Reaping What They Have Sown.
By Alonzo T. Jones
For forty years the Third Angel's Message has been being given to the world. For forty years the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, have been held up before the people. All these years the truth that "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord" has been declared with zeal, with energy, and with power. Opposition from many sources it has had to meet, but chiefly from the ministers of all the different denominations. These have never wearied in telling, by tongue and by pen, in public and in private, that "the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, and is abrogated;" that "the Sabbath, with all the other commandments, was the law of Moses; that these were all ceremonial, and were all abolished," etc., etc. Now, when they try to impress upon their hearers the duty and the importance of keeping Sunday as Sabbath, they are met with the same arguments that they have used against the obligation of the Sabbath of the Lord. In a paper read before the Ministerial Union of Philadelphia, Sept. 29, 1884, Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D. D., complains of this in the following words: "The sanctity of the Lord's day is but a remnant, if not a relic of the past; and if this process goes on, within the present century Sabbath sanctification will be among the curiosities of archaeology and palæology! Christians apologize for this, on the ground that the 'Sabbath is a Jewish institution' and is abrogated, making no distinction between the ceremonial and the moral law. . . . Other disciples do away with the consecrated seventh of time as with the consecrated tenth of money, on the ground that all time and property are holy unto the Lord, and so the practical effect is that they consecrate nothing." This is the sober truth, but the people are not to blame. These very apologies, in these very words, have been put into their mouths by the ministers, by the very ones who now complain against them. Little did these men think all these years that in thus opposing the Sabbath of the Lord they were brandishing a sword that would cut both ways; little did they think that they were hatching cockatrice' eggs that would break out into vipers to sting themselves; little did they think that in loosening the restraints of the law of God, they were thus sowing dragon's teeth; little did they realize that in making these objections, and in appealing to popularity, and worldly interest, against the Sabbath, they were destroying respect for the whole law of God, and implanting a disposition to break any command in so far as it conflicts with these interests. The word of the Lord says: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." James 2:10, 11. The same consideration, or the same disposition that would lead a man to kill, would likewise lead him to commit adultery, or to steal, or to bear false witness, or to break the Sabbath, or to violate any or all of the commandments of God that come in his way. All will agree with that. Now turn it the other way, and it is equally true, whether all agree with it or not. The same consideration or disposition that will lead a man to break the Sabbath, will lead him under like circumstances to break any other of the commandments of God; because it is not out of fear of God nor respect for his law that he keeps so much of it as he does, but because otherwise public opinion would condemn him; but only let public opinion change so that it would wink at, or palliate, or justify what it now condemns, and he is ready to break any commandment that in any way conflicts with his worldly interests. So when the ministers play into the hands of the people, as they are doing, by inveighing against the Sabbath of the Lord, and, by appealing to public opinion or selfish interests, loosen those just and wholesome restraints which are placed upon human nature by the law of God, they are doing more than all else combined to bring to the full those perilous times which the Scriptures portray, when men shall be "lovers of their own selves," "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof." 2 Tim. 3:1-13. "But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings." Jer. 23:22. The ministers have taught the people to say: "If everybody else will keep Sabbath, I will." Now, when they call upon these for a stricter observance of Sunday, their teaching comes back to them in the words, "If everybody else will keep Sunday, I will." . . . Satisfy the demand which they themselves created, they are obliged to work up civil enactments under a constitutional amendment by which everybody shall be compelled to keep Sunday. For example: In his report to the Christian Statesman (Sept. 25, 1884), from Newton, Iowa, Rev. M. A. Gault, says:— "J. B. Carnes raised the practical question why the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad could run large excursion trains on the 'sabbath' from Davenport to Colfax Springs, putting the fare so low as to tempt thousands to violate both the laws of the State and the law of God, by desecrating the sabbath. This railroad has been running excursion trains from Des Moines to Colfax Springs on the sabbath, for some time, and ministers complain that their members go on these excursions. . . . It is not difficult to persuade them that the National Reform movement presents the only effectual means of saving the sabbath. We need a sabbath law that will bind the Government and the corporation, as well as the individual." (By "sabbath" he means Sunday always.) Again in the same paper is a selection from Rev. Dr. R. W. Clark, in which he says:— "The Sunday press has been established in defiance of Almighty God. God says, Keep the Sabbath holy. The Sunday newspaper says, Thou shalt not keep it holy. . . . The public mind shall be filled with the current news and the latest transactions in the stock markets; the taste shall be so vitiated with fascinating tales, racy gossip, and scandal in high life and low, that there shall be no desire for things holy and spiritual. . . . The Sunday press says there shall be no rest for even God's people, except what is found in secular and frivolous reading and Sunday recreations. . . . The Puritan sabbath is obsolete. The times are changed, that is a truth; and if the sabbath in America is shattered, they will change more. For God says: 'The nation that will not serve me shall perish, yea that nation shall be wasted.'" Just so. As long as there are excursion trains on Sunday, the church members will go on excursions. As long as there are Sunday newspapers, the church members will read "fascinating tales, racy gossip, and scandal in high life and low." Those things that should not be read at all, they will read on Sundays. Therefore the Sunday trains must be stopped, and the Sunday papers suppressed. Because they have not enough of the grace of God, nor the love of right, to do right, they insist that the Government shall take away the opportunity to do wrong. Say they: "We will have the 'National Reform movement' take away all opportunity for us to do wrong, then we will all do right." And they will call that serving the Lord!! The devil himself could serve the Lord that way. And he would still be the devil. Then to cap the climax, they will quote that scripture, "The nation that will not serve me shall perish," being always careful to emphasize the word "nation." But we should like to ask: If the nation that will not serve the Lord shall perish, then how about the church members who will not serve him? And, If the church members will not keep Sunday till the nation takes away from them all opportunity to violate it, how can it be expected that the nation will keep Sunday without a like office being performed for it? Oh, "the National Reform movement presents the only effectual means of saving the sabbath." The National Reform movement will effectually guard the nation against all anti-Sunday influences or tendencies. Yes, great is National Reform. It alone can save the sabbath. It alone can save the nation. It alone can save the church. It is the summum bonum, the ultima thule, the ne plus ultra. Yet the National Reform movement has a more difficult task to accomplish than that of stopping Sunday trains, and suppressing Sunday newspapers; that is, to stop the progress of the Third Angel's Message. That message began in the United States, before the National Reform movement. It has developed a people here called Seventh-day Adventists. They keep with the rest of the commandments of God that one which says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work." They are going to remain here as long as this is a nation; they are not going to keep Sunday, and they are going to use every fair means, by voice and pen, in public and in private, by prayer and faithful endeavor, to constrain all others to keep the seventh day, and oppose the keeping of Sunday. And how will the National Reform movement save the Sunday, and the nation, from these anti-Sunday influences? We shall see.