Bro. Smith: You are doubtless aware that our schismatical friend, Mr. Hicks, has recently paid you a salute through the Recorder, rebuking you sharply for admitting the commonly-received opinion that our Saviour was crucified on the sixth day of the week. He seems to think that you certainly ought to know better, especially if you had read a recent article written by himself, entitled "A Refutation of the Principal Claim of Sunday-keeping to Divine Authority." If you had read that, as I suppose you had, you are considered inexcusable.
Though I have always held the opinion that the crucifixion took place earlier in the week than Friday, yet I fail to see any criminality on your part in thinking differently and expressing it as you understand it, even though you had read the article referred to. I fail also to see that Sunday-keeping has gained any thing, or Sabbath-keeping lost any thing, by the admission.
I never dispute that Christ rose on Sunday, in advocating the Sabbath, because it would lengthen the discussion and nothing be gained in the end. Besides this, if we try to prove that the resurrection took place on the Sabbath, opposers will take it as a tacit admission that the day on which he rose is the Sabbath, and they can easily satisfy themselves and their hearers that it was on the first day of the week.
Some years ago, I heard Alexander Campbell of Bethany, Va., say that whether the Saviour arose on the first day or the day before (as though he doubted which), it was first known that he was risen on the first day, and consequently, if we would commemorate the event by the observance of a day, the first day only could with propriety be used for that purpose. I mentally admitted the correctness of the remark, but it
had no effect on my mind in respect to the Sabbath question. How could we celebrate the resurrection on the day before the fact was known? It was the joyful morning that proclaimed a risen Saviour that should celebrate the glorious event, provided this were the Heaven-appointed way of celebrating this event. Hence it is just as well, and I think decidedly better, to let the people have it their own way, not disputing the claim of the first day, as being the resurrection day. And I would further admit that the resurrection should be celebrated, and bring forward the divine institution, even baptism, which was appointed for this very purpose.
So what Mr. Hicks calls the "principal claim," amounts to nothing, though it be admitted; but the factionist can magnify motes into mountains and these
"Mountains interposed,
Make enemies of nations, which had else,
Like kindred drops have mingled into one."
R. F. COTTRELL.