SABBATH SANCTITY AND THE SNUDAY CONCECRT MENACE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17067, 21 August 1917, Page 7

SABBATH SANCTITY AND THE SNUDAY CONCECRT MENACE.

Last Sunday evening the Rev. D. I Campbell of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, taking for his text the well-known words, "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." delivered an eloquent warning against the prevailing tendency to laxity in Sabbath observance, more especially in connection with band concerts and recitals such as have lately been held for patriotic purposes. "These Avords," said the speaker, "are the words of Almighty God to his servant Moses to be given to His people Israel and by them to be given to the people of all times, and to us in these modern days." He pointed out that while the institution of the Sabbath was coeval with the human race, the tendency in every age was to forget its claims, hence the word "Remember" with which God. begins the Fourth Commandment. And it was for us in these times and in this House to ring out the grand old cry "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy." It was, the speaker said, particularly the actions of the Queen Alexandra Band and the Red Cross Society that had called for his present thoughts. Not that, we were in any way opposed to the Band or to the Red Cross Society—quite the contrary. Both were deserving of the highest commendation and support. He favoured the principle of supporting the Band with the money of the ratepayers, and it was only a very short time ago that that Church had by a special effort been able to hand over close on £10 to the Society to be applied to increasing the comfort of our boys at the Front. But as the representative of a Church he was strenuously opposed to these Sunday recitals for three reasons: (1) He believed in the sanctity of the Sabbath; (2) He believed that this sanctity was in danger; and (3) he considered it the duty of the Church to do all in its power to conserve the Sabbath sanctiy thus menaced. The speaker rear! cuttings from the, local press to show how on two recent occasions the Q.A. Band, acting for the Reel Cross Society, had had allied with them tke services of a comedy company's orchestra. There was, he was bound to admit, a time and a place for comedy, but he very strenuously denied that the time for the assistance of a comedy company waft on the evening of the Lord's Day, and he ventured to wonder how many of the members of that corapany attended Divine worshJp on the mornings of these days. Further cuttings were read showing the "marked approval" with which the items rendered by the Band and the Orchestra were received, and the Rev. gentleman read a letter cut from the Wanganui "Herald" in which the writer drew a marked contrast between the size of the crowd that thronged the Opera House on one of these occasions referred to, and the insignificance of the collection, and he ventured to say that no more than 6d per head could be realised from such entertainments as these and the sum mentioned worked out at less than that —patriotism would be infinitely better without them. He would suggest that Saturday night, now a free night, might be substituted for Sunday, and that then a charge could lawfully be made, and then we should be able to see whether patriotism or a dcs-ire for cheap entertainment was the cause of the attendance at these Sunday functions. Mr. Campbell read a newspaper cutting in which a speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury took exactly the same stand in reference to Sunday charity entertainments as he himself was now taking, and he was one of those who believed that the doors of the Opera House, which was a building erected with the ratepayers' money, should be locked during the whole of the 24 hours of the Lord's Day. One thing that the speaker had seen after coming to Wanganui had surprised him—he referred to the stripping of the trees in the Avenue of their leaves early in the winter season, and on enquiry he had been told that the purpose, of this was threefold, (1) to keep the streets clean; (2) to keep the trees from growing too rank, and (3) to encourage a vigorous growth of leaf and branch the following season 'Let us carry the principle here enunciated into the moral sphere, and to keep the town clean, to keep abuses from an overgrowth, and to encourage a vigorous growth of all that is good and pure and morally healthful, let the Sunday concert menace be cut out of our municipal life.