SCOTCH FAST DAYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1239, 28 August 1875, Page 10

SCOTCH FAST DAYS.

The people who have most reason to be thankful for the Fast Day, and to fear the proposal to abolish that time-honoured instituti-ai, are the railway companies. The Churches, by whom and for whose special benefit the day was set apart, must now be convinced by growing experience that for their purposes the day is a failure. All business is suspended — factories, shops, banks, and other offices are closed ; churches are opened, and church bells are tolled, exactly as on Sunday ; but the only effect is, to drive people in crowds to "fresh woods and pastures new," removed as far as possible from the sound of the church-going bell. On Friday morning our report of the Edinburgh Fast Day stated that more than 30,000 persons left town by railway alone, while many more on foot or in conveyance sought the green fields or the seashore. It might be interesting to know precisely how many were present at church, but there is little reason to doubt that crowded trains and empty churches were the order of the day. Now, this state of matters is good neither .for the churches nor for the people. It ia bad for the churches, because it represents them as being in a deserted and discarded condition. It is bad for the people, because it makes many good and innocent persons invent many hypocritical excuses for doing what is perfectly warrantable even on the Church's own showing. For it is an essential part of the » resbyterian system that the Fast Day is a mere human institution, lacking the Divine authorisation of the Sabbath. Let hard-worked men and women — to say nothing of boys and girls— have their half-yearly hoiiday by all means ; but certainly sum-total of the enjoyment would be all the greater if it were not accompanied by the feeling that in pleasing themselves they are oheating the Church — that in enriching their bodies they are starving their souls, searing their consciences, and hardening their hearts.— Edinburgh Scotsman.