SOMETHING ABOUT SABBATH-KEEPING.
By Editor
A GENTLEMAN in Chicago, who has received a few copies of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, writes to us expressing his appreciation of the paper, and asks some questions, which we are very happy to answer. The first is as follows:— "If that particular day [the seventh day of the week] is essential, is it possible that God would have permitted the Christian church, whom he designed for such a glorious work, through all these eighteen hundred years to make such a great mistake?" We might ask in reply why, if pure Christian morality is essential, the Lord would let "the church" for more than a thousand years become a sink of corruption? If the Bible is essential, why did the Lord let "the church" burn all the Bibles it could get hold of? Or we might go farther back, and say, If the worship of one God is essential, why did the Lord allow almost the whole world to go into idolatry? To all of these questions, which are the same, two answers may be given:— First, the Lord has placed men on this earth as candidates for immortality. That can be given only to those who do well. But in order that men may do well, they must be given an opportunity to "do,"—they must be left free to choose for themselves. There is no virtue in the performance of right, when the individual could not possibly do anything else. There are thousands of men who do not drink, smoke, steal, nor commit any crime whatever, yet we do not call them models of virtue, nor do we attribute any virtue at all to them. The reason is that they are in jail, and cannot do any of those things. So if God should, by the exercise of his almighty power, compel all people to walk in the right path, there would be no virtue, and none could be fitted for the freedom of Heaven. The Lord's servants are free, but such men would be slaves. God sets before all men life and good, and death and evil, and offers them their choice. If they deliberately choose the evil, they cannot blame him for the result. In the second place, as just stated, God has done everything possible on his part to prevent people from making a mistake. Even the heathen are without excuse, for they have in the things that are made abundant evidence of the existence of one God, and of his great power. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Ps. 19:1. But when we come to "the church," who dare hint of excuse? In addition to the light of nature, which they have in common with the heathen, the members of the church have God's own plainly revealed will, written by holy men who were inspired by God's own Spirit, and this will is able to make them wise unto salvation. The Bible read just the same a thousand years ago that it does now; but if men chose to burn it rather than to read and study it, why should God be charged with allowing them to make mistakes in duty? Or if men to-day prefer the opinions of "the Fathers" or some other uninspired men, to the simple declarations of God's word, who is to blame if they err from the truth? What more could God do that he has not done? He could do no more toward keeping men from making mistakes, except to destroy their freedom of choice, and compel them to go in the right path; but then they would be machines, and not men. Moreover, there have been a few men in every age who have preserved the pure doctrine of the Bible. There has never been a time when there have not been some who have kept all the commandments of God. Now if one man in the world could know the will of God, there is no reason, except their own perverseness, why all men should not know it. No one can charge upon God the mistakes of men. In the Judgment, every mouth will be stopped. The next point upon which our correspondent desires information is stated as follows:— "So far as my observation has extended, I have found that all who practice this keeping of the Sabbath, are either engaged in religious work, and so are independent of an employer, or else they live in communities large or small, and so render strict observance not only possible but easy." Our friend's observation has evidently been very limited in this particular. He seems to imply that only those keep Sabbath who can do so just as easily as not. The fact is that more than nine-tenths of those who begin to keep the Sabbath of the Lord, do so at a personal sacrifice, not only of money, but often of friends. Take, for instance, a large part of those who are engaged in religious work. It is true that they are in a sense "independent of an employer," but how did they become so? Simply by giving up the employment in which they were engaged, and taking hold of missionary work at one-half, one-fourth, one-fifth, and even one-tenth of their former earnings. Now this is possible for anybody, but it ought to be patent to everybody that it is not exceedingly easy. Those who keep the Sabbath are from every class of people, and from all occupations. While there are a few comparatively large churches, there is not a community where they form more than a small minority of the inhabitants; and scores and hundreds of them live by themselves, where they do not see another Sabbath-keeper for a year at a time. In cities, some who have trades are fortunate enough to retain their situation by voluntarily losing one day's work and wages each week. In fact, there are very few who would not find it much easier to conform to the practice of the majority. Yet we have never heard anybody complain. We make these statements so that our friend, who evidently cannot keep the Sabbath without suffering some inconvenience, may know that if he takes hold of it he will have the company of thousands of others. The idea that "we must live, you know," has taken so deep hold upon people that it is hard for them to begin to keep the commandments of God when doing so will result in the loss of their business. But as a matter of fact, there is no use for a man to live if he doesn't live as the Lord wants him to. Since we could not live a moment but for the power of God, and since everything that we earn comes from him, it would certainly seem more reasonable to expect a living when serving him than when trampling upon his precepts. So the psalmist says: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." Ps. 37:3. True, he does not say that such ones shall be fed on dainties; but "a little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked." We like to read the story of those heroic men and women of past ages, who preferred death to disobedience of the commandments of God. It is not very probable that anybody in this age will be called upon to suffer martyrdom for the truth's sake; but are we so much better than they that we cannot suffer a little inconvenience for it? How many people are there who fully understand the eleventh chapter of Hebrews? w.