HIKING ON SUNDAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21292, 20 September 1932, Page 13

HIKING ON SUNDAY

Sir,—The Sabbath destroyers profess to bo out for a brighter Sunday. The fact is, if they are successful it will mean a darker Sunday for all. It will ipean banishing all thoughts of God from the hearts of multitudes every Sunday. A restful Sunday is a physical necessity for all. A quiet Sunday is one of the greatest moral forces in the universe. A family Sunday is the preserver of the home, while a Christian Sunday is a bulwark of the righteousness which exalteth a nation The day lis worth having, worth preserving and, what is more, worth fighting for. It is God's gift to us, that man may join in the worship .and praise of his Maker and Redeemer. Let us guard our Sabbath if we would be a righteous and exalted nation. A. N. Gordon. Sir,—lt has been stated Christ was a Sabbath-breaker, and that not one word of His sermon on the mount advocates the observance of this _ day. Part of Christ's sermon is: "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I camo not to destroy, but to fulfil. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven." How does the author of this unwarranted statement find that the observance of the fourth commandment is not enjoined in Christ's statement here ? Christ's own statement gives the lie to His being a Sabbath-breaker, and it ought to bo quite evident to all that Christ was the only person that kept the commandments perfectly in substance and that He and Ilis apostles handed us down the Ten Commandments from the shadow tc the substance which we have with us today in law and practice. In conclfision I fail to see why Sunday hiking should be continued any more than Sunday cockfighting, Sunday racing and Sunday trading, as it is in tho same category from a moral point of view. J. Matheson.

Sir—May I suggest tha,t your correspondents on the suliject of Sunday hiking have overlooked some very important words of Jesus on that subject ? Looking in the Bible, I find Jesus and His disciples went for a walk on the Sabbath day and that when the Pharisees, taking exception, looked about for something in their conduct to criticise, they met with a very severe rebuke from the Master. Ho says, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," and in another version, "In this place is one greater than the temple"—a saying which is as true of the Waitakere Eanges to-day as it was of the cornfields then. This Sabbath walk of Jesus was so important in the opinion of the Apostles that John is the only one who omits to relate it (and we know that he, being the last of the four to write, set out to tell what the others had passed over, not to repeat what they had already told). If we take the Bible teaching as it stands (instead of interpreting it to suit our own opinions) we find that the purpose of the Sabbath was, not that we might spend long hours in church, but that we might ceaso from our work for' a day. I cannot seo how anyone can call hiking work, nor is it necessarily irreverent; in fact, for many it must be just the opposite. When Christ established the divine nature of work, He musf. clearly have meant us to take our weekly rest in the way that would be most beneficial to our work; not in sitting stuffily at home, poring over a book, or sleeping more than is good for us; nor in going to church so often that we are reduced to criticising either the sermon or the ladies' clothes, according to our sex. Let those who feel it wrong to go hiking on Sunday by all means agitato' for Saturday trains as well, but let them not be intolerant of those who differ from them,* for this is the very sin of the Pharisees. Pantheist.