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Articles by John Redford Scott

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They Love Canada's Sunday

Not long ago he was talking about  the National  Exhibition at Toronto. He told of his interviews, with some of the public performers. While  the show is on many of them work fourteen and fifteen hours a day making from forty to fifty public appearances.  One troupe on being asked how they liked Canada said.  "We love Canada's Sunday." There was no show then and for them it afforded a welcome rest.  They enjoyed the quietness and restfulness of the day in Toronto.

In a rural community of Nova Scotia, Sunday night hockey games were under consideration.  With access to the rink all week there was no desperate need for the games at that hour.  A number of the keenest enthusiasts for the sport took a strong stand against the suggestion.  Some of them while not active in the church (I regret to say) did not want to see Sunday evening in that village a time for organized hockey.

Many people appreciate and learn to appreciate Sunday as different from other days of the week.  When under exceptional circumstances or in performing acts of mercy they must work all Sunday, they would regret to see it lose, as in some quarters, all significance as a Christian observance of worship and quiet rest.  A certain amount of freedom in the use of the Lord's Day has its place in the interests of spiritual welfare.  We need to be careful, however, of practices that turn Sunday into a noisy commercialized holiday.  Advocates of commercialized sport and, other entertainment are not lacking.  The Lord's Day is a distinctively Christian observance with hallowed associations and embodying the Sabbath principle of a weekly rest day.

Canada's Sunday, to be preserved so that it can be loved for its quiet and worshipful atmosphere requires a certain vigilance against practices that would do much to destroy it.  It requires more careful use by the great majority of people who value it.