SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

GREAT LENTEN MISSION IN ITS SUPPORT.

An important Lenten mission is to be held from. March 10th to March 17th throughout the dioceses of the Church of England m support of the Sunday National Observance movement. With a* view to secure simultaneous, or nearly simultaneous, action the rural deans of the various dioceses have been invited, with the approval of the to hold meetings of; clergy and laity for the nurpose of mutual conference as to the best method^ of organisation. The movement, which was initiated with the famous manifesto issued m January last and signed hy the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, and -the Rev. J. Scott Lidgett, as representing the Free Churches, lias made great- progress since then; ■•'. ' Canon Bickersteth Ottley, who is asting as honorary secretary, m an inteiT.s'v stated that it had been found that all sections of the people, especially the great clauses of toilers, were getting seriously alarnied and resentful because they felt tlmt by one excuse or another their Sunday was being taken away from them by pleasure-seeking, inconsiderate people.. "With a significant instinct," he added, "Churchmen, Nonconformists, and Roman Catholics are working shoulder to shoulder, for they are conscious that if the churches and chapels become devoid of worshippers there will be no material to work on foi- the propagation of the faith. "Sunday is tlie safeguard of the Christian religion. Even Voltaire recognised this. Side by side with the anti-Chris-tian movemnet on the Continent and elsewhere there is the tendency of the New Theology m tliis countiy, which seems to be m the direction of a vague contradiction of the doctrines of Christianity. "Among the features of modern life which we are seeking to combat are: The Pagan week-erid. Sunday dinner parties and deserted altars of the Church. Sunday bridge and gambling. "There is a growing feeling that all these matters are . wrapped up -in the keeping of Sunday on the old-fashioned lines.''