A STRANGE APPEAL FOR SUNDAY!

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 11, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 15.

A STRANGE APPEAL FOR SUNDAY!

THE last issue of Mr. Sheldon's experiment of a "Christian daily," the Topeka Capital, was dated "Saturday evening, March 17, 1900." Apart from its advertisements its reading matter is composed almost wholly of quotations from the Bible, under the general head, "The Bible: the Basis of Our Christian Civilization." Mr. Sheldon has an editorial on the first page on "The Saturday Evening Edition," in which he descants at some length on the divine origin of the sabbath and its benefits, and the propriety of one paper a week being distinctly religious. He tells us that no Sunday work was done on that issue by pressmen, mailing clerks, or carriers. All this for Sunday, which Mr. Sheldon observes.

To impress the idea of Sunday-keeping upon others, he fills two columns of his first page with quotations from the Bible. These are from Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 16: 23-30; 20: 8-11; 23: 10, 11; 31: 12-17; 34: 21; 35: 1-3; Lev. 16: 29-31; 19: 30; Deut. 5: 12-15; Neh. 10: 28-33; 13: 15-22; Isa. 56: 1, 2; 58: 13, 14; Jer. 17: 21-27; Eze. 20: 12-16; Amos 8: 4-8; Matt. 12: 1-8; Mark 3: 1-6; Luke 13: 10-17; 14: 1-6; John 5: 2-18. The quotations are from the Revised Version.

Now here is the remarkable thing: these quotations, severally and collectively, one and all, concern but one day, namely, the Sabbath, the seventh day of the seven, and have no application to the first day of the week, or Sunday.

Why did Mr. Sheldon use them? Why did he not quote those scriptures which enjoin Sunday observance?—For the very simple reason that there are no such scriptures. All Sabbath commandments, all instruction as to the observation of the day, pertain to one day alone, the seventh day of the cycle, the Sabbath of the Lord. They can not by any means be applied to Sunday without a wrestling of the Scriptures. It is a strange appeal. It is as tho a man should make his whole argument for the nomination and election of Mr. Bryan as an appeal for the re-election of Mr. McKinley. It is as tho a man should appeal for the completion of the De Lesseps Panama Canal as an appeal for the Nicaragua Canal.

When Mr. Sheldon issued two papers on Saturday, March 17, he issued both on the day which Jesus Christ observed as the Sabbath, nay, more, which He made in the beginning, which He commanded forever.

If true Sabbath reform is desired, why will our friends base it upon a lie? A counterfeit bill or coin may pass current among men, and it does not matter greatly in a commercial way; but God's laws are eternal realities. "Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted," says Jesus, "shall be rooted up." Sunday is not of God's planting. The false by use can never become true. The base can never become the pure. The counterfeit can never become the genuine. The first day of God's work can never become the seventh day—His day of rest.

We know that men have been ignorant of this in the past. Tradition and custom have blinded the minds of millions of honest souls. But now God calls men back to Him. "Fear God, and give glory to Him, . . . and worship Him that made heaven, and earth."