Protestants and Sabbath Observance
the PROTESTANT pastors admit that Protestants do not keep the Sabbath. This charge against Protestants was recently made by Rev. C. F. J. Wrigley, of Brooklyn, in an essay read before the alumni of the General Theological Seminary. He is quoted as saying:— “How can we say that one law is to be kept and not another? Nevertheless, men are not willing to put the law of the Sabbath in the same category as the laws against murder and theft.” In the next sentence he stated, though unconsciously, an important truth. “It is a question,” he said, “whether the Church of Rome, in giving an emphasis to the early Sunday mass, and allowing the rest of the day to be used for recreation and amusement, is not responsible for the present laxity of Sunday observance. Some of our own churches follow similar teachings, and share the responsibility.” The complicity of Rome in the evil of present-day Sabbath desecration is a fact worthy of much more attention than most Protestants have heretofore given it. The example of Rome in the disregard of the Sabbath has been followed by Protestants, or, rather, the leading Protestant bodies have not yet separated from Rome in this important particular, and if they would but realize it, have nothing but the authority and example of Rome to base their Sunday observance on. The papacy has substituted Sunday for the Sabbath as the mark of its spiritual power and authority, and Protestants, in following the papacy, have cut loose from the authority of God and Scripture, and have no good foundation on which to stand in the matter of Sabbath observance. Of this grave error the present condition of things is a direct and natural result. The remedy lies in a return to the Word of God as the sole rule of Christian practise.