p. 256 | Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 1, 1867.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT ADAPTED TO MODERN FASHIONABLE WORSHIP.

To understand the following, the reader must keep in mind the programme of the fashionable city church-goer of to-day. His servant drives him to his temple on Sunday morning, in his luxurious carriage. The driver waits without, while his master goes in to listen to smooth and pleasing fables. Meanwhile his maid-servant is at home preparing his sumptuous Sunday dinner, to which his man-servant drives him home, when his worship is ended. Some genius has adapted the fourth commandment to these circumstances, to suit which, it is found necessary to read it as follows:—

“Remember the first day of the week, to keep it holy. The other six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work, but the first day is the day of the church; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter; but thy man-servant shall attend to thy chariot and horses early in the morning, and shall see that thy equipage is in order, and drive thee therein to the sanctuary of the Lord, and he shall wait there, sitting without the temple upon the chariot, until thou shalt have offered the sacrifice of ‘a broken and contrite heart’ upon the altar of the Lord, and he shall then drive thee home, that thou mayest fare sumptuously on the repast which thy maid-servant has prepared for thee in the sweat of her brow.”