Will Worship, and No Worship.
By Editor
THE last paragraph of the letter upon which we commented last week reads as follows:— "If infidels care nothing for Sunday, how can you make them respect Saturday? Why not change their hearts instead of their calendar?" We will notice the last question first. That such a question could be asked, is evidence of the almost entire absence of thought concerning the subject of the Sabbath. How the questioner could have obtained the idea that anybody wants to change the calendar, is beyond all comprehension. It is certain that we do not desire any such thing. We are satisfied with the calendar that we have. With Bishop Haven, we believe that our week corresponds to the Hebrew week,—the genuine week,—and that "the Jewish Sabbath," as he termed Saturday, is the true seventh day, the one which God blessed and sanctified. All the change we desire, is a change in men's hearts, a change which will be indicated by their changed practices. Keeping the calendar that they have, we want them to rest upon the day which God appointed, instead of on one of which he spoke nothing; to obey the word of the Lord, instead of their own inclinations. If we were in the habit of going to San Francisco every Wednesday, and should change our custom and afterward go on Tuesday, would we thereby change the calendar, or the reckoning of days? Of course not. Why cannot people reason as intelligently in regard to moral duties as they do concerning ordinary, temporal affairs? The first question in the paragraph above quoted indicates another erroneous idea that has obtained considerable currency. It is imagined that if people lose their confidence in the Sunday institution they will pay no regard to any day; and from this point people jump to the conclusion that we do wrong in exposing the fraud by which Sunday is made to appear to be the Sabbath. We shall see how much truth there is in these conclusions. "If infidels care nothing for Sunday, how can you make them respect Saturday?" In turn, we would ask, If people do not lose their respect for Sunday as a sacred institution, how can they be made to respect the Sabbath of the Lord? Said the Saviour, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon;" "no man can serve two masters." So no man can regard the Sabbath as holy to the Lord, and at the same time give equal homage to Sunday. To answer more directly, we say that we could get them to respect the Sabbath, by inducing them to respect its Author. Let their hearts be changed, so that they will reverence God and his word, and the work is already done. If people really have reverence for God's word (not merely such portions as suit their fancy, but the whole of it), they will reverence the fourth commandment; and if they respect the fourth commandment, they must necessarily keep the seventh day,—Saturday,—as is therein enjoined. As a matter of fact there are thousands who now respect God's holy Sabbath, who have not the slightest regard for Sunday; and the number of such persons is being increased every day. We readily grant that the great majority of people cannot be induced to respect the Sabbath; but shall we for this reason cease to work for those who will accept the truth? Because we cannot rescue the inmates of a burning building, shall we make no effort to save any? And now we would like to ask our friend a question. If a man is an infidel, what difference will it make whether he respects Sunday or not? Will the respect that he may have for Sunday atone for his unbelief? Perhaps there are not many who would answer this question in the affirmative, and yet it is the position that thousands of professed Christians really hold. There is a society called the "National Reform Association," which puts a premium on just such religion as that. To have Sunday kept strictly is really the one great point for which they labor. Says its organ, concerning some officials who traveled on Sunday, "Not one of those men is fit to hold office in the nation." It would introduce a new kind of civil service reform, and make one's zeal for the Sunday, and his strictness in observing it, the test of his fitness for office. Now when that party gets strong enough to dictate to the nation, how long will it be before every politician, whether infidel or Jew, will be a strict Sunday-keeper? Not long; and by the National Reform Association this will be counted to them for righteousness. Yet these same people charge Adventists with having no religion but the Sabbath. A frequent charge against Seventh-day Adventists is that they destroy people's confidence in the Sunday sabbath, and do not succeed in persuading them to keep Saturday. It is claimed that these people are left in a worse condition than they were before, and that therefore the work of Seventh-day Adventists is wholly bad. The charge is not true. As we before stated, the number of Sabbath-keepers is being daily increased; and these accessions come from the ranks of infidelity as well as from those who have always revered the Bible, and who have walked in all the light that they had. But not all that hear the truth obey. Now are these in a worse condition than before? Undoubtedly, a man cannot reject light with impunity. The preaching of Christ, while it won some, hardened others. He himself said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." John 15:22. Will our friends charge Christ with doing a bad work because he left some people worse than they were before? And yet, in the particular case under consideration, we doubt if persons are made any worse by57losing faith in the supposed sacredness of Sunday, even if they do not accept the true Sabbath. Is one error better than another? We know that it is a grievous sin for a man to refuse to regard any day as holy, when the Lord has said, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" but is that man disobeying God any more than the one who not only deliberately refuses to obey the command of the Lord, but who shows his contempt for that command by doing something exactly the opposite? We would not wish to occupy the position of either one. Here is a father who has two sons. One of them hears his father's wishes and commands, and then invariably goes contrary to them, and the other refuses to do anything; would you say that the first is better than the second? Would you not rather say that both are bad and deserving of punishment? Take the first commandment. Our friends can use their reason in regard to this commandment, because their own interests are not directly affected by it. But there are millions who now practice the grossest forms of idolatry. Now it is a fact that thousands who hear the teaching of the missionaries, never accept it. Take the Japanese, for instance. As a nation they are idolaters. Much missionary work has been done among them, and now Christianity is tolerated in Japan. There are many Japanese Christians, many native Japanese who are preaching the gospel to their fellow-men. But we now find that of educated Japanese the great majority are infidels. This is a noted fact. They look on the worship of God and the worship of idols with equal disdain. Why is this? They have been led to see something of the foolishness of worshiping gods of wood or bronze, and have gone to the other extreme, believing in nothing. Shall we call back the missionaries from Japan? Shall we conclude that they are doing a bad work? Will our opposers say that it would be better to let all the Japanese remain heathen than to convert a few at the expense of making the rest infidels? Is it better to worship a log of wood than to worship nothing? To all of these questions we think we hear an emphatic, No. Better that a few be saved than that all perish. We would that all could see this matter in its true light. We have known people who acknowledged that Saturday—the seventh day—is the only true Sabbath, but who thought that they could appease the wrath of God against their disobedience, by keeping Sunday very strictly. How deceitful is sin! It blinds men so that they call evil good, and good evil. May the Lord enable our brother and many others who are in a like position, to realize that obedience is what is required, and that all stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.