THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE FOR SUNDAY “DESECRATION.”
Popular ideas which are erroneous, and are supported by religious leaders, often form the strongest barriers to genuine reform, and the richest soil for final harvests of evil. The popular teachings in the churches, at the present time, furnish food for no-Sabbathism, and what is called incorrectly “Sabbath-breaking.” The churches assume that Sunday is the Sabbath, and that all which the word of God says about the Sabbath is applicable to the Sunday. This assumption is so manifestly opposed to the facts of history, and to an intelligent exegesis of the Scriptures, that it carries no weight outside the circle of those who make it. Meanwhile the churches, in order to parry the claims of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, have taught the fundamental doctrines of no-Sabbathism so long, and so vehemently, that the world has accepted the theory which is especially grateful to the carnal mind, and has settled into corresponding action. These false theories of the church have ripened, and come back to perplex and destroy. The great multitude sends its tens of thousands out every Sunday, seeking rest, pleasure, comfort, each in his own way. The churches call after them to desist from their impious “Sabbath-breaking,” and come to the church. Between the screams of the whistles, and the roar of the trains; at the pauses in the races, and the momentary silence of merry-go-rounds; amid the shouts of the bathers, and the clink of the beer glasses, the crowd answers back: “There is no Sabbath; that was an old Jewish affair, of the long ago; we are free of all such burdens under the Gospel!” Where did the crowd learn such talk as that? They heard some man, larger or smaller, in the pulpit years ago when they went to church, say thus with sanctified derision, in order to keep some conscientious members of his flock from “keeping Saturday.” That idea has ripened fast, and now they laugh as the pulpit stands aghast at the result of its own teachings, and see the work of Sunday holidayism go on. This is not a picture of fancy, but the plain facts, and the cold logic of the situation. The average business man of to-day is too keen to be taken with the lame logic of “the transfer of the law from Saturday to Sunday.” He knows that if the law of the Decalogue is set aside, there is nothing left but human choice and individual authority. He prizes his own opinion above the opinion of the church, and hence the result as it now appears.—Selected.