Keeping the Sabbath Holy
By C. A. Osgood
THE worldling, fatigued and exhausted by intense labor, may take pleasure in the refreshment of the body which the Sabbath affords; but none but those who are truly spiritually-minded, can call it "a delight" in the Scripture sense. This is God's institution. It is a memorial of his work and his rest. The other days are for our secular labors, thoughts and words. This day is to think of God and truth, to talk of these things, to attend to the worship of the Creator, to delight ourselves in thus observing the day. We are not to regard it as a burden, a yoke which we can not well bear, a weariness, but we should regard its worship, its cessation from secular labors, thoughts and words, its communion with God, its instructions and holy influences, as delightsome; for so God designed they should be. Our own pleasure, in social intercourse, and otherwise, that is not directly connected with our own or other's spiritual interests, should not be sought. Our own words, those that refer to our secular business or interests, or that of others, the secular news of the day, or with regard to general knowledge, should not be spoken till the sacred season is past. This is the day to talk with God, to talk of God and divine truth. This day is set apart to God. And if we may not speak of secular things on this day, we must hear as little as may be. And of course we should lay by all reading but that which tends to our spiritual good, or that of others. Secular and agricultural newspapers and books and scientific works, school books, &c., are for week-day use, and not for the Sabbath. As talking is little more than "thinking aloud," the thoughts should be kept off from the common business of life, that we may contemplate divine truth, revealed truth. "They who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength." To keep the Sabbath faithfully is one way to wait on the Lord. Well-spent Sabbaths are delightful ones. They help to prepare us to meet properly the cares, temptations, and associations of the secular days of the week. But if we spend the intervals between religious services in talking about the crops, the weather, the news, making bargains, &c., and in reading on like subjects, we lose the blessing God wishes us to receive. "To waste these Sabbath hours,
O may we never dare;
Nor desecrate with words of ours,
These sacred days of prayer."
C. A. OSGOOD.