SUNDAY EXCURSIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21316, 18 October 1932, Page 11

SUNDAY EXCURSIONS

" MYSTERY HIKE " TRAINS PROTEST BY BAPTISTS CONTINENTAL SUNDAY FEARED Railway excursions and railway "mystery hikes" on Sundays were roundly condemned at the jubilfe conference of the New Zealand Baptist Union sitting in Christchurch last week. It was stated that nobody desired to force people to go to church on Sundays, but that a "quiet Sunday" was the happy heritage of the British people and a deliberate attempt was being made to destroy it. The Rev. J. E. Simpson (Christchurch) moved the following motion, on behalf of the Canterbury auxiliary:—"The conference is gravely concerned with the attack on the quiet Sunday by the Railway Department. Their deliberate encouragement of Sunday travel for holiday purposes is, in the opinion of the conference, a menace to the most precious possession of the nation, to wit, the quiet Sunday. The conference calls on the nation to maintain the priceless legacy from the past." "We do not make an appeal for a return to the old, hard and dour Sabbath, when whistling and even smiling were prohibited," said Mr. Simpson, "but we are entirely against t>he spoiling of the inner sacredness of the day. If we do not make some protest we may yet find ourselves experiencing a Continental Sunday. A few isolated voices will do no good; there must be unity in a matter of this nature." "Rights of Democracy" «The president, Dr. J. J. North, said: — "The unprincipled action of the Railway Department, not in meeting a demand, but deliberately creating one, is an attempt— I might almost say a dastardly attempt—to infringe on the day of rest of working people. No one desires to force people to go to church, but the quiet Sunday, at least, is the happy heritage of the British people. This is an attempt to destroy one of the most sacred rights of British democracy." Mr. Simpson said that it had Heen noticed that Sunday picnics were attended by members of the Baptist Bible classes. Side-issues Deprecated Dr. North said that mention had been made by delegates of side-issues. That was drawing a red herring across the scent of a great public question. It was a capital illustration of just how to get nowhere. "The time is ripe when not only the Churches, but the trades unions and other wide-eyed democratic bodies should unite in a national protest against the desecration of the quiet Sunday," he said. "No one who goes from here to the Continent can help being struck by the tragic loss there of a great and sacred right." Discussion in Committee The Rev. A. W. Stuart said that the question had been sent to the executive amd little had been done with it. "We are not so much concerned with the wording of the protest as with expressing the opinion of the conference to the public on this great issue," he said. A Delegate: I understood that we were to ask for the co-operation of the other Churches in this matter. "My dear sir," said Dr. North, "if you read the papers you will find that the other Churches have got up much earlier than you have." The resolution was carried, and on the motion of the Rev. J. K. Archer, the general principles involved in the question were discussed in committee. On resuming it was announced that the following resolution, moved by Mr. Archer and seconded by Mr. F. W. Horner, had been passed:—"That in view of the growing tendency toward organised desecration of the Lord's Day, we urge upon our ministers, Sunday school officers and Bible class leaders to draw the attention of our people to the 6upreme importance of maintaining the Christian character of the Lord's Day."