p. 128 | A JOKE WITH A POINT by J. H. Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1880

A JOKE WITH A POINT.

By J. H. Waggoner

The Santa Barbara Press contains the following:—

"Mamma, I'm going to start a Sunday-school, next Saturday, for the Spanish children. I think that would be doing something for God, don't you? asked a little Santa Barbara miss of nine years, the other day."

To which the San Francisco daily Alta appends the following:—

"But it will mix up the recording angel's books. How can he run in a Sunday-school among Saturday's matinees and fights?"

Coming to facts, the Alta overlooks the abundance of "Sunday entertainments" in its own vicinity. With the Sunday excursions, Sunday picnics, the open Gardens, the match games of base ball, shooting matches, special Sunday attractions at Woodward's Gardens, open saloons, and cigar stands, and other sports literally "too numerous to mention," the Sunday-school occupies a very small place in a San Francisco Sunday.

But the point made by the Press is worthy of note It refers to the incongruity of a Sunday-school on Saturday. But there is little chance to laugh over the mistake of the "little Santa Barbara miss of nine years," while so many aged people, of large opportunities, are continually making the blunder of thinking that they hold Sabbath-school on Sunday! Look at the following facts:—

There is no chance to question the fact that Sunday is the first day of the week. And all that we can know of the Sabbath we learn from the Bible—it is entirely a Bible institution. But the Bible distinctly says that "the seventh day is the Sabbath." This is the unvarying testimony of the Old Testament; and every one of the many mentions of the Sabbath in the New Testament refers to the same day. As in Luke 23:56, and 24:1, the Sabbath day, upon which they rested "according to the commandment," was immediately followed by the first day of the week. Indeed, no day but the seventh day can possibly be the Sabbath of the Lord; for Sabbath means rest, and as the Sabbath institution is based solely on the facts of creation, that day alone can be the Sabbath, or rest of the Lord upon which he rested, which was the seventh day. There is no hint in all the Bible of any institution of a Sabbath on the first day, of any commandment or obligation for its observance. It is not the Sabbath. Now, if it can be truly considered an incongruity to hold Sunday-school on Saturday, is not the incongruity equally great to hold Sabbath-school on Sunday? The idea of holding Sunday-school on another day than Sunday, is quite as reasonable as that of holding Sabbath-school on another day than the Sabbath.

J. H. WAGGONER.