THE LAWYER AND THE DECALOGUE
By George B. Thompson
SPEAKING concerning the Decalogue, in the bosom of which is found the great Sabbath commandment, which says that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," an eminent lawyer is reported as saying: 'I have been looking into the nature of that law. I have been trying to see whether I could add anything to it, or take anything from it, so as to make it better. Sir, I can not. It is perfect.' And then, having shown this to be so, he concluded: 'I have been thinking, Where did Moses get that law? I have read history. The Egyptians and the adjacent nations were idolators. So were the Greeks and Romans; and the wisest and best Greeks and Romans never made a code of morals like this. Where did he get it? He could not have soared so far above his age as to have devised it himself. It came from heaven.'" This is indeed a great law. It is but a transcript of the original, which is in the "ark of the testament" in heaven. Men can no more change or destroy it than they can ascend into heaven, and having removed Jehovah from His throne, open the sacred ark in the holy of holies, and hurl the original over the shining battlements of heaven. Truly, as has been said, long should pause the erring hand of man ere he seeks to chisel with human philosophy a single iota from the divine code.
G. B. T.