PREACHER DENOUNCES IDEA OF SERVICES FOR SPORTSMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18939, 9 December 1929, Page 11

PREACHER DENOUNCES IDEA OF SERVICES FOR SPORTSMEN.

LAXITY IS BECOMING RIFE, HE DECLARES. (Special to the “ Star.”) AUCKLAND, December 9. “ A suggestion has been made from the Anglican pulpit, which, if it is put into practice, will amount to open and public violation of the Sabbath.” This statement was made by the Rev Joseph W. Kemp, in the Baptist Tabernacle last evening in an address on the controversy which has followed the announcement by Canon James, in Weliigton, that he intended to hold early morning Sunday services, which sportsmen could attend in sports garb. “ The suggestion is,” said Mr Kemp, “ that the church should be opened early in order that those who want to spend the day in worldly recreati .»ns may have a little bit of religion before they begin. It is a somewhat grotesque idea, and mv opinion is that sportsmen will merely snap their fingers at the suggestion and pay no attention to it at all. Suppose for a moment that this grotesque idea becomes universal, and that a man, in taking his little religion before .his day’s tennis or cricket, appears in his sports garb, and with the weapons of his recreation—tnis would be an outrage to the Christian conscience of the others who wish v o keep holy the Sabbath day ” If the church were to welcome Sunday tennio players, why not Sunday bathers ? “ At my mid-week services I welcome any of my young people in sports garb,” Mr Kemp said, “ but anyone who plays tennis on the Lord’s Day is a violator of the law of the Sabbath. This suggestion from an Anglican pulpit approximates very closely to the so-called Continental Sunday. Laxity is becoming rife on every hand, and it is on: of the perils of the day.”