The Sabbath in England.
By T. W. B.
Correspondence of the SABBATH RECORDER
London, Nov. 1858. The question of the Sabbath has become one of the great topics of discussion of the day, every paper, political or religious, takes up the subject, and discusses it from every point of view; pamphlets are constantly issuing from the press, and large works are published, rendering it quite impossible to know all that is said on the subject. The Times in a recent article, condemns the strict observance of Sunday as a Jewish Sabbath, being quite satisfied with the English mode of keeping the day, as frequently condemned by foreigners, and thinks that the means afforded for those who desire recreation is ample, and that for those who desire a strict observance of the day, the law compels an outward decorum by the maintenance of order and the closing of shops. The Daily Telegraph is of opinion that the reader of the New Testament cannot find “a single word therein enjoining him to set apart any particular day or hour for attendance on public worship, and a little reflection leads him to discover that he has hitherto been made the ‘dupe of a Roman Catholic tradition.’” The Morning Star advocates the same opinions, and many others too numerous to be mentioned here, while the Record, the high-church organ, is disgusted at the blasphemous notions (as it terms them,) which are being instilled into the minds of the people. A great struggle is thus going on between the strict and lax observers of the first day, each party trying its utmost to promulgate its views. The subject is so much agitated that thinking and candid men are obliged to confess the first day has no authority, and then they fall into the error that there is no Sabbath under christianity. A recent anonymous writer says, “a positive command was given of God to keep the seventh day as the Sabbath, and it is quite clear that no command whatever was given to Jew or Gentile to keep the first day. I would then ask the first day Sabbath advocates, is it to be supposed that such continued injunctions were given to the people of Israel under the Mosaic economy to observe with the utmost rigor the seventh day as the Sabbath, and yet, when under the higher and more glorious economy, no command whatever should be given to keep the first day as the Sabbath? Not one single portion of the Scriptures of the New Testament can be found to prove this! The only argument used by this section is, that Christ was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, and that the apostles met on the first day of the week—very good; and so they met and preached on the seventh day, the Sabbath.” He then quotes all the passages mentioning the observance of the seventh day Sabbath by the apostles, and further says, “If the first day Sabbath advocates think that they have sufficient proof without a direct command, but simply from the circumstance of Paul’s preaching on the first day of the week, and of his directing believers in Christ at Corinth to lay up in store for charitable purposes on the first day of the week, how much more have the seventh day advocates to maintain the seventh day as the Sabbath, according to the primitive and positive commandment of God.” The strict observers of Sunday are endeavoring to enforce the Sunday laws against work. In a country town, recently, several bakers were fined for working. A farmer and his laborers were also convicted in another place of harvesting, and fined; but in another case, the magistrate dismissed the summons against some laborers who were at work on a railroad, upon the evidence of several witnesses that the line was in a dangerous condition. While these laws are being enforced, the promoters of the League are considering the advisability of having them repealed. The supporters of the League, which is only in the third year of its existence, have commenced their winter campaign by delivering lectures all over the country in favor of Sunday as a day of rest and innocent recreation, always insisting that “no divine command can be shown for the observance of the first day of the week, nor any proof of the transference of the obligation from the seventh to the first.” Challenges are given for public discussions on this subject, but no one has yet come forward publicly, since Mr. Maguire last year.