SUNDAY SERVICE

One of the little inexplicabilities with which one becomes acquainted by a Harvard education is the way in which the divine will is interpreted by the deliberative bodies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Just why, for instance, the playing of tennis is to be looked upon as unholy in the hours before 2 and after 6 o'clock of a Sunday afternoon, but is perfectly acceptable during the hours between is a particularly knotty theological problem. One might conjecture that the auspices were unfavorable to any other arrangement on the day when this regulation was enacted but there seems little other reason in a suspension of Sabbath for these afternoon hours.

This compromise with purity enables various of the unfaithful to get a little exercise and breathe the fresh air of nature for a few hours each Sunday and many are thankful for the tortuosity of belief which allows it. One factor still remains in the situation, however, to plague the happiness of the men who entered into this agreement with the Almighty. Does the Deity who frowns upon the playing of Sunday tennis except between 2 and 6 o'clock recognize the validity of daylight saving time? In the light of Einsteinian ideas of space-time, one hesitates to get into discussions on this sort of thing, and perhaps it would be wise to leave the matter with the mere positing of the problem. But the fact remains that time is not the same in one place as in another and that by the immutable statute of Massachusetts it is different at different times of the year. The manifold complexities of the problem indicate that it may be better to simplify the situation, and by a further extension of Puritan dialectic render tenns playing unobjectionable at all times. After all it's a pretty good game and rather more conducive to brotherly love than driving about on a crowded Sunday afternoon highway.