A Frank Admission

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 9, 1882

A Frank Admission.

THE California Christian Advocate, the organ of the M. E. Church on the Pacific Coast, and one of the most ably-conducted of Methodist journals, has announced the true status of the Sunday. We quote a paragraph from its issue of March 1. The italics are ours—

"There is but one ground the Christian citizens of the State can occupy in reference to the Sabbath: They must keep it holy. But when we plead for a law for it as a day of rest, we can justify that only on the ground that it is according to the law of nature, and necessary to men. Unless it is legalized, we cannot have it, for heartless greed will compel perpetual toil. The Government of Japan enforces a Sunday law: that is, they close government offices, and stop work. The State of Indiana has a Sabbath law, and the 'saloonatics' tried to break it down, but the Supreme Court of the State has recently decided the law to be constitutional, and it stands, the friend of the poor man and of all. We cannot sustain it before the people, if we claim its sanctity as a religious institution. It is necessary to the life and health of the people."

Men will always use the strongest arguments they have, and we expect soon to see all the religious teachers abandon the attempt to prop up the Sunday institution by Scripture testimony, and resort to the civil law. When they do this, many honest souls who have been blinded by their sophistries, will step out into the clear light of God's truth. But what a humiliating position for a religious journal to occupy, to plead for a civil enactment to enforce a religious custom which it is forced to confess cannot be supported by the Bible. In the next paragraph, the same writer says that "the great and imperative need is personal and entire consecration to God, on the part of ministers and laymen." This taken in connection with the above statement, seems like mockery. "Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth."