ENGLISH SUNDAY

Evening Star, Issue 21641, 9 February 1934, Page 12

ENGLISH SUNDAY

GREAT NATIONAL HERITAGE “ I believe that at heart England is still mainly Puritan,” writes the Rev. Grenville Cooke, vicar of Cransley, Northamptonshire, in the 1 Daily Mail ’ (London). “1 do not mean that Dora and Mrs Grundy are the patron saints of the English people. But it is, I believe, a profound truth that the English character that produced the ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress ’ and moulded the Reformation to suits its innate ideas of religion remains still the backbone of the nation.” Foreign ideas of ceremonial or custom have but little chance of taking root in our soil, be continues. In its heart of hearts the great mass of our people believes in the simple dignity and honest integrity that informed men like Bunyan, Wesley, and Charles Kingsley. . There is something rugged and strong about men of this build; nothing cramped or narrow. Deep human sympathy allied to mystical experience of grace enabled men like these to interpret the English character clearly and truly. Against this hpnest-to-good-ness and, I think, entirely solid background there continues to be a great deal of gesticulation in favour of what is called the Continental Sunday. In some quarters, in which frivolity and hectic excitement predominate, there have been many deliberate attempts to brighten Sunday as we know it. Some of these efforts have alarmed sincerely Christian people, who have been startled by what seems to bo a growing lack of reverence for Sunday among the younger members of this generation. The Sunday cinemas agitation—for example—appeared to certain worthy people to he a direct attack on the reverently-cherished ordinance that gave us one day of rest in every seven. For myself, I think there is no question that, given due supervision, the cinema might be a powerful force in uplifting human character. Many, again, deplore Sunday games. But I often wonder whether organised games on Sunday afternoons are not preferable to street-corner “ mooching,” although professional sports should have no place in the English Sunday—and I do not believe that our people would desire them. To prohibit bodily exercise in the form of games to a sedentary worker condemned for six days in the week (or five and a-half, at any rate) to an office stool is quite unchristian. On the other hand, the manual labourer welcomes the opportunity for bodily rest offered him by the English Sunday. It is the contrast in occupation that matters ; and we have to try to be essentially human in our sympathies. But 1 still believe that both clerk and manual labourer would be sorry to find the quiet and peace of the oldfashioned Sunday in any way disturbed. What so many of us want to avoid is the cramping (and often cruel) compulsion which frequently reacts in violent and undesirable conflicts. The young must be led to enjoy Sunday, to feel the real value and attraction of our great national heritage—for it is attractive, ns, undoubtedly, it s national. 1 believe that never was theie a time when the signs of moral recovery were more sure or encouraging. The rottenness in certain sections of society and the moral gangrene in literature—what are those to the average decent man or woman ? Our people are turning again to the “ rock whence they were hewn ” —to that splendid national strength and simplicity of heart that trusts in the providence of God and loves its Bible. Machinery will surely further lighten the burden of drudgery for man and offer him more leisure. Will that be a had thing for Sunday, as some predict? I do not think so. 1 think we shall find Sunday enthroned even more, securely as a day of rest and worship. When we have enlarged our sympathies sufficiently to embrace a modern scientific outlook and a greater liberality of custom in our worship,* then surely we shall find ourselves once again at home in the churches which our forefathers built and tended through the centuries. We dare not surrender so gracious, so precious an heritage. Old-fashioned ways were often wiser than our new-fangled ideas. And as we read some queer, fusty, sentimental, Victorian goody-goody hook, smile as we may and rejoice as wfe may in our healthy freedom of mind and body, we cannot hut feel that folk in those days had a simple faith and lived good lives, and in many ways were much better than this generation appears to be: I say appears to be because I believe in this generation. Under its laughter and seeming cynicism, under its nervous tension and violent liberties of expression and custom, there is a flaming idealism, a longing to harness its abounding energies to larger loyalties than are offered by membership of night clubs and dogracing courses. God is calling them—as English men and women—to stand up for the rugged strength of the national character at its best; to love and cherish the Bible; and to treasure and use the English Sunday for the true recreation of the body, mind, and soul.