SENTIMENT is growing rapidly in favor of one day’s rest in seven. Ex-President Roosevelt expressed himself very strongly on this point when he was a candidate two years ago on the Progressive ticket. The idea of favoring one day’s rest in seven was in their party platform. Leading men in both church and state are endorsing the principle and urging it. Labor organizations in many places are calling for it. The Bible is certainly very specific in commanding men to observe the Sabbath day; but while God gives the command, He leaves the individual to choose for himself whether or not he will obey. If he obeys, God has a reward for him. If he refuses to obey, he must meet the consequences of his disobedience. So there is no denying the fact that there is a moral obligation resting upon individuals to observe the Sabbath day; but when this moral obligation is shifted so as to give the impression that one day in seven is all that is required, the very plain terms of the Sabbath commandment are subverted. One of the great moral issues that is yet to be fought out in428this world is that of God’s Sabbath on the one hand and the counterfeit sabbath on the other. There is absolutely no divine authority for the observance of Sunday; but the great leader in the rebellion against God has brought this counterfeit sabbath into the world, and has led men well-nigh universally throughout Christendom to observe it. Very many of these people honestly believe they are following the requirements of God in doing thus, but such is not the case. We may know this for ourselves if we will read the Bible upon the subject. But as a result of this one-day-in-seven theory that is promulgated, there will arise a popular demand for a rest day; and after the popular demand is created, the day that will be chosen will be Sunday. Then the effort will be made, through Sunday laws that are now on the statute-books of most of the states, and also of the so-called Christian nations of the world, to enforce upon every individual the observance of that one particular day, regardless of his conscientious convictions. We have exemption clauses now; but these exemption clauses will be finally repealed, because an ecclesiastical despotism can never admit any exceptions to its rules. The reasons for reaching these conclusions have been pointed out again and again in the columns of this journal during the forty years of its existence. This is a matter of specific Bible prophecy. The seventh-day Sabbath is to be thrown into intense conflict with the counterfeit sabbath that the greater part of the world observes, and the one-day-in-seven-rest theory is one of the very innocent appearing plans through which the counterfeit is brought to the front and urged upon the conscience of men. All kinds of sentiment will be worked into the discussion. Among other things, appeal will be made in the name of the oppressed and downtrodden. And certainly there is enough in that field to make the strongest kind of appeals. But sentiment that does not carry with it absolute loyalty to God and to His expressed law, is built upon an insecure foundation.