A TRIBUTE TO THE OLD TESTAMENT AND TEN COMMANDMENTS.
By K. C. Russell
REV. WALLACE RADCLIFFE, of the Presbyterian Church of Washington, D. C., recently said in an address which he gave concerning a stricter observance of Sunday: "I believe in the Bible. Not in the Sermon on the Mount alone, not in the beautiful words of Jesus, nor in the poetry that here and there may be brought out from its contents. I believe in the Bible as the word of God, and the Old Testament as just as authoritative and just as inspired, and carrying in itself just as largely the word and the authority of God as the Sermon on the Mount, or the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians.
"That has been the trouble with all of us. We have by the criticism of to-day, by the fine scholarship, been persuaded in the Old Testament and emphasized in the New, we have been somehow or other accepting the fact that the contents of the Old Testament are to be passed by. But in its contents rests the Ten Commandments. 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy' is there, and it is just as obligatory upon the Christian conscience as the fifth, or sixth, or seventh, or eighth commandment, and I have just as much right to disobey one as to disobey the other. We must call the church back to its loyalty to the word of God, and in the pulpit and in the Christian life somehow or other encourage its study, and impress its authority upon the individual conscience and the Christian life." The foregoing tribute to the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments will be appreciated by all who believe that the Bible is the word of God, in these times when infidelity is increasing on every hand to such an alarming extent. It is to be regretted, however, that one who gives expression to such praiseworthy statements as these should be so deceived as to think that a return to belief in the Old Testament, and the Ten Commandments in their entirety will result in a better observance of Sunday, which has no foundation in the Bible, but is an institution which is wholly of heathen origin. All who believe the Old Testament and Ten Commandments can readily see that if they are emphasized and accepted by the people, it would result in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, for the Old Testament abounds with the most conclusive evidences that the seventh day (Saturday) and not Sunday (the first day of the week), is the Sabbath of the Bible. In the very beginning we read, "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Gen. 2:2, 3. And in the very bosom of the Decalogue, where the only commandment for a weekly Sabbath is found, it says, "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." Ex. 20:8-11. Now while we most heartily concur with the foregoing tribute paid to the Old Testament scriptures and the law of God, I truly believe that one of the most effective ways to remedy the growing disbelief in the Bible will be for ministers of the Gospel, and all other classes of Christian people, to personally honor the Old Testament scriptures and the law of God by beginning at once to observe the Bible Sabbath, and teach others to do the same. Many good and honest people, who know that the Bible teaches that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, are puzzled to understand why ministers of the Gospel, and others who make a high profession of Christianity, do not obey the Bible in this particular, and so they logically reason that if that part of the Bible which enjoins the observance of one of the Ten Commandments can be put aside with impunity, why is it necessary to be so particular in regard to other portions of the Bible? And thus their faith in the word of God is shaken, and the Bible is considered of little importance.