THE BISHOPS ON SUNDAY AMUSEMENTS.
THE resolution about Sunday adopted by the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury has the double fault of being addressed to the wrong people, and of mixing up two ideas which are only accidentally connected. The clergy, instructors of the young, and "all who exercise influence over their fellow-men," are called upon "not to suffer this Church and country to lose the priceless benefit of the rest and sanctity of the Lord's Day," and the reason given for making this appeal is the growing "relaxation of Sunday observance," and the "great increase of Sunday labour." There is not, we feel sure, the least danger that the clergy will be careless in promoting Sunday observance. They are much more likely to injure the cause by injudicious support of it. Nor has Sunday at school, so far as we have heard, become a day of riotous gaiety. There is more reason for addressing those who have influence over their fellow-men, though even here we question whether the principal sinners in the matter of Sunday observance do not belong to a class which is un- conscious of possessing influence, as well as indifferent to the use made of it. These people are not wholly unapproachable —at least, we hope not ; but they will certainly not be touched by anything the Bishops may say about the sanctity of the Lord's Day. That and all similar formulas have simply no meaning for them. They believe neither in the appropriation of the day, nor in the particular method of marking its appropriation. If they did, there would be little need for the Bishops' intervention. The decline of Sunday observance in England is not due to laxity of practice ; it is part of a radical change in the beliefs which govern practice.
Indeed, if Sunday observance were all that were at stake, it would be little worth fighting for. It is essentially a matter which concerns the outside of the platter. In so far as it springs from religious respect for the day, it is good ; in so far as it springs from custom which has become purely mechanical, it is in itself of little or no value. Moreover, if the Bishops had to justify their solicitude about Sunday observance from the formularies of the Church of England, they would be hard put to it. Of all Christian bodies, perhaps, the Church of England has least to say about Sunday. The Roman Church, which among Sabbatarians has the repute of being extremely lax on this question, is severity itself compared to the Church of England. The positive obligation of hearing mass, and the negative obligation of doing no "servile work," are strictly en- forced upon all" practising Catholics." In the Book of Common Prayer, on the other hand, the only direction about Sunday is that it is "to be observed." Not a word is said as to how it is to be observed, nor can anything be inferred from its being
separated off from other days' because it shares this distinc-
tion with days so immemorially devoted to secular rejoicing as Easter Monday. But our contention may be proved by more direct evidence than this. The Prayer-Book contains a most precise and minute statement of the duties imposed by the Ten Commandments,—a statement from which nothing that the Church thinks of moment is likely to be left out, since it is set forth for the instruction of every one of her members. It will be found in the answers given in the Catechism to the question, " What dost thou chiefly learn by these Commandments ;" and in it the meaning of each separate precept is amplified and extended in a way which shows unmistakably bow comprehensive a
directory of conduct it was meant to be. It might have been expected that when the Fourth Commandment was reached,
something would have been said about the distinction to be
made between Sundays and week-days. The Third Command- ment, for example, is expanded into the words," to honour his
holy Name and his Word ;" and nothing would have been easier or more natural than to give the Fourth Commandment a similar extension by the words, "to honour his holy Day." But the Catechism, when setting forth what the Christian chiefly learns from the Fourth Commandment, takes no notice of the Sunday. It interprets the Commandment as one that for Christians has reference not to one day in seven, but to every day, for the sole explanation it gives of it is this,—" To serve him truly all the days of my life." We sometimes wonder that some of the
Evangelical clergy have been able to remain in a Church which treats the Fourth Commandment in this fashion. What, says the Catechism to "every person before he be brought to be
confirmed by the Bishop," dost thou learn from the Fourth Commandment ? I learn, says the Catechism, to serve God truly all the days of my life. There must be a great deal added to this answer before it can be fitted for Evangelical use. A Commandment from which all reference to Sunday is omitted may be the Fourth Commandment of the Church of England, but it is not the Fourth Commandment of a great many of her ministers.
We have inadvertently followed the example of the Upper House of Convocation. We have been arguing about the mind of the Church of England, when the real controversy is with people to whom the Church of England and Churches in general are nothing more than names. The only point that can be pressed to any good purpose upon Sunday pleasure-takers among the upper classes, is the very great injury they do to those who work hard in the week by forcing or tempting them to work on Sunday as well. There is no doubt as to the increase of Sunday labour of late years, and the whole of it is due to the increase of Sunday amusements. If amusement could be dissociated from labour, there would be nothing to be said against its principle. In the country, this is often the case. There, lawn-tennis, cricket, boating, may all be enjoyed without necessarily imposing any labour on other people. But in large towns, and especially in London, another consideration comes in even as regards these amusements. When they are resorted to on a Sunday by Londoners of the upper classes, it is usually out of London ; and then comes in the great question of locomotion. In theory, a holiday cannot be better spent than in a drive down to Richmond or a short train-journey to Maidenhead, followed in either case by a row up the Thames. But in practice we shall find that a holiday spent in this way by one set of people means that another set of people get no holiday at all. In their case, health, comfort, and happiness are sacrificed to enable the rich to do what they often do, in one shape or another, every day of their lives. What is the worth of a philanthropy which talks much about the mischiefs of overwork, and then deprives the victims of overwork of the one holiday that can possibly be theirs ? We are not thinking now of really busy people, of men who have no time to get out of London from Monday morning to Saturday night, and who, if they are to have fresh air or healthy exercise at all, must have it on a Sunday. Their case is a different one. They belong in fact, though not in name, to the working classes, and the arguments in favour of opening museums and running excursion-trains apply to them as well as to the poor. The Sunday labour we protest against is the labour imposed on others by people to whom in respect of useful work every day is a Sunday. They persuade themselves, no doubt, that they are merely taking needful relaxation,—unbending the bow that else would break, giving rest to the brain that else would give way beneath overpowering pressure. That they are weary alike in body and mind is probable enough, but it is the weariness of the tired reveller. There may be brain- pressure in amusement as well as in work, and in both cases the instinct of the sufferer is to take a double dose of the poison. If they can be induced to extend to others the kind- ness they will not show to themselves, they might check Sunday labour alike by their own forbearance from employing it and by the example set to others. In proportion as this end is attained, we shall keep the essentials of an English Sunday.
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