[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
CLXXXI.
I was brought up in a Christian home, and early taught to read the Bible, and to say my prayers. My mother was a true Christian; one who walked in the light that was vouchsafed to her. At this time we never had heard of any people who kept the Lord's Sabbath. It was about three years after my dear mother's death that we first heard of it.
We used to take an American paper called the Ram's Horn, in the children's page of which I was much interested. One day I wrote a letter to the editor of that department, and he very kindly inserted it.
A gentleman in America, Mr. John N. Quinn, of Philadelphia, seeing my letter in the Ram's Horn, wrote to me, and also sent me some copies of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, asking me to give them to my father, as he might like to read them.
I gave the papers to my father, and the first thing that struck him when he began to read was the two columns headed "The Sunday-School" and "The Sabbath-School," the date of the one being that of Sunday (the day we had hitherto regarded and kept as the Sabbath), and the date of the other, that of Saturday. As he read further he found other articles about the seventh-day Sabbath, and, after searching the Scriptures carefully, he was convinced that the seventh day was the Sabbath of the Lord. The first Sabbath that father kept was January 9, 1897.
As yet I did not trouble myself about it. I heard father speak of it, but I only thought it rather peculiar. Besides, I thought it would look so odd to "keep Saturday," when everybody else we knew "kept Sunday." I thought people would laugh at the "new fad," as our clergyman of the Church of England called it, when he heard that father had begun to observe the Sabbath, and not Sunday, as the God-appointed day of rest.
But, little by little, hearing father talk so much about it, I got more interested, and began searching the Scriptures for myself. Sometimes I almost wished I could discover some text in the Bible that would justify Sunday-keeping; but, needless to say, I never did. Thank God, I am now trying to keep all His commandments.
My dear father is a doctor, pensioned in Chunar. He has had many a talk with clergymen who have tried, by various arguments, to convince him that he is wrong in keeping the Sabbath instead of Sunday; but not one of them has been able to prove it from the Scriptures. Our family are now all keeping the Sabbath of the Lord our God, the day which He has blessed and sanctified, and appointed for man from the creation of the world, and on which He Himself did rest "from all His work which God created and made."