THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SAMOA.
By T.
The Sabbath question has come to the front in a rather novel way in Tutuila, one of the Samoan group of islands. The native ministers, or faifeaus, are very strict in their requirement that every one shall keep Sunday. All are to attend church, and no one is allowed to sing anything but religious songs or hymns on that day. After the United States took the island under its care, the natives came to think that they would not be required to observe such regulations under a republic, and so they have petitioned Commander Tilley, the governor of the island, to “abolish the fourth commandment.” Here is a lesson for those who would have us compelled to observe Sunday whether we desire to or not. Such restraint does not produce a real change in the individual, it only binds him to a thing that is against his will, and keeps him from reasoning upon what he is doing, and thus is he kept away from the good that might come to him thru the moral power of a voluntary act. If men could be made good by compulsion in any such way, the Lord would have absolutely compelled men to obey His laws. But the Lord takes cognizance of the fact that unless there is the positive choice of the individual acting in the matter there is no real morality. When a man is bent on murder or robbery or something of that kind, the civil law should take hold of him and say, You must not do such things. That is the only way by which the rights of others can be preserved. But this necessary use of civil law should not be confused with the voluntary obedience to God’s moral law. This distinction should be plain to any one who takes the time to think upon it, and if men would only recognize it we would have no religious persecution, and the world would move on much better than it does. The fact that Sunday is not the Sabbath does not change the principle in the least. It would be just as wrong for men to attempt to compel the observance of the true Sabbath as it is for them to compel Sunday observance. God’s government is not a despotism, as so many suppose and affirm. It is a pure democracy. Every one who ever has a place in the kingdom of Christ will be there because he has chosen to serve Him. He will have elected the Son of God his king for eternity. And ruling by the power of love is the force that the Master uses in holding and guiding His subjects. No other plan than this could make the subjects of His kingdom perfectly happy. The Lord invites us earnestly. He urges us to come to Him. But He never drives us. He says, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve,” and tells us, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” We should carefully study these principles, and then we will see clearly that there is no place in God’s government, either in heaven or upon earth, for the enforced observance of any of His precepts. T.