“The Sabbath was made for man”—male and female—yet it is a lamentable fact that many females among us violate the rest of the holy Sabbath by unnecessary cooking on that day. It being a truth, uttered by the Son of God, that the Sabbath was made for man—for the entire race—it follows that God, whose ways are equal, requires its observance equally strict during all time.
We will go back to the giving of the manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and see the special directions there given touching the subject of cooking on the Sabbath.
“Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. Ex. xvi, 4, 5, 22, 23.
Was it a violation of the rest of the Sabbath for them to cook their manna on the seventh day? It was. And it is no less a violation of the holy Sabbath to cook our food on that day, which can be cooked on the sixth day.
We have the account [Num. xv, 32-37] that while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day, for which he was stoned to death. We are not told for what purpose he gathered them; but probably to kindle a fire. As they had need of fires only to wash their clothes, and to cook their manna, and were commanded to cook on the sixth day food necessary for the seventh, this act of gathering sticks for a fire was a violation of the law of the Sabbath contained in the fourth commandment.
The Israelites while in the wilderness did not need fires on the Sabbath-day. They were in a mild climate; their food was rained down from heaven, and their clothes were miraculously preserved. “There was not one feeble person among their tribes.”Ps. cv, 37. For them, under such circumstances, to have kindled a fire on the Sabbath, would have been an open violation of the Sabbath law.
We are differently situated. We live in an age when the race has become comparatively feeble, and in the cold season of the year we would kindle a fire on the Sabbath as an act of mercy and necessity, the same as we would water an ox or a horse, or lift a sheep from a pit. Such acts, the “Lord of the Sabbath” pronounced “lawful.” But it is evidently wrong, and a violation of the Sabbath, to neglect to make those necessary preparations for the rest of the holy Sabbath which can be consistently made on the sixth day. The Sabbath law did not oblige the Jews to suffer either cold or hunger; neither does it us, for “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just and good.”
But for us to kindle fires, in Summer or Winter, expressly to cook food on the Sabbath, that it may be warm and better indulge the appetite, is no less197a sin than the cooking of the manna on the Sabbath in the wilderness.
Brethren and Sisters, let us put away this unnecessary cooking on the Sabbath as a sin in the sight of God. Plain food, cooked on the sixth day of the week, is sufficient on the Sabbath for all persons in health. The lessons taught by the Lord of the Sabbath touching acts of mercy and necessity on the seventh day, are sufficient to guide us in all cases of sickness. It is a time of self-examination. It is our duty, brethren and sisters, to search our hearts and our lives with the strictest care, and put away those sins which separate us from God. J. W.