p. 36 | A Very Poor Joke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · BATTLE CREEK, MICH. · Jan 17, 1871

A Very Poor Joke.

THE World’s Crisis undertakes to perpetrate the latest sensation of the season. Read the following:—

“In Alaska, California, the people keep Saturday for the first day of the week. This territory was formerly a part of Russia, and the people received their first day from those who went east to Alaska. When others came west to the same point, they had lost a day, and found themselves keeping for Sunday the Alaskans’ Monday. On one occasion, a ship’s crew arrived at Alaska, which had carefully kept the first day during their voyage, but found on their arrival that the Alaskans’ Sunday came a day earlier. The captain required his men to keep the same day as the Alaskans. The crew prosecuted the captain for requiring them to work on their Sabbath; and the case was tried in the California court, and decision was given against the captain.

“QUERY. If a particular day is to be kept as the Sabbath, which one should be observed at Alaska by those who reach that place from opposite directions? Who knows?”

There are some particulars on which the writer of the foregoing seems to have been particularly muddled.

In the first place, there is no such territory as Alaska in California.

Secondly, think of California’s ever having been a part of Russia!

Thirdly, who ever heard of a sea-captain who was so exceedingly scrupulous as to think he must conform in practice to the customs of every country he visited, and must compel his crew to do the same? Fortunate for that captain, or rather for his crew, that he did not visit the islands inhabited by cannibals. If he had, they would doubtless have found themselves served up from time to time to be devoured by their voracious commander!

Fourthly, who ever heard of a sea-captain who cared particularly which day of the week his crew kept? especially one who would take it upon him to control the consciences of his men in this respect? and, stranger still, who would attempt to make them change their life-long practice to conform to the views and practice of a strange people, of a different church on a foreign shore? That sea-captain is a myth. He was probably commander of that ship, the old hulk of which is said now to be bleaching on the sand in the middle of a desert, away in the interior of California, many hundred feet above the level of the sea!

Fifthly, it is said that the people of Alaska received their first day from those who went east. Who were these people who went “east,” and when did they go? When was this work of evangelization accomplished?

Sixthly, the writer says, “When others came west.” Who were these “others,” and when did they come west? We want to know about this.

Seventhly, “On one occasion, a ship’s crew arrived,” &c. When was this occasion? As it is, we are left to search for it anywhere this side the discovery of America. Can’t we have it a little more definite? And,

Eighthly, that crew were such incarnations of conscientiousness that they prosecuted the captain for being compelled to work on their Sabbath; and the case was tried in the court of California (California, we suppose, has but one!) and was decided against the captain. By what law? We wonder if it was that by which California now allows the opening of the theater upon Sunday.

And all this strange transaction has just come to light; the world has just heard of it! The whole narrative gives prima facie evidence of being a canard and a fraud. And it is too late in the day for attempted jokes of this kind. There are too many railroads and telegraphs to give them any chance of success.

The fact is, a class of persons, zealously interested in the Sabbath controversy, have for years been longing for a reliable narrative of this kind; and somebody has been trifling with their agony. This is too bad. And it is unfortunate for them that, after waiting so long and anxiously for an actual occurrence of this kind, an attempt to manufacture one to suit their purpose, should have been so bungling.

But, seriously, if the minds of the people are ever to be unsettled on the great principles of the Sabbath, it must be by facts, not by any such transparent fiction.

And lastly, it will be noticed that all the trouble above narrated, occurred among Sunday-keepers. All parties believed they must keep the definite first day of the week, but, if we may credit the statements, found themselves in difficulty. We have never heard of any who kept the seventh day getting into any such trouble. And to say that we are liable to as much trouble with our Sabbath as Sunday-keepers have with theirs, is a very poor excuse for not keeping it. When we hear of any such instance, it will be time to consider it further. Meanwhile we leave Sunday-keepers to get out of the difficulty, as best they can, in which they have involved themselves for the sake of involving their neighbors.