One Year Keeping the Sabbath
By S. B. Warren
DEAR BRO. WHITE:—Just one year has elapsed since I commenced keeping God's holy Sabbath. I shall long remember the third of Sept., 1853. It was the first Sabbath I had ever kept in my whole life. O how sweet have been the Sabbaths of the past year. How unlike the Sundays of years gone by! The first little messenger that called my mind to an investigation of the Sabbath question, was a "Refutation of the Claims of Sunday-keeping to Divine Authority." I have sought most diligently during the year past for one single passage that would prove that the first day of the week is, or ever has been, observed as the Sabbath, or a Bible institution; but my search for such a passage in God's holy book, has been in vain. The more I have searched, the more I have become convinced that the Sabbath of Genesis, which was a sanctified day, and the Sabbath of Exodus which was a rest-day, and the Sabbath of Leviticus which was an holy convocation, and the Sabbath of our Saviour's day, and the Apostolic age, and the Lord's day of Revelation, are all one and the same thing. The Sabbath has but one meaning the world over. It is very plain and clear from the first of Genesis to the end of Revelation, that there is but one Sabbath of the Lord, and that is the seventh day. And yet why will not men keep it who profess to take the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice. I am certainly driven to the conclusion that the traditions and opinions of corrupt men in past ages, have more weight upon their minds than all that the God of the Sabbath has said, I ask, if the Sabbath has, in any age of the world, been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week by divine authority, how it is that our learned doctors of divinity are not able to prove it? They are learned, their minds are stored with knowledge; they have books on books, in their libraries—why is it that with all their store of knowledge, their learning and their talent, they fail to prove in one single instance that any such change has ever been made by divine or apostolic authority? The truth is, according to Mark xiii, 31. Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away. It cheers my heart to read the letters in the Review from dear brethren and sisters, scattered abroad in different parts, whom I have never seen, yet hope to see soon if I am faithful to God. These letters as we read them are like food to the hungry or water to the thirsty. Some of us Sabbath-keepers are young, some are old, some of us are natives of America and some are from Europe; but thanks be to God! our interest is one, our language is one. We have one common interest together in the keeping of the commandments and looking for the coming of our blessed Saviour. Let me say to you, brethren and sisters, by way of encouragement that the past year has been the best year of my life. It has been the sweetest year I have ever enjoyed since I first gave my heart to the Saviour. The Bible has, during the past year, proved to be a precious Book; more so than ever before. I find it contains precious truths of which I have in former years been almost wholly ignorant. We read in Dan. xii, 4: "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end; many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased." I have during the past year made some exchanges of sentiments and opinions, of which I am by no means ashamed. I have exchanged the Pope's Sunday, a man-made institution, for the Sabbath of the Lord, a true Bible institution. I have exchanged the doctrine that all men are immortal, for the doctrine of immortality alone through Jesus Christ. I have exchanged darkness for light, error for truth, and the fables and traditions of men for the plain simple teachings of God's holy book. Let me say to all the brethren and sisters who with me have made such exchanges, You have done right! No matter what fallen Babylon says, or a world of sinners. I have been called a fool and that too by a professed christian, one of Babylon's professors, because I urged the necessity of carrying out the true meaning of the second commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." But let us have the Spirit of Christ and live out just what we profess, and God will throw around us his protecting care. O may the Lord lead all the true commandment-keepers, to feel the importance and necessity of being wholly given up to the cause of Christ. We are living just as it were on the last crumbling fragments of time. O, brethren and sisters, it is time that we bestir ourselves! Soon the call of mercy will be heard no more. O let us make no delay; for Jesus is soon coming. S. B. WARREN.
Battle Creek, Mich., Sept. 3d, 1854.