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The Christian Sabbath

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 13, 1905

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 15.

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The Christian Sabbath

By Stephens

O SABBATH! Needed for a world of innocence, without thee what would be a world of sin! There would be no pause for consideration, no check to passion, no remission of toil, no balm of care! He who had withheld thee would have forsaken the earth! Without thee, he had never given us the Bible, the gospel, the Spirit! We salute thee, as thou comest to us in the name of the Lord, radiant in the sunshine of that dawn which broke over creation's achieved work, marching downward in the track of time, a pillar of refreshing cloud and guiding flame, interweaving with all the light new beams of discovery and promise, until thou standest forth more fair than when reflected in the dews and imbibed by the flowers of Eden, more awful than when the trumpet rang of thee in Sinai! It is a day of heaven upon earth! Life's sweetest calm, poverty's birthright, labor's only rest! Nothing has such a hoar of antiquity on it! Nothing draws along with it such glory! Nurse of virtue, seal of truth! The household's richest patrimony, the nation's noblest safeguard! The pledge of peace, the fountain of intelligence, the strength of law! The oracle of instruction, the ark of mercy! The patent of our spiritual greatness! The harbinger of our soul's sanctified perfection! The glory of religion, the watch-tower of immortality! The ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reacheth to heaven with the angels of God ascending and descending on it.—Stephens.