Who Gives Us the Sabbath? by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 8, 1909

Who Gives Us the Sabbath?

By C. M. S.

If the state refuses to give men a Sabbath law, are men, then, without a Sabbath? Can men have no Sabbath unless the state passes a law creating one?

These questions are suggested by an editorial in a recent issue of the United Presbyterian, entitled “A Crusade Against the Sabbath.” The editor takes the position that “the New York Legislature may, probably, be said to be the most active in the antisabbath crusade,” because a number of bills “have been introduced antagonistic to the quietness and rest of the Holy Day. These attack the day at almost every point, and altogether constitute such a deadly assault that one is constrained to think there has been a conspiracy in their preparation.”

An indication as to what the “deadly assault” consists in is seen in this expression from the same editorial: “One bill proposes permission to conduct secular business as usual on the sabbath [Sunday] by such as observe Saturday as a day of rest, and another extends the permission [to labor on Sunday] to all who keep any other day of the week as holy time.”

So far as this editorial indicates, this constitutes the sum and substance of the “deadly assault” now being made “against the Sabbath.” Surely our esteemed contemporary is making much of little. Does it necessarily follow that, because a small minority of the people are granted the rights that are freely exercised by the majority, this is necessarily a “conspiracy” against established institutions? that it is necessarily a “deadly assault” upon “the Christian sabbath”? We think not.

The man who believes Sunday to be the Sabbath enjoined by Jehovah, and observes it, is guaranteed the right to six days of labor for the support of himself and those dependent upon him. If the man who believes the seventh day of the week to be the Sabbath enjoined by Jehovah, and observes it, is guaranteed six days of labor for the support of himself and his family, why should this be considered a “conspiracy” and a “deadly assault” upon the other man’s rest day?

It is a plain impossibility for the minority to take away from the majority their Sabbath by the mere act of resting on any one day of the week and working the other six days. The majority keep Sunday. The minority keep Friday or Saturday. How can the action of the minority in this respect rob the majority of their Sabbath? The plea that it can or does is a specious one. How much greater reason have the minority to claim that they are robbed of their Sabbath by the action of the majority, especially when the majority lay upon the minority a tax of one sixth of their time for keeping the Sabbath they do!

But the editor of the United Presbyterian passes over this very lightly indeed. He says: “This is a Christian land, . . . and they who seek safety and a home here should accept the situation.” But whether this is a Christian land or not depends altogether upon the conduct of the inhabitants of the land toward those who live among them or come among them. It is contrary to fact to claim that this is a “Christian land” while we are doing our best to establish or perpetuate conditions that are repugnant to the most elemental sense of justice. When I demand of my neighbor what I am unwilling to grant him, I am not a Christian; and if the majority are of that way of thinking and acting, the land is not a Christian land. “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” He does not follow that rule who insists that I rest upon the day on which he worships, and also insists upon his own right to work the full remaining six days of the week. He is demanding of me what he is not willing that I should demand of him, is breaking the golden rule, and so is not following Christ or rightly representing him to the world. A land governed by that principle is not a Christian land.

But the editor continues:—

If the Jew thinks it hard to be compelled to forego the profits of business on one day [one extra day], he should remember that it would be an immeasurably greater hardship for the great body of the people to be deprived of the Holy Day.

Is it a fact, then, that if a law should be passed permitting those to labor on Sunday who had already rested upon and worshiped upon another day of the week, the people would “be deprived of the Holy Day”? Is this particular “Holy Day” of so fragile a nature that a fraction of the people working upon it shatters and destroys it for the whole people? Is it so delicately constructed that it will be lost even to its best friends unless the few observers of the Sabbath of Jehovah are compelled to keep it also? Is it as a Sabbath based upon human law alone, and incapable of its own perpetuation even in the bosom of its friends unless state legislatures come to its rescue? If such be the case, we can well understand the solicitude of the advocates of Sunday laws. With no divine

law for its support, its advocates must thus trample upon the most sacred rights of mankind to preserve to it a semblance of authority and perpetuity. They who do so are unacquainted with the meaning or the purpose of the Sabbatic institution.

The Sabbath of Jehovah was designed to be a memorial of creation and a sign between God and his people to all generations. Men have sought to change the institution from one day to another, and to make it a sign of oppression instead of a sign of love and loyalty between God and his children. The effort has brought in confusion as verily as did the efforts of the Babel builders to reach heaven by a tower and a gateway of their own.

God has given us the Sabbath, and in his keeping it is safe; and in our keeping of the institution he gave, as he gave it, there is rest and peace and blessing.

C. M. S.