SUNDAY WORK AND THE WAR.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXI, Issue 16604, 27 April 1916, Page 2

SUNDAY WORK AND THE WAR.

BY THE RT. REV. BISHOP WELL-

DON, D.D. . (Bean of Manchester).

The institution of Sundays answers to two great human needs—the need of rest, and thtf need of religion. Man cannot be always at work; If his labour ie continuous, it becomes ineffectual. Experience in the dark days of the^ French Revolution proved,' not only that he could do more work, but better- work, if a day of rest were asisured to him than if it were not, and if the day of rest were one day in seven rather than one day in ten. In other words, human nature demands' a week of 6even days, and a day of rest in every week. 'rWe are not poorer," said Lord Macaulay, in his speech on the Ten Hours Bill, "in the House of Commons, " but richer because we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven." ' But man needs religion as well ac rest: or he needs the rest which is itself religious. He has been created by God and for God. It is in God that his peace, that his happiness, that his virtue resides. If he m cut off from tho knowledge and the worship of God his nature degenerates, and he faJls short of thejnghest moral and spiritual excellency. It is necessary, therefore, or in the highest degree desirable, that he should possess some sure and settled periods of leisure for cul% tivating the graces of the soup by worship, both public and private. For if the present war has taught any lesson, it has taught that no gain of wealth or power of territory is comparable with the.,losa,,pf the personal or the national soiiu c Jt r}xas lent an emphasis unknown^ bet^rf to the Divine question, "What shaJL^irnan give in' exchange for his y>ul?»'".., It was, tliu's" ;'inaii Emerson wrote once in hi s \Journal-: ,'"Tho Sabbath is -& respite, frop£ ; ' importunity of passion, ' from u iwSfli 'dangerous empire of human anxieties', a pious armistice in the warfarel' v &£*!tHe world, a point of elevation, likje'jbhe Pisgah of "the man oif God, an ':oibServatory whence we measure badjeward the wilderness we have traversed? Jand forward the interval that is 1 yeiJ to be trodden by us, ere the solemn shadow d€scend upon our path, beyond which the magnificence of other worlds is towering into the. distance."

When the weekly day of rest was first Divinely instituted as the Jewish Sabbath, its observation; was guarded by narrow, definite, inexorable rules. Such rules were appropriate, and, indeed, indispensable, to an early stage of human history. For man in the childhood of th,e human, race needs, like /the. individual child, to be told in exact terms, upon unquestionable authority, what he may 'and may not do. So; it was only by the prohibition of all work that the .Sabbath" could be kept as a day of rest at all. - The Fourth Comandment, then, although in its spirit it is a permanent obligation, yet m its letter is adapted to the circumstances of the people .for whom it was originally designed. CHRIST DID NOT ABOLISH THE SABBATH. Our Lord did not abolish the Jewish Sabbath • _He seems to have regularly observed it in His own practice. But in His teaching He went back to the original principles underlying the institution of the Sabbath. "The/Sabbath," He said,, "was made foiv man, and not man for the Sabbath." It must be a day of rest and a day of, religion, but not a.day in which the literal interpretation of an ancient law could be suffered to override the dictates of mercy and charity. He taught—nay, He went out of His way to teach, by example even more forcibly than by precept, ■ that s. the ; benefits of rest and religion are the true . objects of the Sabbath, ; but that neither the law of rest nor the law of religion forbids Bie relief of suffering or the rseponse. to the summons of duty. The Early Christians kept both the Sabbath and: the Sunday; but when the Sabbath, or the last day of the week, gave place to Sunday, which is the first day. of the week—the day of the Lord' 6 Resurrection —the change was at once felt to be an emancipation from the burden of the Jewish law, as enforced by the Pharisaical school of thought, and a return to the original principles of rest and religion. But there have always been, ahdi today, perhaps, there are more than ever, social and industrial'forces'Which' militate against the weekly day of rest. Competition dislik.es it; the lust ~of wealth contravenes it; the selfishness ofi.jnleasure protests against it. The wouldriof-nLabour, no less than the Church, is,'concerned in resisting these forces. ~l^.is.not improbable that the maintenance- of Sunday will, m the future, j?jifiY.s-to be the principal bond between Church - and the great working population. But however clear may be^e^Vuman need for rest, and, to many minds, for religion also, it must be whether Sunday, as an universal day of rest or religion, can be ultimately maintained, in Great Britaitf'dr in" any other country, except upon the sanction of a Divine command.

Lord Beaconsfiefd was not far wrong in his striking statement: "Of aH Divine institutions, I maintain the most Divine is that which secures a day of rest for man. It is the religious principle which, to a certain extent, is admitted by all—at lea6t by all classes that have influence and number in this country; it is that principle we must take care should not be discarded, if we wish to maintain that day of rest which I hold to be the most valuable blessing ever conceded to man."

The value of Sunday remains as great in war as in peace—it may even be felt to be greater—but the observance of Sunday necessarily undergoes a considerable change. The Christian Powers have not agreed upon the duty of keeping Sunday free from hostilities. The Duke of Wellington fought and won most of his great battles _on Sunday. Brit it is evident that if one Power chose, and another -refused, to do battle on Sunday, the Power which 6O gave its enemy the advantage would, or might, as a consequence of giving it, suffer defeat, as indeed the Jews are said, at different times, to have expos-* ed themselves to attack by their rigid insistence upon the letter of the Sabbatical law. Five minutes, as Nelson used to say, make the difference between victory and defeat; and if it is impossible to lose five minutes in war without grave danger, how can it be safe or wise to lose a whole day? But. modern battles are not won and lost entirely, or perhaps chiefly, on the bat- | tlefield. The men at the Front need munitions ; and the country,1, which sends them to fight her* battles without adequate munitions, .' might almost as' well not send them at all. WHAT 1 SAW AT THE FRONT. It seems; then, to-follow that; if Var may -lawfully be waged <ra a Sunday, so may the of war'be lawfully manufactured on Sunday. .The. expenditure of shells, on a Sunday justifies their manufacture ,then. Both the expenditure and.»tjie manufacture nr« lamentable necessities,; but necessities ; are inseparable from war-

fare, and in such a war as the present, whese the-names at, stake are justice, honour, freedom, and the moral and spiritual welfare of humanity "it may well seem that labour on Sunday is not inconsistent with our Lord's principle of subordinating the strict law of the Sabbath to the welfare of humanity. But none the less the demand of human nature for rest and fot religion ! *? an abiding demand. If it is. impos- * i. in an army divine service ! at the regular times, yet' the chaplains ' may claim, and the commanders will usually concede, all possible opportunities forpnblie worship, and particularly for Holy Communion. , ' | If there are workers who are inevitably employed in workshops and factories on Sunday during war yet it is desirable, ac far as possible, to save them from the burden and the peril of i working at too his:h a strain, and the workers of- one shift can easily be free while those of another are plying their task during certain hours of every Sun day, they will turn out all the more and better arms if they enjoy periodic intervals of rest, and spend part of those intervals in Divine worship, for it is a main interest of ""the community ' that such labour as takes place on Sun I days should be confined within the nar rowest possible points. It has been my fortune to see something of the soldiers at the Front. 1 know how their hearts are solemnised by intimacy with scenes of suffering and' death. I know how welcome to most, or io many; of them are' the service, from which they often go straight into the trenches. I have myself taken a long motor journey to confirm one*oldier in the afternoon, when he could not wait even until the^evening for his" conrmation. The secularisation of Sunday would be felt as a spiritual loss by the soldiers, and surely not less by the sailors, who need all full strength and the courage at issue from a strong faith in God and in Christ for the due I performance of their self-sacrificing i dties. •& THE NATION MUST BECOME SERIOUS. If.it is well to keep Sunday,holy at the Front it cannot be less well to keep it holy at home. There has been too much desecration of the Sunday in Great Britain during recent years. But the war has exercised a bracing, sanctifying influence upon the British people. They have come, or nre comn^, to feel that, if they would rival the achievements of their forafabhors, who laid deep and cure the foundations of the Empire,.,they .Tiust not ; fail to cul-^ tivate the religious spirit- which was ever in old times the cohconitjmt of British valour. It is difficult, in wartime especially, to rpproye tho multiplication of., mere worldly entertainments even for patriotic purposes on the day "which ought, to be set apart for the worship of the Almighty. If such entertainments are permissible at all,. it is.'•'.only when they do not come into conflict with Divine worship that Christian'men Jind women can rightly approve,- and"support them. — The paramount need of the nation to-day is that it should recover its seriousness. It needs to recojgnise its responsibility before God, its frequent lapse : from allegiance to His will, its supreme duty of trying to regain its direct sptr-itual communion with Him. But it may "be that no test of a nation's spirituality is stronger or surer than the'way in which it keeps, Sunday. For the observance of Sunday ,is the overt public national acknowledgment of God. It prevents the soul of man from being stifled by material anxieties ancl ambitions. From week to week, from .month to month, from, year, to year, it keeps, alive the fealisation •. of th c things unseen—-the things which alone' are eternal and immortal, of God and heaven, and the life beyond the grave. . f-■ ' ' "'" ''': ■ ■"■"■ ;"^ "/■; ~ No true-Christian, then, can well help hoping thai the war, by its many solemn ■ aspects, will so discipline| the British people as to make them, not only while it lasts, but long after it is ended, a people who honour, and delight to honour, the (Lord by keeping the day holy. ■