FACTS CONCERNING THE SABBATH QUESTION.
A "FREE-LANCE" writer, D. T. Baxter, in the Morning Herald, of Lexington, Kentucky, of August 31, has the following to say with reference to Sunday and the Sabbath, which it would be well for all to ponder:— Since I have been away I notice Sunday baseball has become quite a fad in Lexington and I understand that nearly two thousand people attended the game yesterday afternoon, played by the Lexingtons and Paris. I also learned that Brother McGarvey preached against Sunday baseball last night. The Young People's Christian Endeavor Society of the Central Christian Church and several other societies also took action yesterday on what is considered the desecration of the sabbath. I know I will have all the preachers in Lexington down on me when I say that there is absolutely no authority in either the Old or the New Testament for observing Sunday as the sabbath. Sunday is a man-made sabbath, and man did not keep it as the sabbath until several centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. The Jewish Sabbath (the seventh day) is the only day set apart by God as the Sabbath. Nor did God impart this command in a second-hand way. He wrote it twice on tablets of stone. The first time he wrote it Moses, upon seeing the children of Israel worshiping the golden calf after he had come down from Mt. Sinai, got mad and threw the stones on the stones on the ground, breaking them in pieces. Again did God write the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, and this time Moses did not break them. In order that some of my doubting friends may think that man can designate any day in the week and keep it as the sabbath, I will quote the commandment as twice written by the Great Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the great I AM, the God of the Christian world, the Father of Jesus the Christ, and the One alone who is all-powerful, all-knowing, omniscient, and who has existed for all time, and who will continue to exist forever:— "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for 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." It seems to me that is very plain English, and how anybody can substitute the first day of the week for the Sabbath and at the same time say they believe what God himself wrote, is more than I can understand. The Ten Commandments, of which this is one, comprise all that the Great Jehovah ever wrote, so far as we have any record. It is true that Moses saw him face to face in the burning bush before the thunders of Sinai announced to the great Israelite that he was ready to write with his own fingers that code of moral law which is to-day the basis of all our laws, except Sunday laws. It will be observed that God gives a specific reason for observing the seventh day as the Sabbath, and our modern Christians, by insisting on the observance of Sunday, indirectly say that God didn't know what he was talking about when he made the seventh day the Sabbath, and that any other day will do just as well. To carry this reasoning to its logical sequence, one might add to several of the commandments. For instance: "Thou shalt not kill any of thine own household." "Thou shalt not steal from citizens of thine own country," etc. While this Sunday question is up, I would like for some of the learned divines to tell me who first designated Sunday as the sabbath, and how it was observed, and what penalties were inflicted for its non-observance, and what provisos were made for seed-time and harvest, and in fact all the information regarding the changing of the will of God on this subject into the will of man. It would make interesting reading, and would give the people information which thousands of them do not now possess.