AFRAID OF THE TRUTH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 10, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 23.

AFRAID OF THE TRUTH.

In Spokane, Wash., a few weeks ago, the Arena Debating Club, an organization of workingmen, challenged the Ministerial Association of that city to debate the Sunday closing of the World’s Fair. The association accepted on the condition that they were not to debate with Seventh-day Adventists, nor to oppose the question presented from a Seventh-day Adventist standpoint. This is what the Outburst of that city, in its issue of January 28, says on the matter; and the Outburst is right, but what a confession on the part of the Ministerial Association! Do they feel satisfied with a position they cannot defend?

The Ministerial Association in accepting a challenge from the Arena Debating Club, a workingmen’s association, to discuss the Sunday closing of the World’s Fair, did so with some apparent qualms. Perhaps the “horny-handed” toilers of to-day are not good enough for these followers of the meek and lowly Carpenter of Bethlehem. In accepting the challenge it was done with the reservation that they would have no controversy with any sect to argue the ethics of Sunday worship from a Seventh-day Adventist standpoint. This was wise, for the Adventists and Jews are the only logical Sabbatarians in existence. Nowhere in the Bible is there warrant for the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath. Sunday was a pagan holiday in the Roman Empire in honor of the sun, as its name indicates. It was adopted by Emperor Constantine as a church holiday when he embraced Christianity. It has no more religious significance than Wednesday, named from the Norse god, Woden. Even were this not the case, we still have Christ’s injunction that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The Puritan Sunday, that nightmare of intolerance, is as obsolete and no more to be observed to-day than is the Old Testament command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” But the clergy have not the candor nor the fearlessness to acknowledge these truths. They want to monopolize one day of the week for themselves, and in doing so, deny to others the right to do anything except to listen to their sermons. And this is one right that most people nowadays prefer to exercise by proxy.