THE "WEEK OF PRAYER." by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 17, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 58.

THE "WEEK OF PRAYER."

By Editor

EVERY week should be, and no doubt is, a week of prayer with the people of God. With Seventh-day Adventists it has come to be a custom to make the world's feasting season a season of devotion. It is fitting that at such a time the Lord's people should specially watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation.

While the Christmas festival is a nominally Christian institution, it is practically a world's carousal. Being merely the continuation of a heathen holiday occasion, having no legitimate place as a Christian memorial, it is but natural that its observance should be mainly a gratification of carnal appetite and sensual pleasure. The special temptations are in that line, temptations to do the very things which the Christian should scrupulously and persistently avoid. So strong is the temptation to cling to the fascinating customs of the holiday season that many who profess to ignore it as a church festival will encourage it through a sentimental idea that the social amenities attached to it have a tendency to strengthen the family ties and cement a neighborly friendship. But it is, nevertheless, a fact that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." The expenditure of means and time and talents to perpetuate a worldly convivial institution bearing the mask of church sanction, is sheer idolatry, and a most delusive deception. Even the custom of some Christians of deferring the purchase of necessary articles for the family in order to bring them in as "Christmas presents" is in a measure catering to the worldly custom of honoring an institution of the great deceiver, held up by an apostate church.

Let those who are looking for the Lord, come out from the world in the matter of holiday frivolities, and come out from the delusive snares of church institutions based upon the traditions of men who were guided by the great apostasy. The occasion of the "week of prayer" this year will continue from Sabbath, the 22d inst., to Sunday, the 30th, inclusive,—nine days in all. The offerings, as usual, go to the foreign mission work, and should be of means customarily spent in unnecessary purchases and extraordinary feasting. The world's feasting time may well be spent by the church as a time of fasting.