HIKERS AND RELIGION

Southland Times, Issue 21854, 3 November 1932, Page 4

HIKERS AND RELIGION

Will the Presbytery achieve anything by its rousing condemnation of the “mystery train” and the Sunday hikers? Trains have been running on Sundays for many years, and people have gone walking on Sundays. The “mystery train” and the “cross-coun-try” hike give many people an opportunity for a healthy excursion into the country, induce them to take exercise and incidentally secure revenue for the Railways. The Government is not likely to give much heed to the protest, and, if it did, the Sunday “hikes” would continue, since there is no difference in the spiritual side of walking city streets or country roads. That these organized excursions, which differ only in degree from organized picnics among friends, assist to diminish the congregations cannot be denied and it is unfortunate that it should be so, but the Gospel can be preached in the open air as well as beneath a Cathedral roof, and it looks as if the ministers would gain more if they carried the Gospel to the hikers instead of regretting that they do not attend church. Sunday hikes are a modern development, and they have come because people feel the need of them. They take people into the open at the week-end and as these tramps attract people in large numbers, as they include halts for meals, they should provide opportunities of which the churches should avail themselves with the right men to remind these young people who go afoot that Christianity is a cheerful power which will brighten lives while it lifts them on to a higher plane, and gives them a nobler colour. The highways and the by-ways should not be out of bounds for the Gospel.