A NEW DEPARTURE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 20, 1879

A NEW DEPARTURE.

Louisville, Ky., is agitated over the question of a better Sunday observance. It has been thought heretofore by the friends of this institution, that they could best uphold it by an appeal to the religious element among the people, setting forth the day to be sacredly observed as a divine institution, and bringing to its support the sanction of the law of God. But the agitation of the Sabbath question during these later years has largely dispelled this idea from candid and thoughtful minds.

A day concerning which Christ has left on record not a single word; a day which cannot show when, where, nor by what means it was made a Sabbath; a day concerning which there is in the Bible no law, commandment, exhortation, or admonition, except to use it for secular purposes; a day never called in the New Testament by any sacred title; a day which cannot show the first example of Sabbatical rest during its hours by any divine being or inspired apostle,—such a day does not do well to set up any very high claim to a divine character, nor to urge its own observance very strongly on religious grounds.

The people of Louisville seem to be aware of this fact, and hence in the call for a mass-meeting, which was to be held Feb. 10, “for the purpose of securing a better observance of our weekly rest-day,” they say:—

With regard to the Sabbath as a religious institution, we purpose to do nothing whatever in this meeting. We withdraw from the discussion every religious question. Your attention will be called exclusively to the Sabbath as a civil institution—a day of rest from labor and public amusement—set apart for that purpose by the immemorial usage of the American people and the laws of the land.

To make this clear distinction, and put the first day of the week on a civil and not a religious basis, is a step in the right direction so far as it relates to the Sabbath controversy. It will be something to have this great fact acknowledged, that there is no religious element in it, but that it is an arrangement made by man alone, and resting on the same basis as any other legislative enactment. But this does not make it a Sabbath. This does not alter the requirements of God’s law, nor do away with his Sabbath.

Only on the ground of being a civil institution can Sunday claim legal support. Those who called the mass meeting above mentioned, say, “We seek no new legislation.” But we apprehend that in nearly all, if not all, the States, Sunday legislation recognizes the day either as “the Lord’s day,” which it is not, or as “the Christian Sabbath,” which it likewise is not. This should be so changed as to eliminate the falsehood, and show that Sunday is only such a day of rest as the people are able to make it, and that it is such a day solely and alone because they make it so.