The “Early Closing.” by M. E. Kellogg

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 17.

The “Early Closing.”

By M. E. Kellogg

A GREAT deal is just now being said about “early closing.” Ministers are preaching, and editors are discussing in their papers the problem of “early closing,” and the advantages to be derived from it.

What is this “early closing” which is exciting such a furor? It is simply the closing of business at noon on Saturday, that the latter part of the day may be given to recreation. It is claimed that Americans work too hard; that they need more holidays, and the early closing will supply this want by giving a half holiday every week.

This is the way the editors talk who claim to voice the sentiments of the overworked laboring classes. But the ministers and the religious element have another far different reason from that for furnishing a holiday to the people. It is hoped that all will take their fill of recreation and pleasure on Saturday, and thus be prepared to be very devout on Sunday.

Really, then, the object is to promote the better observance of Sunday. It is a well-known fact that during the last fifty years there has been a growing disregard of Sunday. The wave of Puritanism, once so strong in the New England States, has ebbed away to a mere ripple, and the Puritanical custom of keeping Sunday strictly is giving place to the European idea of using it as a day for church services in the morning, and of recreation and jollity in the afternoon.

If the practice of the early church is to be the guide in reference to which of these two ways Sunday shall be observed, the European idea should certainly prevail, for the first observance of Sunday was as a day of festivities and not as a Sabbath. The reason for this is obvious. They had not yet given up the Sabbath when Sunday was first introduced as a festival day, so they were not without a Sabbath, even though Sunday was nothing but a day of festivity and rejoicing on account of the resurrection.

It is easy to see how, in that pleasure-loving age, when a great influx of pagans was pouring into the church, and the “mystery of iniquity” was working to establish the Romish Church, the day of pleasure would take the precedence of the day of worship and cessation from pleasure, and so the Sabbath would finally be lost sight of, especially as emperors and councils threw over the first day their royal and ecclesiastical patronage.

Concerning the way Sunday was observed in the early church one of the so-called Fathers of the church bears the following testimony: “We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this [seventh day] their sabbath, and devote it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish customs, which they are now very ignorant of.”—Turtullian's Apology, Reeve's translation. A mass of evidence might be adduced upon this point to show that Sunday was observed in the early church simply as a festival, the very element they are now trying to weed out. The Catholic Church, the direct and final outgrowth of the apostasy which introduced the festival Sunday, still observes the day in the manner of its early use.

The period of reformation, beginning with Luther and reaching down to our day, has made apparent what was overlooked by the apostatizing church in the first centuries,—that man needs a Sabbath; not simply a day of relaxation and leisure, eating, drinking, and festivities, but a true Sabbath, such as Jehovah furnished the race when, amid the thunders of Sinai, he promulgated the commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” And now instead of going back to the only Sabbath of divine appointment—the seventh day—the attempt is made to reconstruct the Sunday festival into a Sabbath, enforced by the fourth commandment (something the early church, and indeed the first reformers, never thought of doing); but their success thus far has not been very flattering. As there is no Bible ground for Sunday as the Sabbath, there can be no unanimity among its supporters, so among the Sunday advocates may be found every shade of sentiment—a house divided against itself. And so Sunday continues to be what it has been, a day of visiting and pleasure.

And now, Biblical arguments (so called) having failed to produce the desired effect, it is determined by the ministers (by whose churches the thronging crowds go on Sunday to the beach, the park, or the beer garden) to give the pleasure-loving a day for recreation before the arrival of the “venerable day of the sun,” and thus being able to “buy repentance ere they grow devout,” fun now being over for the week, people may be prepared to enter the sanctuary in a pious frame of mind, filling the otherwise vacant seats, to the great delight of the ministers, who rejoice in the success of their plans.

In the latter part of the third century the Sabbath was degraded into a fast that the lovers of pleasure might more readily join in the joyful celebration of the Sunday festival. Now they desire to turn the Sabbath into a holiday that they may make a Sabbath out of Sunday, the festival day! Thus they attempt to rectify one folly by another equally great. It is evident that men will not be satisfied until they have heaped every possible indignity upon the Sabbath. First it is turned into a fast day, then into a working day, and now it is proposed to make it a holiday.

But even now it is beginning to be feared that a day of leisure on Saturday will not necessarily lead to a full church on Sunday. At a meeting of Presbyterian clergymen in behalf of the early closing, held at Pittsburg, Penn., March 30, and reported in the New York Tribune, one minister said that “at Warren, Ohio, an early closing movement was made, one of the arguments for which was that the clerks could attend prayer-meetings, but,” he added, with a twinkle of his eye and a pathetic tone, “I didn't see a single salesman at the prayer-meetings during the movement, so I don't think I should push the church attendance as an argument. I am in favor of it from a humanitarian point of view.” We may well inquire here if the church attendance will not be advanced by the Saturday half holiday, and the people still continue on in the even tenor of their way, devoting Sunday as well as half of Saturday to pleasure, what substantial benefits will be gained? Is one whole day of recreation each week so insufficient to satisfy the average American that another half day of the same nature must be added? How many days of fun do the clergy of our land think are required by our “humanity”? “Aye, there's the rub.” The fact is, they are laying their plans for a “Sunday closing” as well as a Saturday one. The Sunday closing being a closing of all kinds of labor, theaters, museums, art galleries, and everything of a secular nature, so that the church may have a monopoly on that day; and by giving the half holiday first, they mean to take away from the laboring classes the reason they have so long given for not attending church, that Sunday was the only day they had for their family and for recreation. If this plan shall prove successful, those who have no particular regard for religion will be obliged to exchange an entire holiday for a half holiday, and on Sunday, now set apart exclusively for religious purposes, they must go to church or stay at home, and the Sabbath of the Bible degraded and dishonored by the early apostate church that the Sunday festival might come in, now is to be made to serve as a festival day that Sunday may have free course to run and be glorified, enforced by the authority of the fourth commandment.

At the meeting in Pittsburg, previously referred to, “Dr. Gibson thought those who kept men engaged till late hours on Saturday committed a sin against the fourth commandment, and were guilty of covetousness, which is idolatry.” As the fourth commandment says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work,” we can readily see why keeping men “engaged” upon any hour of that day would be an infraction of the divine command. But the doctor evidently thought it would not be a violation of the fourth commandment to work on the day God expressly commanded man to keep, in the very commandment he is trying to honor, unless the work is continued down close to the time when Sunday comes! Then it would not only violate the fourth commandment, but would be idolatry as well! What changes have come over the jolly festival day of the early church! Chrysostom, in the latter part of the fourth century, after the morning service on Sunday, dismissed his congregation to their respective employments, but now, according to this doctor, Sunday is so sacred that its holiness fairly bulges out upon the other days around it!

Probably the “early closing” will be effected, and when the public have become sufficiently permeated with the theory of Sunday sacredness, an attempt will be made to compel all to observe this day. God's word has fully forewarned us against this whole work. Rev. 13 and 14 tell us how an attempt will be made to enforce the worship of the beast,—the papacy, and his mark, the changed Sabbath, and the last great warning against it proclaimed by those “that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14: 12.

Not only may we expect a Saturday closing, and a Sunday closing, but a greater closing than all; for following this proclamation of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,” comes the great event for which the ages have waited, and which will close the history of this world. “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.” And because “the harvest of the earth is ripe,” “he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.” Rev. 14: 14-16. Let the agitation go on, for it arouses the pleasure-loving, as of old, to tread down the Sabbath, brings the light of God's truth and the knowledge of the Bible Sabbath to the honest inquirer, and thus the harvest of the earth is ripened, and prepared for the gathering day.