SCOTLAND’S SABBATH

Evening Star, Issue 20312, 22 October 1929, Page 2

SCOTLAND’S SABBATH

HO LONGER IKE SAME INVASION OF MODERNITY. Golf, motor cars, tennis, and novel reading are cited among the causes which have led to a decline in the observance of the Sabbath in Scotland, and throughout the country, in the lonely glens and communities of the Highlands and the wild, wind-swept moors of the lowlands, a bitter opposition to this invasion of modernity is being fanned. Deep-thinking, earnest churchmen do not, as is common in other countries, blame the war years. “ Our boys came homo and stepped back naturally into the life they had known ns children, and which their fathers still observe,” a Highland minister said. He went on to describe what was to him the beauty of sweetness of the old Sabbath reverence, much of which is still preserved in the west and far north. Both highly and lowdy observed it in their homes and about their possessions. NO COOKING. Good housewives saw to it that no work was necessary on the Sabbath; sufficient water was drawn from the well on Saturday to last until Monday; cold food was prepared. Then on Sunday there was no washing up; it was left until the Monday; and, should the water supply run out, strictness forbade any member of the family to go to the well. Novel reading was undreamed of, and walking for pleasure forbidden. Dr Lauchlan Mac Lean Watt, of Glasgow Cathedral, than whom there is no more typical Highlander _of the old school, discussing the subject, said;— “I have seen the people coming to my kirk of a Sunday morning in the old days, descending the hillsides in their numbers like advancing companies. Tall, stalwart, serious, God-fearing fathers leading their families. “And then came the vogue of obtaining bicvcles on the hire-purchase system. ' I attribute that, and the more recent system of buying motor cars by instalments, to the gradual secularisation of Scotland. Wdien people obtained their bicycles thev used them sparingly at first, always attending the kirk on Sunday. Then they began to travel longer distances and forgot the kirk. “Then knickerbockers came to the towns and cities, and the smart clerk began to play golf. He thought himself a big man flouting the feelings of people as he mingled with them on their way to church. And then Edgar Wallace began to take the place of-the Bible on Sundays; a murder story occupied the time previously spent in quiet, peaceful contemplation.” DIN OF TRAFFIC. Now. as then, large crowds make their way to churches in town and village each Sunday, but they are accompanied, not by quiet peacefulness, as in the past, hut'by the din of traffic, raucous motor horns, and speeding motor cycles. Sunday tennis is slowly, but more strongly, being demanded, and golf is now an established Sunday pastime in the thickly-populated areas. More than ever this year the presbyteries and kirk sessions are faced with loud appeals from all sides for brighter Sundays, Sunday music, better Sunday traffic . . • more freedom, more pleasure. • Gradually the far Highlands, with their traditionally and strictly observed Sabbath quiet, are being more thoroughly penetrated. Excursionists are greater in number and more frequent. The Fiery Cross has been raised in vain in the Highlands. Frantic efforts were made to prevent Sunday traffic last year, but failed. '. . . Can the Scottish Sabbath be doomed? Dr Mac Lean Watt, asked if it was possible that the modern Scottish Sabbath was merely a passing phase, replied: “There may be a reaction. . . . The people in Scotland are surely being roused, and rightly, too.”