HOW DID HE DO IT? by W. C. G.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 24, 1867

HOW DID HE DO IT?

By W. C. G.

Elder Himes, editor of the Voice of the West, has been laboring among the Freedmen in Memphis. In his journal he gives an account of some of his expositions of Scripture, in which we find the following:

“When I came to Acts xx. 7, I took occasion to speak to them on the ‘first day of the week’ as the Christian Sabbath. I showed them how it should be kept. All unnecessary labor should be avoided. On Saturday everything should be done to prepare for the Sabbath as a day of rest and worship. All fishing and hunting, and such recreations, should be given up entirely, and the day spent in the service of God.”

Will Elder H. please give us the text of scripture which he made use of in teaching them to avoid all unnecessary labor on the first day of the week, and the precise chapter and verse which forbids fishing and hunting on that day? We can point to several texts in which such work is forbidden on the seventh day of the week, or the Sabbath of the Lord, but have been searching in vain for many years for a single text to show that the first day of the week is the “Christian,” or any other Sabbath, save that of the “Man of Sin.”

It is to be hoped that Elder Himes’ teachings on the subjects of man’s nature, the advent, &c., were more scriptural than his authority for Sunday-keeping, or else that he has some light on the latter subject which we have not yet seen. Will he please give it to the world, that we may be blessed with it also?

W. C. G.