authority might ho supposed to reside for tho determining of matters of religion, but, wielding tho great temporal powers which it dots, its example is likely to bo thought good enough by those who like least tho restrictions of the Churches. Three reasons may bo given for keeping •tho Sabbath different from other days—religious conviction on one’s own part, or respect for the religious convictions of others, or regard for tho institution of a day of rest, which, even from tho secular viewpoint, makes far too precious a provision for tho needs of mankind for its value as a “lull in tho hot race,” a time of recuperation for the mind’s and body’s faculties, to be lightly jeopardised. Make Sunday a day of games, destroy 'tho religious sanction which now hallows it, and even tho secularist may have cause to fear that some time it may become a day' of work, which ho woidd dislike more than the strictest Sabbatarianism. Danger may be scented,,therefore, to more than religion in the County Council’s innovation. As to tho extent to which Sabbath observance requires tho avoidance, of pleasures innocent in themselves, but Laving no connec-tioij-with religion, Churches have always differed and still differ. London Sundays, wo are told, are now “ undistinguishable from Saturdays,” so far as public pastimes, are concerned. That necessarily must cause a shock to the ideas of most re-

ligioua believers—a shock that should not bo inflicted on them wantonly. It ia a largo liberty which allows London’s youths to play bowls qjid cricket on the public parks not only on Sunday afternoons, but up till 9in the evening. Yet millions in London lead such cramped and cheerless lives that cricket and bowls on Sundays may be needed for • them. The Sabbath was a day of games, as .well as religion, in both Itiigland and Scotland at an earlier period. If the games were accompanied now with as much religion as they were in thoso times, few would complain of a division of tho day between the two purposes. Dean Ingo has laid down that “tho man who cannot play games on week days is quite justified in playing them on Sundays.’’ That ruling might give warrant, in a largo degree, for the new London diversions. Outside the slums of some other great cities it would not leave much room for their extension.