COMMUNICATIONS by S. A. Taft

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 27, 1855

COMMUNICATIONS.

By S. A. Taft

From Bro. Taft.

BRO. SMITH:—I hasten to congratulate you and the brethren generally upon the appearance of that interesting article in Review No. 10, entitled "Time for commencing the Sabbath." Admitting that you are all correct in your reasoning upon that great question, still I had thought that you were totally in the fault upon this point. To be regulated in the time of commencing and ending so important a period as God's holy Rest-day, by our fickle timepieces, did seem to me nonsensical. Sun-setting, or the going down of the sun, is a great natural circumstance about which there can be no mistake. And then there is something so perfectly sublime in entering upon such a season at such a time. It is infinitely more in harmony with the great fact than anything possibly can be in the six o'clock time determined as it must be by our rickety old clocks and watches. How much more serious to look out upon the vast expanse of the heavens which God made to note the hour of the holy Sabbath's approach, than to look upon the face of a clock which man has made. Pardon me, brethren; but only think of the wonderful contrast. Perhaps it appears worse to me than it otherwise would have done, but for the fact that I had before me the reasoning of our Seventh-Day Baptist brethren. And then the Bible is so plain upon the subject; and then what is next, in my mind at least, it is so perfectly in harmony with the Bible idea of a holy Sabbath. There is such a thing as a fitness in things; and I believe this is peculiarly the case in the moral as well as in the natural world. And in the view presented there is a fitness that is not only agreeable, but truly glorious.

I do hope therefore that so far as the practice of keeping the seventh day is concerned, there will not be a dissenting voice.

Yours truly. Macomb Co., Mich., Dec. 8th, 1855. S. A. TAFT.