Review and Herald, Vol. 43, No. 24. (5/26/1874)

Review and Herald

May 26, 1874

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1874

THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH.

By John Nevins Andrews

BY ELD. J. N. ANDREWS.

(Concluded.)

TEXT: “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify thy law, and make it honorable.”—Isa. 42:21. “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”—Dan. 7:25.

The next act of the Roman church in warring against the Sabbath, was to turn that day into a fast. Dr. Hase says:— “The Roman church regarded Saturday as a fast day, in direct opposition to those who regarded it as a Sabbath.”—Ancient Church History, part i, division ii, sec. 69.

This was at the beginning of the third century. It was only after a long struggle that the church of Rome prevailed, in turning the Sabbath into a fast. And thus Heylyn states the result:— “In the end the Roman church obtained the cause, and Saturday became a fast almost through all parts of the western world.”—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. ii, sec. 3.

The object of this was to render the Sabbath despicable in the eyes of men. This was the first great effort of the Roman church toward the suppression of the ancient Sabbath of the Bible.

We have seen the rapid advancement which the Sunday festival made in the early history of the Roman church. We have also seen how exactly adapted to the advancement of Sunday to its final supremacy was the regard of the heathen world for that day. And when the edict of Constantine in behalf of the venerable day of the sun had elevated that heathen festival to the throne of the Roman empire, the advocates of Sunday, in the church, were not slow to take advantage of the fact. At a later period, Constantine declared himself a Christian, and his Sunday law, being unrepealed, was enforced as a Christian law. In the meantime, another important event in the history of Sunday usurpation occurred.

Sylvester was bishop of Rome while Constantine was emperor. “Lucius’ Ecclesiastical History,” pp. 739, 740, informs us that Sylvester changed the name of the day, giving it the imposing title of “LORD’S DAY.” The observers of Sunday are, therefore, greatly indebted to Constantine and to Sylvester. The one elevated it, as a heathen festival, to the throne of the empire; the other changed it into a Christian institution, giving it from his apostolic authority the dignified appellation of Lord’s day. Certainly, these are very important facts. Now let us listen to the statement of Dr. Peter Heylyn, a member of the church of England, while he, an observer of what he calls the Lord’s day, traces the steps by which it rose to power. He says:—

“Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord’s day stands: on custom first, and voluntary consecration of it to religious meetings; that custom countenanced by the authority of the church of God, which tacitly approved the same; and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian princes throughout their empires. And as the day for rest from labors and restraint from business upon that day, [it] received its greatest strength from the supreme magistrate as long as he retained that power which to him belongs; as after from the canons and decrees of councils, the decretals of popes and orders of particular prelates, when the sole managing of ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them.

“I hope it was not so with the former Sabbath, which neither took original from custom, that people being not so forward to give God a day; nor required any command from the kings of Israel to confirm and ratify it. The Lord had spoken the word that he would have the seventh day from the world’s creation to be a day of rest unto all his people; which said, there was no more to do but gladly to submit and obey his pleasure. But this was not done in our present business. The Lord’s day had no such command that it should be sanctified, but was left plainly for God’s people to pitch on this, or any other, for the public use. And being taken up amongst them, and made a day of meeting in the congregation for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was neither law to bind them to it, nor any rest from labor or from worldly business required upon it. And when it seemed good unto Christian princes, the nursing fathers of God’s church, to lay restraint upon their people, yet at the first they were not general, but only thus that certain men, in certain places, should lay aside their ordinary and daily works, to attend God’s service in the church; those whose employments were most toilsome and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sabbath, being allowed to follow and pursue their labors, because most necessary to the commonwealth.”

“And in the following times, when as the prince and prelate in their several places endeavored to restrain them from that also which formerly they had permitted, and interdicted almost all kinds of bodily labor upon that day, it was not brought about without much struggling and an opposition of the people; more than a thousand years being past, after Christ’s ascension, before the Lord’s day had attained that state in which now it standeth. And being brought into that state, wherein now it stands, it doth not stand so firmly and on such sure grounds but that those powers which raised it up, may take it lower if they please, yea, take it quite away as unto the time, and settle it on any other day as to them seems best.”—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. iii, sec. 12.

These remarks of Dr. Heylyn ought to make a deep impression upon every reader who keeps the first day as the Sabbath. Here we have a candid and truthful statement of the grounds of first-day observance— it is simply the customs, and traditions, and ordinances, of men, but not at all the ordinance of God, which enter into the framework of this institution.

Dr. Heylyn thinks the men who built up this Sunday festival were pious men; and that the institution constructed by them was the Lord’s day. Yet he frankly testifies that, as it owes its existence to the precepts of men, the very same hands that set it up are capable of taking it down altogether, or of simply transferring it to any other day which may suit them better. Dr. Heylyn has given us a truthful view of the persons by whom the so-called Lord’s day was established among men. It was popes, councils, and self-styled Christian princes. How evident that it was the work of the great apostasy! The institution began with the apostasy; the two increased in strength together; and each of them stands upon the same foundation; viz., the traditions of men, which make void the commandments of God.

It is now proper that we inquire concerning the Sabbath of the Lord in these ages in which the foundation of the great apostasy was laid. The very same work that undermined the Sabbath and the law of God laid the foundation of the Romish apostasy. It does not appear that the change of the Sabbath to Sunday was contemplated by those who first made Sunday a day of religious assemblies. Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, were thus honored with very nearly equal honors. But as the work spread to the Gentiles, and as the first love of the disciples was succeeded by a spirit of seeking convenience and worldly good, it was perfectly natural that they should prefer that one of the three festivals to which they had ever been accustomed, and which was, indeed, the day of general observance by their fellow-men. And when this day was established by the authority of Constantine, and hallowed by the act of Pope Sylvester, it was not strange that it should effectually supplant the ancient Sabbath. Sunday was observed as a voluntary festival, while the Sabbath of the Lord was cherished as a divine institution; but, when the Sunday festival became strong enough, then it attempted the utter destruction of the Sabbath. Gieseler thus states the position of those two days in the early church:—

“While the Jewish Christians of Palestine retained the entire Mosaic law, and consequently the Jewish festivals, the Gentile Christians observed also THE SABBATH and the passover, with reference to the last scenes of Jesus’ life, but without Jewish superstition. In addition to these, Sunday, as the day of Christ’s resurrection, was devoted to religious services.”—Ecclesiastical History, vol. i, chap. ii, sec. 30.

Morer speaks thus, concerning the Sabbath at this time:— “The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted but they derived this practice from the apostles themselves.”—Morer’s Lord’s Day, p. 189.

Here is a further statement of the case by Coleman:— “The last day of the week was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day, for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing, until it was wholly discontinued.”—Ancient Christianity, chap. xxvi, sec. 2.

It thus appears evident that the Sabbath of the Lord was long observed, even by the body of the Christian church. And though they had regard to the first day of the week, yet it was a long time before this became a sacred day. Thus the same writer further states the case:— “During the early ages of the church, it was never entitled ‘the Sabbath,’ this word being confined to the seventh day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath, which, as we have already said, continued to be observed for several centuries by the converts to Christianity.”—Id.

This historian thus states the utter lack of divine authority for the change from the seventh to the first day of the week:— “No law or precept appears to have been given by Christ or the apostles, either for the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, or the institution of the Lord’s day, or the substitution of the first for the seventh day of the week.”—Id.

This is a very important acknowledgment for a first-day historian. It does not very well accord with Mosheim’s statement that the observance of Sunday “was founded upon the express appointment of the apostles.” Now let us listen while this historian relates how the Sabbath of the Lord was crowded out and superseded by a day which he acknowledges had no divine warrant for its observance. Thus he states the facts:—

“The observance of the Lord’s day was ordered while yet the Sabbath of the Jews was continued; nor was the latter superseded until the former had acquired the same solemnity and importance which belonged at first to that great day which God originally ordained and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord’s day was fully established, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as heretical.”—Id. Ib.

This is a very extraordinary statement. Were it made by an observer of the Sabbath, it might be suspected of being unfairly stated. Coming from an observer of the first day of the week, it is open to no such suspicion. The period of five hundred years was sufficient to work a marvelous change in the relative position of these two days. At the commencement of that period, the one stood in its strength, a divine institution, clothed with the majesty of the law of God, and the other was only a voluntary festival, having no support in the law of God, or the precepts of the apostles. At the end of this period, the law of God itself had become of little authority, even in the professed church of Christ; the observance of the Sabbath had become heretical, and its right even to exist at all was vehemently disputed; while the first day of the week had become the Lord’s day, and was clothed with the authority of the civil law of the empire, and backed by the authority of the church now far advanced in the work of apostasy.

The following testimony of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, though expressing his opinion concerning the abrogation of the fourth commandment, is nevertheless an explicit statement of the continued observance of the Sabbath for several centuries. He says:— “The Lord’s day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath; but the Sabbath was wholly abrogated, and the Lord’s day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because they, for almost three hundred years together, kept that day which was in that commandment; but they did it, also, without any opinion of prime obligation; and, therefore, they did not suppose it moral.”—Ductor Dubitantium, part i, book ii, chap. ii, sec. 51.

Here, also, is the testimony of another competent witness, who, though an observer of Sunday, and a believer in the abrogation of the Sabbath, makes a very plain and express statement respecting the observance of the Sabbath by the early church. It is Edward Berewood, professor in Gresham College, London, who speaks thus:— “The ancient Sabbath did remain, and was observed, together with the celebration of the Lord’s day, by the Christians of the east church, above three hundred years after our Saviour’s death; and, besides that, no other day, for more hundred years than I spoke of before, was known in the church

by the name of Sabbath, but that. Let the collection thereof, and conclusion of all, be this: the Sabbath of the seventh day, as teaching the obligation of God’s solemn worship to it, was ceremonial; that Sabbath was religiously observed in the east church three hundred years after our Saviour’s passion. That church being a great part of Christendom, and having the apostles’ doctrine and example to instruct them, would have restrained it if it had been deadly.”—Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 77, edition of 1631.

Even after the enactment of Constantine’s Sunday law, in A. D. 321, the Sabbath of the Lord again rallied, and its observance became very general. Thus Prof. Stuart writes of the period between Constantine’s edict and the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364. He says:—

“The practice of it [the keeping of the Sabbath] was continued by Christians who were jealous for the honor of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have seen, predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed at length that the fourth commandment did require the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath (not merely a seventh part of time), and reasoning as Christians of the present day are wont to do; viz., that all which belongs to the ten commandments was immutable and perpetual, the churches in general came gradually to regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether sacred.”—Appendix to Gurney’s History of the Sabbath, pp. 115, 116.

Now it was time for the advocates of Sunday to come to the rescue. And this they did at the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364. Here an awful curse was pronounced upon those who should observe the Sabbath and should not observe Sunday. William Prynne, in his “Dissertation on the Lord’s Sabbath,” pp. 34, 44, edition of 1633, thus states the action of this council:—

“The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean council did in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. . . . The council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, first settled the observation of the Lord’s day, and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath under an anathema.”

But even at this time, Sunday labor was considered perfectly lawful. Thus Dr. Heylyn, in his “History of the Sabbath,” part ii, chap. iii, sec. 9, speaking of the latter part of the fourth century, says:— “St. Chrysostom confessed it to be lawful for a man to look to his worldly business on the Lord’s day, after the congregation was dismissed.”

Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, thus testifies concerning Sunday labor at the beginning of the fifth century:— “In St. Jerome’s days, and in the very place where he was residing, the devoted Christians did ordinarily work upon the Lord’s day, when the service of the church was ended.”—Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 219.

St. Augustine was the contemporary of Jerome, and he gives a summary of the reasons which were urged at that time for Sunday observance, as follows:— “It appears from the sacred Scriptures, that this day was a solemn one; it was the first day of the age, that is, of the existence of our world; in it the elements of the world were formed; on it the angels were created; on it Christ rose also from the dead; on it the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven upon the apostles, as manna had done in the wilderness. For these, and other such circumstances, the Lord’s day is distinguished; and therefore the holy doctors of the church have decreed that all the glory of the Jewish Sabbath is transferred to it. Let us, therefore, keep the Lord’s day as the ancients were commanded to do the Sabbath.”—Cox’s Sabbath Laws, p. 284.

St. Augustine did not regard the Sunday festival as a divine institution. He gave the credit of the work, not to Christ or his inspired apostles, but to the holy doctors of the church, who, of their own accord, had transferred the glory of the ancient Sabbath to the venerable day of the sun. Of the fifth and sixth centuries, Heylyn bears the following testimony:—

“The faithful, being united better than before, became more uniform in matters of devotion; and, in that uniformity, did agree together to give the Lord’s day all the honors of an holy festival. Yet was not this done all at once, but by degrees; the fifth and sixth centuries being fully spent before it came unto that height which hath since continued. The emperors and the prelates in these times had the same affections; both [being] earnest to advance this day above all others; and to the edicts of the one, and to the ecclesiastical constitutions of the other, it stands indebted for many of those privileges and exemptions which it still enjoyeth.”—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. iv, sec. 1.

But the first day of the week had not yet acquired the title of Sabbath. Thus Berewood bears testimony:— “The name of the Sabbath remained appropriated to the old Sabbath; and was never attributed to the Lord’s day, not of many hundred years after our Saviour’s time.”—Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, edition of 1631.

And Dr. Heylyn, in his “History of the Sabbath,” part ii, chap. 2, sec. 12, says of the term Sabbath in the ancient church:— “The Saturday is called amongst them by no other name than that which formerly it had, the Sabbath. So that whenever, for a thousand years and upwards, we meet with Sabbatum in any writer of what name soever, it must be understood of no day but Saturday.”

Of Sunday labor in the eastern church, Heylyn says:— “It was near nine hundred years from our Saviour’s birth, before restraint of husbandry on this day had been first thought of in the East; and probably being thus restrained, did find no more obedience then than it had done before in the western parts.”—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. v, sec. 6.

Of Sunday labor in the western church, Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, in his “Treatise of the Sabbath-day,” pp. 217, 218, thus testifies:— “The Catholic church, for more than six hundred years after Christ, permitted labor, and gave license to many Christian people to work upon the Lord’s day, at such hours as they were not commanded to be present at the public worship by the precept of the church.”

The history of the Dark Ages is full of the edicts of emperors and princes, and of the decrees of popes, bishops, and councils, all directed to the one object of establishing the sacredness of Sunday. Miracles, prodigies, and judgments, were not wanting with which to confirm these edicts and decrees. Banishment, confiscation of goods, stripes, slavery, the loss of one hand, and then of the other, and the like, were the penalties by which Sunday observance was, by these edicts, forced upon the people. One of these miracles is thus given in Francis West’s “Historical and Practical Discourse on the Lord’s day.” He says:—

“Gregory of Tours [about 590] reporteth that a husbandman, who, upon the Lord’s day, went to plough his field, as he cleaned his plough with an iron, the iron stuck so fast in his hand that for two years he could not be delivered from it, but carried it about continually to his exceeding great pain and shame.”

According to Morer’s “Lord’s Day,” p. 271, the council of Paris, A. D. 829, brought forward that Sunday argument, which in these days is often and largely used to supply the place of Scripture testimony. They announced God’s judgment upon those who labor on that day:— “For, say they, many of us by our own knowledge, and some by hearsay, know that several countrymen following their husbandry on this day, have been killed with lightning, others, being seized with convulsions in their joints, have miserably perished. Whereby it is apparent how high the displeasure of God was upon their neglect of this day.”

To strengthen the sacredness of this “venerable day,” the doctors of the church were not wanting. Heylyn makes the following statement:— “It was delivered of the souls in purgatory by Petrus Damiani, who lived A. D. 1056, that every Lord’s day they were manumitted from their pains, and fluttered up and down the lake Avernus, in the shape of birds.”—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. v, sec. 2.

And even hell itself could be benefited if those yet living upon earth would keep Sunday well. Morer, in his “Lord’s Day,” p. 68, speaks thus:— “Yet still the others went on their way; and, to induce their proselytes to spend the day with greater exactness and care, they brought in the old argument of compassion and charity to the damned in hell, who, during the day, have some respite from their torments, and the ease and liberty they have is more or less, according to the zeal and degrees of keeping it well.”

In A. D. 1095, Pope Urban II. consecrated the Sabbath to the weekly service of the Virgin Mary. This was a great indignity to the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

In the following century an apparition from St. Peter charged the king of England to allow “no buying or selling, and no servile work,” on Sunday. Morer’s “Lord’s Day,” p. 288. But in the very midnight of the Dark Ages, when the papal power had reached its highest elevation, Pope Innocent III., in A. D. 1202, sent into England by one Eustachius a roll which fell from Heaven, containing the long-needed divine authority for Sunday. Here is this remarkable document:—

“A HOLY MANDATE, touching the Lord’s day, which came down from Heaven unto Jerusalem, found on St. Simeon’s altar in Golgotha, where Christ was crucified for the sins of all the world, which, lying there three days and three nights, struck with such terror all that saw it, that falling on the ground they besought God’s mercy. At last the patriarch and Akarias, the archbishop (of I know not whence), ventured to take into their hands that dreadful letter, which was written thus. Now wipe your eyes and look awhile on the contents:—

“I am the Lord who commanded you to keep the Lord’s day, and you have not kept it, neither repented of your sins; I caused repentance to be preached unto you, and you believed not; then I sent the pagans among you, who spilt your blood on the earth, and yet you believed not; and because you did not observe the Lord’s holy day, I punished you awhile with famine; but in a short time I gave you fullness of bread, and then you behaved yourselves worse than before. I again charge you that from the ninth hour [i. e., three o’clock, P. M.] on Saturday, until sunrising on the Monday, no man presume to do any work, but what is good, or if he do, let him repent for the same. Verily I say unto you, and swear by my seat and throne, and by the cherubim which surround it, that if you do not hearken to this my mandate, I will send no other letter unto you, but will open the heavens, and rain upon you stones, wood and scalding water, by night, so that none shall be able to provide against them. I say ye shall die the death for the Lord’s day, and other festivals of my saints which ye have not kept; and I will send among you beasts with the heads of lions, and the hair of women, and the tails of camels, which being very hungry shall devour your flesh. And you shall desire to flee to the sepulchres of the dead, and hide you for fear of those beasts. And I will take the light of the sun from your eyes, and send such darkness that, not being able to see, you shall destroy each other. And I will turn my face away and not in the least pity you. I will burn your bodies and hearts of all them who do not keep the Lord’s day. Hear them my words, and do not perish for neglecting this day. I swear to you by my right hand, that if you do not observe the Lord’s day and festivals of my saints, I will send pagan nations to destroy you.”—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. vii, sec. 6; Morer, pp. 288–290; Wilkins, “Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ,” vol. 1, p. 510; Matthew Paris, p. 141, and many other writers.

We have two very remarkable facts in the history of Sunday, and of the Romish apostasy: 1. The first act of papal aggression was in behalf of Sunday. 2. When the papal power had reached its utmost height of usurpation, it furnished the world with a roll from Heaven commanding the observance of Sunday under awful penalties. The two arose together from very small beginnings to vast power and greatness. But God was not in either. The mission of Eustachius was attested by miracles and prodigies. Thus we read in Heylyn’s “History of the Sabbath,” part ii, chap. vii, sec. 6, as follows:—

“A carpenter making a wooden pin, and a woman making up her web, both after three on Saturday in the afternoon [for the pope in this letter had fixed ‘the Lord’s day’ from three o’clock on Saturday afternoon until sunrise on Monday], are suddenly smitten with the palsy. A certain man of Nasserton, baking a cake on Saturday night and keeping part until the morrow, no sooner brake it for his breakfast but it gushed out blood. A miller, of Wakefield, grinding corn on Saturday after three of the clock, instead of meal found his bin full of blood; his mill-wheel standing still of its own accord.”

But God did not leave himself without witnesses to his truth, even in the Dark Ages. A portion of the Waldenses bore the title of Sabbatati. Mr. Benedict, in his “General History of the Baptist Denomination,” vol. ii, pp. 412, 413, edition of 1813, says of this term:—

“Mr. Milner supposes this name was given to them because they observed not the Romish festivals, and rested from their ordinary occupations only on Sundays. A Sabbatarian would suppose that it was because they met for worship on the seventh day, and did regard not the first-day Sabbath.”

Mr. Robinson, in his “Ecclesiastical Researches,” chap. x, pp. 303, 304, speaks thus of this designation of the Waldenses: “One says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord’s day.” Other writers allude to this term in the same manner.

The Cathari, or Puritans, were a body of witnesses who during the Dark Ages protested against Rome. The papal writers, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of this people, say of them, that they kept the Sabbath and held also to circumcision. The same statement is made concerning the Passaginians, a branch of the Waldenses. Mr. Benedict speaks of them as follows:—

“The account of their practicing circumcision is undoubtedly a slanderous story forged by their enemies, and probably arose in this way: Because they observed the seventh day, they were called, by way of derision, Jews, as the Sabbatarians are frequently at this day; and if they were Jews, it followed of course that they either did, or ought to, circumcise their followers. This was probably the reasoning of their enemies; but that they actually practiced the bloody rite, is altogether improbable.”—General History of the Baptist Denomination, vol. ii, pp. 412–418.

Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, says that the Petrobrusians, and a portion of the people known as Anabaptists, were observers of the seventh day. “Treatise of the Sabbath day,” pp. 8, 132. Thus, within the limits of the Roman Empire, God preserved faithful men who kept his commandments during the Dark Ages. And it is a remarkable fact that the Abyssinians of Africa have held fast to the Sabbath to the present time, as have also the Armenians of the East Indies. See Geddes’ “Church History of Ethiopia,” pp. 87, 88; “Buchanan’s Christian Researches in Asia,” pp. 159, 160.

When the Reformation of the sixteenth century had lifted the veil of darkness that covered the nations of Europe, Sabbath-keepers were found in Transylvania, Germany, Holland, France, and England, and in other countries of Europe. It was not the Reformation that gave existence to these Sabbatarians, for the leaders of the Reformation, as a body, were not friendly to the Sabbath of the Lord. On the contrary, these observers of the Sabbath appear to be remnants of the ancient Sabbath-keeping churches that had witnessed for the truth during the Dark Ages.

And now we come to a remarkable event in the history of Sunday. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, a controversy arose between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians of England, that compelled the latter either to give up the first day of the week, or defend it by the Bible. They chose the latter course. Hengstenberg’s “Lord’s Day,” p. 66. It was at this juncture that Dr. Nicholas Bound, of Norton, England, discovered what he called the “True doctrine of the Christian Sabbath.” This was nothing else than that the law of God does not require the seventh day, but only one day in seven, or a seventh part of time. With the aid of this theory, Sunday has, since that time, wrapped itself in the authority of the fourth commandment, and challenged the obedience of the world as the veritable Sabbath of the Lord.

Sabbath-keepers still remain in England, and for more than two centuries have they been found in the United States. The Seventh-day Baptists during this period have stood as witnesses to this great memorial of the Bible, the Sabbath of the Lord. During the past twenty-five years have arisen also the people known as Seventh-day Adventists, who are interested in the proclamation of God’s commandments and the faith of Jesus, as presented in the third angel’s message. They hope to induce many to turn away their feet from trampling down the Sabbath of the Lord. And when the Sabbath shall be observed in the new earth by the whole host of the redeemed, they hope to be of that number who shall assemble on that day, every week, to worship in the heavenly Jerusalem before the Lord of hosts. Rev. 14: 12; Isa. 58: 13; 66: 22, 23.

MY PRESENT EXPERIENCE.

By Ernest Christian

I am drinking at the fountain, Where I ever would abide; For I've tasted life's pure water, And my soul is satisfied.

There's no thirsting for earth-pleasure, Or adorning rich and gay; For I've found a richer treasure,— One that fadeth not away.

Tell me not of heavy crosses, Or of burdens hard to bear, For I find this great salvation Makes each burden light appear.

And I love to follow Jesus; Gladly counting all things loss; Worldly honors, all forsaking, For the glory of the cross.

Oh, the cross hath wondrous glory! Oft I've proved this to be true, When it filled the way so narrow, And I saw no pathway through; Then how sweetly Jesus whispered,— Take the cross; thou needest not fear, I have trod this way before thee, And the glory lingers near.

So I gladly follow Jesus, Trusting in a friend so dear; And I've proved his precious promise, I am with thee, never fear. He will guide me to the haven, Never moved by tempest shock; And no harm can e'er befall me, While I'm anchored to the Rock.

—Ernest Christian.

Continue reading: The Kingdom—No. 8