Never on the Sabbath (3)
Thursday in Tarbert, a fast day, was very like a Sabbath with everything closed - shops, banks, businesses, bars and restaurants were all shut as silence settled over the Harris town and people began preparations for the Autumn Communion. But there was no rest for the Rev Alex Murdo MacLeod as he set out from his Free Kirk manse at Kinloch for the island of Scalpay and the first of six services he would help conduct over the weekend.
As chairman of the Lewis and Harris branch of the Lord's Day Observance Society, he has been at the centre of the opposition to the CalMac proposals, and he admits it can be difficult to bridge the gulf in understanding which separates those brought up on Lewis and Harris from most mainlanders. "It's a very emotive subject," he said.
"I think it takes very little knowledge of this place to realise that the regular sailing of Sunday ferries and the disgorging of passengers, cars, lorries and vans would be a terrible disruption to the community's life. One cannot measure the degree or nature of that disruption, except in so far as realising what the Lord's Day means in this community. It takes many years on this island to understand that.
Pausing, and groping for words in an effort to cross the cultural divide, he said: " The significance of the Lord's Day here is in the spiritual plane and that is something that is very difficult to put across to inquirers unless they themselves are born again Christian people who love the Lord's Day. The moral law of God requires us to apply the Fourth Commandment as much as any other.
