Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/259

 Parisian singer of the "café chantant" to entertain the company afterwards, were once unknown in England on a Sunday. But such "Sabbath" entertainments are quite ordinary now. The private house copies the public restaurant—more's the pity!

Nevertheless, though Society's Sunday has degenerated into a day of gambling, guzzling, and motoring in Great Britain, it is well to remember that Society in itself is so limited as to be a mere bubble on the waters of life—froth and scum, as it were, that rises to the top, merely to be skimmed off and thrown aside in any serious national crisis. The People are the life and blood of the nation, and to them Sunday remains still a "day of rest," though, perhaps, not so much as in old time a day of religion. And that it is not so much a day of religion is because so many preachers have failed in their mission. They have lost grip. There is no cause whatever for their so losing it, save such as lies within themselves. There has been no diminution in the outflow of truth from the sources of Divine instruction, but rather an increase. The wonders of the universe have been unfolded in every direction by the Creator to His creature. There is everything for the minister of God to say. Yet how little is said! "Feed my sheep!" was the command of the Master. But the sheep have cropped all the old ways of thought down to the bare ground, and their inefficient shepherds now know not where to lead them, though their Lord's command is as imperative as ever. So the flock, being hungry, have broken down the fences of tradition, and are scampering away in disorder to