p. 36 | Absent-Minded by Editor

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

Absent-Minded.

By Editor

THIS is an expression used to denote want of attention to surrounding objects, actions, or conversation, the mind being drawn off to some remote object or train of thought. Persons in this state will often perform acts of which they are not conscious, and speak words which they do not mean. Illustrations of this unfortunate condition of mind occur more frequently among opponents of the Sabbath, than any other class of persons with whom we are acquainted.

For instance, the Advent Christian Times, says that S. D. Adventists should set a “more consistent example of law-keeping;” for the fourth commandment says that “in it [the seventh day] thou shalt NOT DO ANY WORK,” and in several instances the wives and children of Sabbath-keepers have acknowledged that, when meetings have been held in their neighborhood, and they had company to care for, they have worked harder on the Sabbath than upon any other day of the week. And again, we sometimes harness our teams and drive from three to ten miles to meeting on the Sabbath, and the commandment says that the beast shall rest and “NOT DO ANY WORK.”

And this is the sum and substance of our inconsistency, on which the Times claims that we stand “self-condemned,” and that if we are right, our thus working “will shut us out of ‘Heaven.’”

Is it possible that the Times understands the fourth commandment to oblige all those upon whom it is binding to stand like stocks and stones, as silent and as still as a statue, during the hours of the Sabbath? No, it does not suppose any thing of the kind.

Is it not aware that the kind of work forbidden, is distinctly specified as our work? Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath of the Lord, we are not to do any work—work, of course, of that nature.

Is it not also aware that any work pertaining to the worship of God is admitted by the law, and was even enjoined by the regulations which God made for his people, the Jewish priesthood having extra work assigned them upon that day?

And has it forgotten our Lord’s admirable vindication of the Sabbath from Pharisaic tradition and superstitions—a vindication made and recorded in the New Testament, especially for the benefit of his disciples, the Christians of this dispensation—a vindication in which he shows the perpetuity of the law, and convinced even the obtuse and bigoted Pharisees that works of mercy and necessity, such as relieving the distressed, and ministering to the physical wants of ourselves and our animals, were strictly in accordance with the Sabbath law?

And there is one point we should be pleased to have the Times, at its leisure, explain to the public. The word, Sabbath, is one of frequent occurrence in its columns. As often as the journal of its editor comes round to the first day of the week, that day is dignified with the title of Sabbath. As Sabbath means rest, the first day of the week is, in the vocabulary of the Times, a rest-day. What kind of a rest-day? Does not its editor usually work harder upon that day than upon any other of the seven? Has it anywhere found a Sabbath law commanding us to rest on a certain day, and work some? If there is any Sabbath at the present time, resting upon moral obligation, it rests upon the fourth commandment of the decalogue; and its observance must be regulated by that law—the very law upon which the Times now places such an absent-minded interpretation; for that is the only law in all the Bible for an institution of this kind. But if there is no Sabbath, then why this persistent clinging to a false name? A little explanation here may help the Times in the minds of those who think consistency is to be highly prized and carefully maintained.

It is needless to remind the Times that a weak argument is more damage than help to the cause in behalf of which it is advanced; and we therefore throw over its present effort the broad mantle of our Christian charity, attributing it not to any permanent weakness of judgment, but only to a temporary aberration of mind.