SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 June 1911, Page 3

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

(TO the EDITOR. 1 Sir, —At the present time the Lord’s J)ay as a public institution and a religious privilege, appears to be exposed to immediate danger. I have watched with sorrow, yet without surprise those who neglect the duty of God’s worship and reject the message of God’s word ; seeking pleasure or profit upon God’s Gay. But the Christian Sabbath is threatened from many other quarters. Published statistics of church and school attendance seem to prove that popular indifference towards it is growing in this dominion. Things are getting worse at Reefton. Ministers and workers of -every denomination affirm tha quiet contempt for its sanctity and obligation is among their chief hindrances and anxieties. An increasing number of persons who would resent any hint, that they were not excellent Christians feel quite at liberty to devote its hours to social intercourse and personal indulgence, secular music, wordly novels, games of tennis or croquet, cycle runs into the country, and footballing, gambling, drinking and picture shows, and buildings going on, are fully recognised methods of Sunday observance here. It ought not to be allowed. It is something disgraceful the way things are going on. Necessarily, young people are influenced by these opinions and tendencies, and, as a consequence, the coming generation bids fair to be wholly without practical regard for the Sabbath. Thus the country is parting with its choicest blessing. The Lord’s Day is becoming like the Continental Sunday, a day of amusement and public bodies and institutions ceasing to recognise a find at all. Over pleasure and amusement a great many soom to be running wild, by turning the day into one of selfish amusement. This is striking a blow at the foundations of morality. There are a great many people, both small and great, who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. I find the! people have given way terribly to indifference in religions affairs, and there is a lack of vitality, reality and life in the Church. The church is nerveless, asleep, and too self satisfied. The decay of religion in any district and in any country lay within the Church itself. There are a great many people who think more of money and self and pleasure than they do of God, or the higher life. I am, etc., R.T. Reefton, June sth, 1911.