THE CLERGY AND THE SUNDAY.
ANOTICEABLE change has come over the Sabbatarian movement during the last few years. It has been in a great measure swallowed up in a wider and more fanatical agitation than itself. This may be clearly seen from the proceedings at the annual meeting of the Lord's Day Observ- ance Society this week. The Report is full of details as to sundry minor contests in which the Society is engaged, but it assumes a different tone, a tone of far greater reality and force, when it touches the question of the Sunday liquor traffic. The people who care greatly for the better observance of Sunday for its own sake are probably but a very little flock ; the people who wish that nobody shall have the chance of getting any- thing to drink on Sunday are by comparison a great multitude. Happily there is no chance that it will ever be the interest of the Government to separate the allies. If it were, it might easily be done, by proposing to close public-houses on week-days and open them on Sundays. The opponents of the liquor traffic would be bound in consistency to accept this offer, as being a great advance upon their own demand, and the Lord's Day Observance Society would have the pain of seeing how much larger a place the suppression of drinking holds in the minds of many who are now working with them than the stricter keeping of the Sun- day. It is quite natural that the older movement should give place to the newer, because the older movement rests wholly on the misinterpretation of a few arbitrarily-selected Scripture • texts. The Report of the Society notices the terrible imputa- tion, that the Scripture argument is now very generally ignored by the defenders of the Lord's Day, and inasmuch as it says no more by way of answer than that "the Committee, at all events, have always and everywhere taken their stand on the basis of God's Holy Word," those who drew it up may be supposed not to feel quite easy as to the possible truth of the charge. The agitation for closing public-houses on Sunday has this great recommendation over the general agitation—if agitation it can be called—for the observance of Sunday, that it can point to positive evils associated with the open- ing of public-houses on that day. All that well-intentioned zeal which, provided that it can see that a particular remedy is a specific for a particular malady, does not inquire as to any other results of its application, is naturally called forth by the proposal to shut public-houses on the day when men have most time to go to them. The fact that this zeal is not necessarily religious rather increases than lessens its fanaticism. A social movement which has no necessary association with religion will sometimes surpass in fanaticism the movements ordinarily associated with religion. The author of this particular agitation seems bent upon showing that religious people have no monopoly of enthusiasm, and that all the passion and one-sidedness which has been so often encoun- tered wearing the livery of this or that Church, may now be found enlisted in a cause which recruits its adherents from a wider field than the most comprehensive theology can embrace.
The attitude of the Clergy towards the Temperance move- ment may be cited as the latest example of "Americanising our institutions." The memorial in favour of Sunday closing in England which was presented to the Home Secretary last week was signed by 6,768 clergymen, while a similar memorial was signed by Cardinal Manning, eight Roman Catholic bishops, and 887 priests. There is undoubtedly a considerable and increasing tendency on the part of the clergy to give up the use of intoxicating liquors in their own houses, and though as yet it cannot be said that class opinion is brought to bear to increase the number of those who take this line, the opinion of particular groups and sets of clergy is undoubtedly used for this purpose. In the United States, ministers of almost all denominations have been carried away by a similar current of feeling, and it may be doubted whether a breach of the new Commandment, "Thou shalt not drink," would not do as much harm to a clerical reputation in America as a breach of any of the older and less interesting Ten. The extension of this tendency to England is to be regretted, because it must, to all appearance, tend to widen the gulf between the clergy and the working-classes. We do not deny that there is a section of the working-classes which strongly supports the Total Abstinence movement. But it is only a section, and we greatly doubt whether it is an increasing section. Anyhow, it is a section which can, so to say, take care of itself, and the business of the clergy is to take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves. The abstain- ing working-men are the ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance ; the drinking working-man is the wander- ing sheep. But the proportions of the two classes are almost reversed, and if the clergy persistently identify themselves with the abstaining minority, they will in- evitably lose influence with the drinking majority. Of course, those who hold alcohol to be a pure poison, or drinking even in moderation to be an actual sin, will reply that the clergy must not wink at a vice which destroys both body and soul, merely on the chance that they will be able to moderate its effects in a few isolated cases. It is not, how- ever, the few isolated cases that we are thinking of. We desire to see the clergy really striving to increase the opportunities and appliances for moderate drinking, as opposed to excessive drinking. For all that appears to the contrary, the public- house must long continue to be the natural resort of a working- man who wishes to enjoy the society of his friends, and to spend an hour or two amidst somewhat brighter surroundings than are ordinarily attainable in a working-man's home. No common-places about domestic ties will alter the facts that this home is not always in a state to ensure him comfort, and that his wife does not want to have him at home when the home is not comfortable. Among the working-classes the sexes ordinarily take their enjoyments apart, just as they did in a higher class a century ago. No attempt at making drunkenness less common will be of any permanent use, unless this necessity for light and warmth and society and "something to drink" is recognised as a natural and legitimate necessity. If it is a necessity on week-days, it is still more a necessity on Sundays, because then the working-man has leisure in which to realise and consult his necessities. It is true that the public-house, as it is, is the worst possible place in which it is possible for him to realise and consult them. But to close public-houses on Sunday will not of itself supply working-men with places more suitable to their real wants. To do this must be the work of people who have imagination enough to picture to themselves what a public-house might be, and resolution enough to try and give shape to their conception. To agitate for the closing of public- houses, whether on Sundays or on any other day, is even at the best to put the cart before the horse.
We do not deny that the Sunday question is surrounded with many difficulties. The theory of a weekly holiday which shall be a day of religious observance to those who wish so to employ it, and of refreshment and enjoyment to all, is very hard to put into practice. The strange misconception which imports a Jewish ordinance into the Christian Church stands in the way in this country, while on the Continent the fierce hostility to the Church which animates the working-class has made it almost a duty to work hard on the Sunday, because the Church bids men rest. There is a special difficulty, too, in the circumstance that recreation is now so much more a matter of organisation than it used to be. The days when the workman could walk on the Sunday to some place a little way out of London, and there amuse himself with his fellows without making anybody except the maid who waited on them work, are over. To get the same amount of pleasure, omnibuses, tramways, and railways have to be pressed into the service, and each one of these agencies involves the employment of a large number of men. The working-class see this plainly, and partly from a fear lest Sunday play should prove a cover for Sunday work, and partly from a genuine fellow-feeling for those who must lose their own holiday in order to make holiday for others, they look with coldness and even with suspicion on all proposals for making the Sunday any less dull than it is. They are so far right, that there can be no really healthy extension of Sunday amusement which does not provide a holiday, on some other day, for those who have to give up their pleasure in order to provide pleasure for others.
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