Contradictions by Myrta Votaw

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 30.

Contradictions.

By Myrta Votaw

I HAD the opportunity a few days ago of attending what is styled "Children's day," at the M. E. Church in West Mansfield, Ohio. The house was beautifully decorated with flowers. The people had gathered into the village from every direction and seemed very content to pass their rest day in listening to the exercises that had been prepared. The address of welcome was followed by the reading of the first four commandments. The fourth commandment was divided, the superintendent reading, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," and the school reading, "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." They then read from Isa. 58 : 13, 14. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable," and so on.

This was followed by an address by a minister, who besought the parents to train the children in the way they should go. He said he thought that it would not be long until every one would be compelled to keep "the Sabbath of the Lord, the first day of the week."

Further on in his address he said that a law would be made compelling people to observe Sunday as the Sabbath. This same man told Brother Thompson, when he was here with the tent, that this was a free country, and that no such laws would ever be made. He certainly contradicted himself in these statements. He closed his remarks by an exhortation to the brethren to stand firm in the right, and in the meanwhile to pray for those that were in error, to pray that they might "keep the Sabbath of the Lord and not a Jewish Sabbath."

Then the school read: "We will keep all thy commandments, thy statutes, and thy laws." This seems almost a pledge, and how much they will have to account for in the Judgment day only the most holy One knows. It is to be hoped that they may be led into the truth before it is too late. MYRTA VOTAW.