Doctor Munhall on the Sabbath.
By Editor
WE had the pleasure one day last week of listening to a "Bible-reading" on the Sabbath question, given by Doctor L. W. Munhall, the evangelist who has been holding revival services in San Francisco for several weeks. It was advertised to be a Bible-reading, but was, in fact, a short sermon, with a few more Scripture quotations than are usually heard in the popular modern sermon. The "reading," however, was more pointed and interesting than any other Sabbath effort we ever heard from a first-day preacher. The Doctor began by saying that the law of the Sabbath was given long before Mount Sinai. He quoted Ex. 16:25, 26: "And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none." "These words," said the speaker, "indicate that the Sabbath was not first given at Sinai, but was kept before. The law of the Sabbath is as old as creation. The Fourth Commandment, found in Ex. 20:8-11, connects itself with what was said at the first, recorded in Gen. 2:1-3, and makes good the law that obtained among God's people even before the thunders of Sinai. The Sabbath was the seventh day of creation." In the above paragraph we have given the exact expressions of Mr. Munhall. No one could have made a better statement of the case, for it is the exact truth. The speaker then read the following texts:— "Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; in earing [plowing] time and in harvest thou shalt rest." Ex. 34:21. "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord; whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death." Ex. 35:2. "These," said Mr. Munhall, "are explicit statements with reference to the Sabbath law. We are to cease on the Sabbath from our usual daily employments. The Sabbath is to be a day of rest. It is not to be spent in idleness, sleeping half the forenoon, eating a big dinner, and taking a buggy ride in the afternoon. Rest don't mean idleness. But the Sabbath is to be spent in work for God, because it was hallowed by him." The Doctor then read Neh. 10:31; 13:15, as another point on the way the Sabbath should be kept. They read thus: "And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath, or on the holy day." "In those days saw I in Judah some treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals." On these texts the following strange comments were made: "This touches a point that needs to be noted by Christian people. Some of you will send your children to market on Sunday morning for meat. Or you will step into a cigar store, or stop and get a glass of soda on your way home from church on Sunday. But you will say, 'Suppose I should forget to get any beefsteak on Saturday night; would it not be necessary to get it on Sunday morning?' You have no business to forget. If you do forget, you must go without. Every desire of the heart and the stomach is not to be gratified at the expense of God's law. If your grain will spoil if you don't work on Sunday, then lose your grain. If you are a produce dealer, and your provisions will spoil if you don't work on Sunday, then lose your provisions. Obey God." To the last sentence in the above paragraph we can heartily subscribe. So we could to all the rest, if the speaker had used the word Sabbath instead of Sunday. He had previously said that the seventh day was set apart at creation, and that it was kept by the people of God before the commandment for its observance was given upon Mount Sinai. Of course the seventh day must have been kept by God's people after the specific law for its observance had been given amid the thunders of Sinai; and this is allowed by Mr. Munhall, for later in his discourse he said that no day but the seventh day is the Sabbath. How then can he learn from Ex. 34:21; 35:2; Neh. 10:31, and 13:15 how Sunday should be kept? We agree that the things of which he speaks ought not to be done on the Sabbath, because God has forbidden them. "Obey God," says Mr. Munhall. So we say; and therefore we refrain from labor on the seventh day of the week, as God has commanded. But how can a man obey God by doing something which God never commanded? Impossible. Mr. Munhall exhorts the people to obey God by refraining from labor on Sunday, and in the same discourse tells them that "there is no 'Thus saith the Lord' for the observance of Sunday," and that "the Sabbath has never been transferred from the seventh to the first day." But a still more wonderful exposition followed. The Doctor said: "I may be called a Puritan, because of my rigid observance of Sunday. Very well, I am willing. There are specific reasons in God's word why this day should be kept. Ex. 20:11 says: 'In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.' God has hallowed this day. Because he has hallowed it, we must keep it holy." God has hallowed the seventh day, therefore we must keep the first day holy! If the Doctor had designed to give us an example of a non sequitur, he could not have done better. Yet he was in sober earnest. God commands us to do a certain thing, and we obey him by doing something directly contrary! People never reason that way in regard to the laws of men. Eze. 20:12: "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they may know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." On this text, the Doctor made the following true statement: "Unless we observe the Sabbath as God has directed, we shall forget God. There was never a nation that ignored the Sabbath that did not forget God. France is an example, and the same thing is coming upon this country. [The speaker then quoted Ex. 31:15, 16; Neh. 13:18; and Eze. 20:20, 21.] These also have direct reference to God's ancient people, and to the troubles that came upon them because they violated the Sabbath. Their land was filled with mourning. The Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27), for the welfare of society. The violation of the Sabbath always brings trouble. Look at the riots in Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. In these cities the Sabbath is almost universally trampled under foot. There will also be riot and bloodshed in San Francisco if the Sabbath is not observed better. Show me a city where there is riot and bloodshed, and I will show you one where the Sabbath is disregarded." It is a truth that the violation of the Sabbath is always accompanied by forgetfulness of God. If all people kept the Sabbath, there would be no heathenism, and prosperity might be expected. But Sabbath-keeping is not a national, but an individual affair. That is, a nation, in its national capacity, cannot keep the Sabbath. A nation can be said to keep the Sabbath only when all the individuals composing the nation are Sabbath keepers. And when any considerable number of people in a nation do not observe the Sabbath, any number of legislative acts in favor of Sabbath-keeping will not make that nation a Sabbath-keeping nation. The same is true with regard to any other duty which God requires. But it is the keeping of the Sabbath that makes people know the true God. Now Doctor Munhall himself declares that the seventh day, and that only, is the Sabbath. It alone was rested upon by the Creator; the seventh day alone was blessed by him; and the seventh day, and no other, was by the Creator appointed to be kept holy. No other day could be kept holy, because no other day was ever made holy. How then is it possible for Doctor Munhall, while acknowledging all these facts, to say that the disregard of Sunday is responsible for the prevailing godlessness? Further: Since the keeping of the Sabbath is the only evidence given to indicate that people know God, must we not conclude that the keeping of a day which is not the Sabbath, and the consequent profanation of the only day which God ever appointed as the Sabbath, is evidence that people have largely forgotten God? It cannot be otherwise. And when a nation goes so far as to enjoin the observance of Sunday, then we may know that God is practically ignored. And still further: When we find legislators and ministers of the gospel combining to enact laws devoting the Sabbath of God's appointment to pleasure, in order that men may rest on Sunday, concerning which God has said nothing except to command us to work upon it, we have overwhelming evidence that men are not only ignoring God, but that they have so far forgotten him that they can heap insult upon him without the slightest fear of his power. "For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience." Most true it is that terrible judgments are coming upon this land because of the insults which the people have offered to the one great Lawgiver; and we cannot help trembling for the fate of men who use their influence as ministers of the gospel to induce people to disregard the true Sabbath of the Lord for a day which they acknowledge has no "Thus saith the Lord" in its behalf.