Review and Herald, Vol. 41, No. 25. (6/3/1873)

Review and Herald

Jun 3, 1873

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1873

The Statesman Articles.

By W. H. Littlejohn

Article Ten.

The Principle as to Time in Sabbath Observance.

Our readers will recollect that the chief difference between the second and third theories of the Christian Sabbath, as we stated them in our last issue, is in reference to the question of time. Seventh-day Sabbatarians, on the one hand, maintain that the last one of the seven days of the week is the sacred day, and that the observance of this very day is absolutely essential to the proper observance of the Sabbath of the Lord, and the keeping of the fourth commandment. On the other hand, we set forth what we believe to be the true theory of the Christian Sabbath, according to which the essential idea of the law of the Sabbath is the consecration to God of an appointed proportion of time—one day in seven, and not the essential holiness of any particular day.

We have already seen that the interpretation of the fourth commandment which insists on the essential holiness of the last day of the week would convict the risen Lord and his inspired apostles and the whole church of Christ, even in its purest days, of the violation of that precept of the divine law. But let us now examine a few practical points in connection with this second theory.

1. If the seventh day of the week is to be rigidly adhered to, as the law of the fourth commandment, it must be the seventh from the creation, in regular weekly succession. Will any seventh-day Sabbatarian venture to affirm that, through all the changes of our race, through all the breaks of history, through the bondage in Egypt and the repeated captivities of God’s ancient people, to say nothing of the miracles in connection with Joshua’s victory and Hezekiah’s sickness, the unbroken succession of the weekly divisions of time has been maintained? Does the last day of our week answer in an exact numbering of days to the seventh day on which God rested after completing the work of creation? The interpretation which we are now considering demands this conformity to the fourth commandment in its letter. He would be a bold man indeed who would affirm that his seventh day in this nineteenth century is the exact day which his own view of the law of the Sabbath would require him to keep holy. Our present first day may correspond to the original seventh day. Who knows?

2. But admit that these essentially holy twenty-four hours at the close of each week may be marked without doubt, how can all Christians in different parts of the world keep them? How can men in different longitudes and latitudes so mark off the week as to have it end with this intrinsically holy portion of time? The difference in local time in different parts of the earth is a fact familiar to every schoolboy. The circumference of the earth, for the convenience of calculation, is divided into three hundred and sixty degrees. As the sun appears to make a circuit round the earth every time the earth rotates on its axis, that is, every twenty-four hours, the apparent motion of the sun from east to west will be fifteen degrees each hour. Let it be noon of the seventh day at any given point in our land, and it will be sunset ninety degrees east, and sunrise ninety degrees west. At what point of the earth’s surface shall men claim the right to have the seventh or holy day begin with their sunset or their midnight, and demand that all others east and west shall measure their holy day from so many hours before or after their own midnight or sunset, as their portion may require?

Or again, in extreme northern and southern latitudes, where perpetual day and constant night alternate with the annual revolution of the earth, how shall the seventh day be marked? How shall this essentially holy day of twenty-four hours be known? As God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit to make our earth, and ordain the laws of its diurnal revolution on its axis, and its annual orbit round the sun, it is simply impossible for the inhabitants of the world to keep holy the same identical period of time. The interpretation of the law of the Sabbath at which we are looking is in conflict, therefore, with the laws of the solar system.

3. Our seventh-day friend, perhaps, retreats to his last refuge. There is no portion of absolute time essentially holy. That was never meant. Very well, then, what is meant? Why, that each one in his own longitude or latitude should observe the seventh day as it is measured by his own local time. We apprehend that in some latitudes the seventh day, measured by local time, running through some thousands of hours, would be a weariness to the strictest even of seventh-day Sabbatarians. But we will leave these extreme cases. They must keep holy the appointed proportion—one seventh of their time. That must be the law of the Sabbath to them. But in the belt of the earth nearer the equator, local time, measured by the natural division of days, must be followed.

Now, let it be said, we have no desire to treat a serious subject lightly. But our friends insist on an interpretation of the fourth commandment which can hardly be treated seriously. We can scarcely blame Dr. Geo. Junkin for employing this shaft of ridicule. He says, substantially, Suppose all our seventh-day Sabbatarians (and their number is not an insuperable objection to the experiment), having labored six days according to the commandment, come to the night of Friday. By an excusable artifice, sponges saturated with a powerful anesthetic agent are held to their noses, and they are laid up, in perfect unconsciousness for a whole day beyond the close of their usual time of sleep. They awake, supposing it to be the seventh day of the week, as to them, as conscious intelligent beings, and subjects of law, it certainly would be to all intents and purposes. But in fact, by the actual measurement of time, it is the first day of the week. Might there not be in this way a practical solution of the whole difficulty?

But the actual rising and the setting of the sun may be insisted on whether our seventh-day advocates are conscious or not. Suppose, then, that one of them takes the now rather popular trip of a tour round the world. Going west at the rate of say thirty degrees a week, starting from New York, he would lengthen each of his days from sunrise to sunrise,—supposing the sun to rise at six o’clock, local time, all along the belt of his course,—a little over seventeen minutes, and thus, keeping his own count of time, and observing every seventh solar day, on his return to New York at the end of twelve weeks, his seventh-day Sabbath would really be the first day of the week. Though he might not be mentally converted to the first-day theory of the Christian Sabbath, he would at least be physically converted, and would either be compelled to accept the change, or make a week of six solar days to harmonize in Sabbath observance with his seventh-day brethren at home, or take to his journeying again, and complete the circuit of the earth in the opposite direction, in order to maintain, unbroken, the succession of weeks of seven days each, and have his Sabbath fall on the one and only day which will suit his interpretation of the fourth commandment.

If, instead of going by the west, our traveler should go by the east, journeying at the same rate of thirty degrees each week, he would diminish the length of each of his days, a little over seventeen minutes, and on arriving once more at New York, at the end of twelve even weeks by the time of that city, but twelve weeks and one day by his own time, his seventh-day Sabbath would fall on the sixth day of the week, and we would have a new order of Sabbatarians.

The reason of the diversity is obvious. The trip around the world, according to the supposed rate of travel, would occupy just twelve weeks, or eighty-four days of twenty-four hours each, measured by local time at New York. The total number of hours, reckoning each day twenty-four even hours, would be 2016. The traveler proceeding westward at the rate of thirty degrees a week, would add to each day’s length just seventeen and one-seventh minutes—making each day from sunrise to sunrise, reckoning this always at 6 o’clock, local time, twenty-four hours, seventeen and one-seventh minutes long. He would, therefore, in the whole number of hours of his trip, 2016, see the sun rise only eighty-three instead of eighty-four times. Going east, he would shorten each day’s length, reducing it, from sunrise to sunrise, to twenty-three hours forty-two and six-seventh minutes. In this case the whole number of hours, 2016, would divide up into eighty-five solar days. To one remaining at New York there would be eighty-four solar days; to the one going west around the world the same absolute time would be summed up in eighty-three solar days; and to the one going east, it would extend itself to eighty-five solar days. Thus, at the close of every trip round the world, the Christian traveler or sailor must readjust the reckoning of his days, in order to observe the Lord’s day with his brethren at home. When our Constitution shall have been amended, and a true Christian regard shall be shown to all citizens, if our seventh-day friends feel grievously oppressed by the Sabbath laws which will then be no dead letter, we shall do our utmost to have the national government provide a number of comfortable vessels, and give our friends a gratuitous trip round the world. We shall take care that the officers are instructed not to sail by the east, for our seventh-day Sabbatarians would then go away only to come home and be sixth-day Sabbatarians. Due care will be taken to have them proceed in the right direction, and to induce them on their return to stay at home, and government’s oppression of them by Sabbath laws will then forevermore have ceased.

In all seriousness we ask, how can a thoughtful man, in view of the fact of the earth’s revolution round the sun, and its effect on the measurement of time, hold to the second theory of the Christian Sabbath? We have a matter of fact to record just here. In 1790, nine mutineers from the English vessel, the Bounty, along with six men and twelve women from Tahiti, landed on what is known as Pitcairn’s Island in the Pacific Ocean. John Adams, one of the mutineers, after the violent death of the other men, was converted by reading a copy of the Bible, and became a true Christian. Keeping his own count of the days, he observed the weekly Sabbath, with the community which was growing up, and which he was at great pains to instruct in the Christian religion. Some time after, an English vessel visited the islands, keeping their count of the days. The officers and crew of this vessel landed at the island on Saturday, but to their astonishment found a Christian community keeping the Christian Sabbath. The original settlers and the visitors had gone to the island in different directions. Did the sailors, who kept one day, not observe the Sabbath? Or did the islanders, who kept another day, violate the fourth precept of the decalogue?

Two colonies of seventh-day advocates might leave the same port, one going east and the other west, and might locate on islands, on the same parallel of longitude, but on different parallels of latitude. Each, keeping its own record of time, would be found on settling in their permanent home, to be observing a different day as the weekly Sabbath. Would either colony admit that it was in the wrong? If they were to live apart, each might properly observe its new day; if together, would it matter which day might be observed?

Thus the principle as to time in Sabbath observance insists not on the essential holiness of any twenty-four hours in themselves, but on the dedication to God, of one day in seven, one-seventh of the time as nearly as that proportion can be measured by the most convenient means available. This, the third theory does, while it accepts all the facts of history. With one more article, in favor of the third theory of the Christian Sabbath, we shall close this whole discussion.—Christian Statesman, Feb. 8, 1873.

“The Principle as to Time in Sabbath Observance.”

A Rejoinder.

Were it not true that we had long since ceased to be surprised at anything which an individual could say when opposing the claims of the Lord’s Sabbath, after having received the light concerning them, our astonishment at the position taken by the gentleman of the Statesman, in the foregoing article, would have no bounds.

To one who has followed him thus far in an elaborate argument, running through a series of nine communications, all for the purpose of establishing from both Scripture and history, the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, and the obligation under which all men are now placed to observe the latter instead of the former, it will be extremely difficult to explain, on grounds honorable to himself, this sudden repudiation of all which he has said in the past, while endeavoring to defend the newly found theory of the observance of one day in seven, to the exclusion of any definite day whatever.

In his second article, he says, “We are concerned here and now simply with the transfer of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week.” In the third article, when speaking of apostolic times, he remarks again, “It was also seen that while the observance of the seventh day was not continued, another day of the week, the first, took its place as the stated day for religious assemblies and services.” Farther on, he writes again, as follows: “On the last seventh day on which the disciples rested, according to the commandment, the Lord himself is lying in the tomb. The glory of the seventh day dies out with the

fading light of that day, throughout the whole of which the grave claimed the body of the Redeemer. But the glory of the Sabbath of the Lord survives. It receives fresh luster from the added glories of the Lord of the Sabbath. ‘The Stone which the builders refused has become the head of the corner.’ It is very early in the morning, the first day of the week. Again, ‘God said, Let there be light; and there was light.’ The Sun of Righteousness has risen with healing in his wings. This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. The first day of the week has become the Lord’s day.”

But we must cease from our quotations, for there is no limit to expressions synonymous with the above. Not only so, but were additional proof necessary, by more ample extracts, it could be made to appear that the whole theory of his defense, as already declared, has rested entirely upon the change of the day from the seventh, which was observed till the death of Christ, to the first, which was honored especially by our Lord, by his personal appearance to the disciples on the first and second Sundays following the resurrection, and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, with the especial view of teaching the disciples that it had become holy time; also, that they, grasping the moral of the lesson imparted by example, if not by positive precept, inculcated the doctrine of the change, and made it binding upon all.

If we are right in this, and the reader who has followed the debate thus far will unhesitatingly admit that such are the facts, then, of course, the gentleman is arrayed against himself in a manner most distasteful, no doubt, to his personal feelings, as well as disastrous to his polished logic; for to the mind of the merest school-boy it must be apparent that a change of Sabbath from one day of the week to another, involves the definiteness of the day thus honored; i. e., if the first day of the week is now the Christian Sabbath because of the nature of events which transpired upon it in particular, then, of course, it occupies that position to the exclusion of all other days; but this utterly demolishes the seventh-part-of-time theory, which the gentleman has adopted, the very essence of which is, that there is now no superiority in days, and the individual is left free to choose any one which may best accord with his tastes or subserve his interests.

Here, then, we come to a dead halt. Which shall we believe, the nine articles of the gentleman, or the tenth, which is in direct conflict with their teachings? Should we go by the bulk of the testimony, then we must decide that there is a definite day, according to the conviction of our opponent. But if he still holds to that doctrine, then the whole force of what he has said against the seventh-day Sabbath, on the ground that the earth is round, and, therefore, that the Edenic Sabbath could not be kept in all portions of it, is deprived of all its force. For, assuredly, if he believes that God now requires all men to honor the first day of the week, the world over, then he must admit that it is possible for them to do so. But if it is possible for men both to find and to celebrate the first day of the week, on a round world, then, beyond all dispute, the same process which will enable them to do this, will also qualify them to locate and to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. For it is just as certain as mathematical demonstration can make it, that in a week consisting of seven days, having found the first of the number, in order to discover the last, you have but to take the one which preceded the known day, or, if you please, count forward six days from the one already established, and you have the last day of the week to which it belongs. So, too, with every objection urged in the communication.

The one in regard to the difficulties which would be experienced in an attempt to keep the Sabbath of the commandment at the poles, is just as fatal to the first day as it is to the seventh. All this talk, also, in regard to the impossibility of preserving a correct count, and of the lengthening and shortening of the days, as the traveler passes from the east to the west, if it has any force at all, or even the semblance of force, must be met and answered equally by the observers of the so-called Christian Sabbath, with those of the Sabbath of the Lord. This being true, we might pause right here, and roll the burden onto the opposition. Having raised the dust which is blinding the eyes of the ignorant, yet conscientious, it would be but substantial justice for Sabbatarians to fall back and say to them, Take the field, gentlemen, and wrest from the hand of the infidel and the atheist the weapons with which you have armed them to be employed against you in the very work in which you are engaged; for, be it remembered that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light, and they will readily perceive the advantage which they have gained by such doctrines and difficulties as those to which the gentleman has called their attention. This, however, we shall not do, but shall, ourselves, in due time, strike at the very root of the error, in the interest of a definite and universal day of holy rest. Before entering upon this work, nevertheless, there is a matter which concerns Sabbatarians most deeply, to which attention should be directed.

The gentleman and his friends are pressing upon the nation the necessity of the Constitutional Amendment—contrary to his former declaration, in which he said there was no necessary connection between the Sabbath and the amendment. He now justifies our strictures upon the disingenuousness of his argument, by deliberately stating, in the article before us, with an air of triumphant exultation, that, the amendment once secured, the Sabbath laws in this country will then cease to be a dead letter. By this, he means, of course, that they will be carried into operation. But what are these Sabbath laws? They are laws enforcing the first day of the week, in nearly every State in the Union. Now, we believe that what the gentleman says will be fulfilled; but right here is the proper place to offer a solemn protest. Will the gentleman fine and imprison my brethren and myself for disregarding the first day of the week, after having conscientiously kept the seventh? If so, we ask for the logic by which such a course could be justified, on the ground that the seventh-part-of-time theory is correct? Now, mark it, the object of the amendment is to make the Bible the fountain of national law. All the enactments of the Congress and all the decisions of the judiciary are to be in harmony with it. If, therefore, Sabbath laws are passed, they must be such as the Scriptures would warrant; for the Sabbath, be it remembered, which this movement seeks to enforce, is the one which the Bible teaches. But, according to the last theory, the day which God now requires to be observed is not any one in particular, but simply one in seven, the individual being left to make the selection of the one which he prefers thus to honor. Now, therefore, it is submitted that if God has given to man this prerogative of choice, then he has done so because this course was the one which commended itself to infinite wisdom, and no person or set of persons has a right to come between the creature and the Creator, depriving the former of rights which the latter has guaranteed to him. If the Bible Sabbath is indeed an indefinite one, we say to these gentlemen, Hands off; in the name of religion and the Bible you shall not perform a work which will do violence to a large class of conscientious citizens, and which, according to your own argument, is contrary to the doctrine of the Christian Sabbath, as laid down in the word of God. Be consistent with yourselves and your views of Scripture. If, indeed, you are sincere in believing that Sabbatarians violate no divine law in the keeping of the seventh day, then we say to you, in the name of charity, Why not allow them, so long as they are Christian men and women, and obedient citizens, to carry out their convictions of duty, without compelling them, by the appliances of persecuting legislation, to keep the particular first-day Sabbath which indeed you have chosen for yourselves, but for which you have now ceased to claim any special divine honor? To force them either to disregard their own convictions of duty, or to keep two days holy, would be an act of despotism but one remove from that terrible bigotry which, in the Inquisition, resorted to the rack and the thumbscrew; not, indeed, to make men better Christians, or better citizens, but to coerce them into the acceptance of institutions for which there was no divine authority.

But we must pass to the consideration of other points. To the objection that the seventh day may have been lost since creation, and that he is a bold man, who would affirm his ability to locate it now, it may be replied that, while Sabbatarians claim for themselves no unusual amount of courage, they do insist that it is an easy matter to demonstrate the succession of weeks, and the proper place of the original seventh day in the septenary cycle at the present time. The way in which this may be done is as follows: At the creation of the world, God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, because that on it he had rested. At the exodus from Egypt, he gave to the people a written law, enforcing the Sabbatic observance of the day on which he had originally ceased from his labors. On the sixth, Moses said to the people, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” For forty years subsequent to this, God marked out this day from the others by causing that no manna should fall upon it whatever, whereas, it fell upon every other one of the seven. Thus we have the authority of God himself, who assuredly could not mistake, that the people of Israel, in the outset, had committed to them the original seventh day; since God not only gave them a Sabbath, but also, according to the reason of the commandment, the Sabbath of the Lord. Descending the line of history to the days of Christ, we find him declaring that he had kept his Father’s commandments (John 15:10). But one of these commandments was that relating to the Sabbath; in order, therefore, to the proper observance of it, Christ must have been able to decide which day in the week it was. That this was the case, none will dispute. Thus the day is located in his time satisfactorily, since he kept the same one which the Jews regarded, and which preceded the day of his resurrection. From that time to this, we have the general agreement of Jews, Christians, and heathen, in regard to the precise place in the week of both the first and the seventh day. Surely, this is all which could be demanded in order to reach reasonable certainty.

The difficulty which the gentleman finds in harmonizing the will of God, as expressed in the law of nature and that of a definite Sabbath for the people living near the poles, is apparently possessed of some force. It is, however, not peculiar to him. These barren wastes of ice and snow, though far removed from our civilization, are apparently destined to figure as largely in the spiritual world as they do in that of scientific research; not only on the Sabbath question, but also in that of baptism, it has a part to act. Think, says the advocate of sprinkling, as a shudder runs through his whole system, think of an immersion administered in the regions of eternal ice. Then having suitably impressed his auditors with the physical difficulties in the way of Bible baptism, he concludes that God never could have ordained immersion as the only method, since it is impracticable in the extreme north, and God surely would have commanded a form of ordinance which could be carried out in all parts of the world. In harmony with this line of deduction is the difficulty stated by our friend. Chiming in with the theory that the laws of nature and the law of God must run harmoniously together, it is shown that at the poles the days and nights are six months long; therefore, that a twenty-four-hour Sabbath, definitely located upon the last day of the week, is out of the question. The conclusion drawn is that, as the theory of the seventh-day Sabbatarians is in conflict with the ordinance of nature in these portions of the globe, it must be contrary to the original design of God. But pause a moment; suppose we should grant that in the region in question there are men who cannot keep the seventh-day Sabbath as originally ordained, does that prove of necessity that it ought not to be hallowed in those portions of the world where there is no difficulty in the way of its observance? We think not. To illustrate: Were a man to pass his life in a coal mine, hundreds of feet beneath the surface, laboring continually, and never seeing the sun at all, would he, therefore, be exempted from the definite Sabbath? You answer, No. But why is this reply returned? Manifestly, because the difficulty is not with God and his laws, or the sun, but with the individual who has voluntarily placed himself under abnormal circumstances. In other words, he has located himself where the God of nature never designed that he should, and in so doing he has himself created a difficulty which he himself can remove.

So, too, with the Northman. If he finds it impossible to keep a Sabbath which is most perfectly adapted to the wants of mankind, it is simply because he has placed himself in a region which God has declared waste and uninhabitable as emphatically as can be done by nature speaking through the language of eternal ice and snow, and the disappearance for six months in a year of that great luminary whose light and heat are so indispensable to the comfort and advancement of the race. But if this is true, then the argument from the conflict between the law of the God of nature and that of revelation, concerning a definite day of rest, loses all of its force; for the whole trouble arises, not from any want of adaptation on the part of such a rest to the circumstances of those who are where God would have them located, but from a disregard, in the first place, on the part of the nations in question, of the manifest law of prohibition to the settlement of regions which were designed to remain unoccupied. Their relief can be found in one of two directions: They can, in the interest of their own progress, retrace their steps to localities where the more advanced portion of the race feel the genial influence of a diurnal sun; or, should they insist upon remaining in the bleak regions of their choice, it is possible for them, according to the accounts of travelers, to mark by the variations of the twilight, even in their six months’ night, the boundaries of the Sabbath and the week days as they come and go to those residing in more temperate regions.

It is now time to grapple with the theory that it is impossible for those traveling around the world and those living in different portions of it to keep one and the same day. The first thing to be settled is the matter of what is meant by the expression, “the same day.” Upon this point the gentleman has wasted many words. We have never insisted upon the identical hours. All that we demand is that the same day should be observed throughout the habitable globe, i. e., each individual should celebrate in his own particular locality the seventh day of the week as it comes to him in its passage round the earth—to use the language of common parlance. Whether this can be done or not is a question which involves the wisdom of God; for granting that he gave the fourth commandment as a Sabbath law, and the regulations concerning the Sabbath as found in the books of Moses, there is no room for dispute that he understood the statute to enforce the keeping of a definite day, and not merely one-seventh part of time. In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, where the Sabbath is first introduced, is found an excellent opportunity to test this matter. He there marks out the day which he had hallowed as the one which followed the sixth, and the only one on which no manna fell. For forty years, also, he continued this practice, thus separating the day of his rest by a weekly miracle from all others. But why should he have done this if there was no choice, and if the keeping of the seventh part of time was all that was necessary? Nay, more, why did he make it absolutely impossible for a man to celebrate any other day but the seventh day of the week? That he did so, we can prove in a few words. We will suppose that a person entertaining the sentiments of the gentleman should have attempted to carry them out in the forty years during which God led the people in the wilderness; also, that his first experiment was that of Sunday rest. In this he would have failed utterly. Do you ask, How? I answer that God had decreed that no manna should fall on the seventh day (Ex. 16:26), and that the manna which was to be eaten on the Sabbath should be gathered on the day before (Ex. 16:5). It would therefore have been impossible for the individual in question to provide food for his Sunday rest. But, disgusted with this kind of Sabbath-keeping, suppose he should have tried, in order, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the result would not have varied materially. On Sunday, there was an utter absence of all food; on the other days, that which had been previously gathered, instead of being fit for use, would have been found corrupted and changed into loathsome worms, since God had told the people that only the manna which was gathered on the sixth day should be kept until the day following; and since some of them, having made the experiment of disobeying in the particular in question, found the result as cited above (Ex. 16:19, 20). On the other hand, should the same individual have decided finally to consecrate the seventh day of the week, he would have found no difficulty whatever. Gathering his double portion of the manna on the sixth day, by a miracle of God it would have been preserved pure and wholesome through the last day of the week.

But how can this be accounted for on the hypothesis that no particular day was chosen by the Lord? If, indeed, he had adopted the indefinite plan, and had left the people to choose for themselves, it is certain that he did this because it was the best method. But if it were the best method, and if it were in accordance with his view of the statute, then, assuredly, he would not have stultified himself and mocked the people by first granting them a privilege and then, by his providence, preventing them from carrying it out.

Should it be suggested that this law was confined to the land of Palestine and to the Jews in its operation, I answer; first, that at the time spoken of the people were in Arabia, not in Judea, and that even should that be granted, which is not true, viz., that the fourth commandment related simply to the Hebrews, this does not affect the question at all, for no one will insist that Jews were only obliged by it when in Judea. Wherever they might be, they were required to keep the Sabbath, whether in bondage in Assyria, or traversing the known world in quest of gain. From Spain to India, from Scythia to Africa, this law was designed to apply and did apply for hundreds of years before it will be even claimed that it was abolished. This being true, it is established beyond question that God himself imposed upon men, traversing the whole of the eastern continent, a uniform day of worship. Do you inquire when they commenced it? I answer, At sunset, agreeably to the direction in Lev. 23:32. Did they go eastward to the Pacific, or westward to the Atlantic, they were required to commence their rest at that hour. Was it impossible for them to do so? He that says so charges God with folly. Were they capable of carrying out the requirement? Then, at least, on the eastern continent, the definite day was a practicable thing. God knew how his people would be scattered; he gave them the institution of the Sabbath, adapted to whatever circumstances they might be placed in; he marked out that Sabbath from the rest of the week, and in the outset settled beyond controversy the question that it was not movable in its nature. Therefore, he who would accept the theory which we have been considering and repudiate the one which we indorse, must do it in the face of God’s explanatory providence, in the teeth of his written law, and against the practice of his people Israel, who for centuries have had no difficulty in finding the Sabbath in every latitude.

So much for the law and its history, making clear, as it does, that our opponents do not understand the possibilities of the case as God looks upon them. We will now proceed to the consideration of the difficulties which they discover in the realization of our theory.

It is claimed that, in going around the world eastward, a day is lost; and in going around westward, a day is gained, to the traveler. From these premises, it is argued that a definite day cannot be kept. Has it ever occurred to the gentleman that his own theory would be somewhat disturbed by the same trip? Mark it, it is exactly one-seventh part of time which is to be kept. It will hardly be urged that all the old watches in the land are reliable enough to be trusted in a journey of this length, and, besides, suppose we had lived in a period when such time-pieces were not known, then what? Oh, says the objector, we would have gone by the sun! Then you agree with us, after all, that the sun presents the most available method of marking the day; but remember, now, that you are on your journey round the earth, westward; you travel six days, each one considerably lengthened out by the fact that you are going with the sun; you stop and rest on the seventh day, which you call the Sabbath. Unfortunately, however, as you have been lying still, it is considerably shorter than your six days of work; by this means you have cheated the Lord out of one-seventh of the whole time which all of the six days had in excess over the one on which you rested. Traveling eastward, the opposite would be true, and your days of rest would be longer than your days of labor, and would not, therefore, represent one-seventh part of time.

Again, we might show by argument the complete anarchy into which the community would be thrown by the realization of this doctrine, that men are at liberty to fix upon, each for himself, his weekly Sabbath. Nothing would be easier to prove than that it would seriously obstruct your courts of justice; that it would render stated worship impossible; in fine, that it would bring confusion into every walk in life. Do you reply that you will obviate the difficulty by legislative enactment, and that you will make this whole nation, from New York to San Francisco, regard the Sunday for the sake of uniformity and good order? I answer; first, have you then improved upon God’s great plan? Did he not know that a definite day would be the best, and would he not have been likely to give it to us? Secondly, then you admit that it is, after all, possible to keep one and the same day across the whole of this continent; for were this not true, it would be idle for you to attempt to produce uniformity by legislation. But putting this concession of yours in regard to the western, alongside of God’s enforcement of a definite day for centuries, on the whole of the eastern, continent, the circuit of the globe is made, and the possibility of keeping a definite Sabbath on both hemispheres is established.

Before me lies the draft of an electrical clock, which is styled, “The clock of all nations.” The design is an ingenious one, and serves to show at a glance the difference in time between prominent cities in all parts of the globe. For this purpose, a central dial is drafted, representing the meridian of New York. The hands on this dial indicate the precise hour of noon. Around this central figure are arranged twenty additional dials, on each one of which is marked by the hands the time of day as it will exist in the cities named, commencing on the east of New York with Pekin and terminating to the west of it with San Francisco. By it, you perceive at a glance the precise variation of time in the different longitudes to which these cities belong. For example, while the clock of New York indicates twelve, noon, the one in Pekin indicates twenty minutes before one in the morning; the one in Rome, fifteen minutes to six P. M.; the one in London, five minutes of five P. M.; and so on until you reach New York, where it is twelve M. Then passing westward of that point, where the time is, of course, slower, the dial for Chicago marks seven minutes past eleven A. M.; that of St. Louis, five minutes of eleven A. M.; that in San Francisco, fifteen minutes before nine A. M. By this means, the variation between Pekin and San Francisco is shown to be about sixteen hours, or nearly two-thirds of one whole day. By the same method, the reader will at once discover that it is possible to locate the commencement of the day at any one of these points in its passage around the world. In order to do this, let it be supposed that the day begins when it did in Bible times, with the setting of the sun. It is, if you please, Sunday at Pekin, and those who keep that day commence to celebrate it at sunset. Now, if we would ascertain just when the citizens of Rome would enter upon a like service, it is only necessary to determine how long it would take the sunset to travel the distance separating these two cities. By consulting the draft in question, we find that the time at Rome is six hours and fifty-five minutes slower than that at Pekin. This being the case, the sunset would reach them and they would enter upon the first day of the week just six hours and fifty-five minutes after those dwelling on the meridian of Pekin have done so.

So we might go through the whole list. As the world revolves upon its axis, it would bring London to the same point where the people of Rome saw the sun sink in the west and entered upon the Sunday, just fifty minutes subsequent to that event. The citizens of New York would begin their Sunday, also, with the sunset, four hours and fifty-five minutes after those of London did so; and those of Chicago, fifty-five minutes later than those of New York; and those of San Francisco, two hours and twenty minutes subsequent to those of Chicago. All, however, would be hallowing the same day, though not, for a portion of the time, the same hours. Each in his own proper locality would commence to keep the day when it reached him, and continue to keep it until by a complete revolution of the earth he is brought around to the commencement of another day, as indicated by another decline of the sun. This is as God would have it. In the passage from Egypt to Palestine there was a variation of some minutes; but there was no change in the time of commencing the Sabbath. From even to even shall you keep your Sabbaths, was the divine edict, and his people in going eastward or westward obeyed this injunction. In doing so they needed no time-piece; nor would the traveler at the present time. In every habitable region, according to God’s plan, the great luminary of heaven visibly marks the boundaries of sacred time. The day began in the east, and travels to the west. A complete revolution of the earth brings it, with its complement of light and darkness, to the home of every man, no matter as to the meridian of longitude in which he lives. It is the same day, in the Bible sense, as that kept by the Christian, thousands of miles to the east of him, though it may not begin at exactly the same moment.

Practically, this question has no real significance whatever. Though it may puzzle the brain of one who has not before him the facts, it has been settled forever in a most remarkable manner by the usage of mankind. The fact is beyond cavil that from the extreme eastern boundary of the eastern continent to the extreme western verge of the western continent, there is such a perfect agreement upon this point that each day of the week, commencing on the western shore of the Pacific, continues its course across Asia, Europe, and America, until it arrives at the eastern shore of the same sea. So true is this that were there a line of churches surmounted with bells, in hearing distance of each other, they could ring in the commencement of any day; say at Yokohama in Japan, and its march could be made known along the whole line from that place to San Francisco by a like practice in each of the churches, without a solitary break until the last bell on the Pacific coast had announced its arrival there. Whether it be admitted that it can be done or not, it is a fact that the Christians from China to California do observe the same Sabbath or Sunday all along the line between the two points.

Should it be replied that, although there is a uniform reckoning of the days to those passing from San Francisco eastward to China, or from China westward to San Francisco, that, nevertheless, should they cross the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco westward to China, or from China eastward to San Francisco, it would be necessary for them in the first case to add a day, and in the last, to drop one, in order to make their time harmonize with that of the people in these two countries, the reply is that this is very true. It does not, however, prove that there is no definite day which can be kept alike by the inhabitants of the two continents; for in order to the keeping of the same day on a round world there must somewhere be a day-line, in other words, there must be a point where the day begins. In crossing that line the same result would ensue as that claimed in the passage from California to China via the Pacific, i. e., a day must be either dropped or added in the reckoning of the individual making the transit. We have already seen that God’s plan was to measure the days by the setting of the sun. This being the case, the fourth day, on which the sun was made, commenced at the precise point where at the time of its creation it would have appeared to a person to the east of it as sinking out of sight in the west. The day commencing at that point passed round the earth until every portion of it had in succession witnessed the setting of the sun on the fifth day. The only difficulty that remains in the case, consequently, is that of deciding where the day line should be located. As already discovered, the practice of nations has fixed it in the Pacific Ocean. It is not a little remarkable that sailors change their reckoning while crossing that ocean backward or forward, and circumnavigate the globe at will without the slightest confusion. The only instance which has been cited in which any trouble has occurred, or any confusion of date has arisen, is that of Pitcairn’s Island, in which they failed to make the change under consideration. Had they done this, they would have found themselves in harmony with the great mass of men living on the same meridian with their insignificant island.

The only matter of debate which remains is that concerning the proper location of the day line. Has there or has there not been a mistake made in fixing upon the place where it belongs? Certain it is that the providence of God seems to harmonize with the present arrangement. Man commenced his existence in the east. The progress of empire has been westward. Emigration has carried with it a harmonious system of counting the days by which they have been recognized as beginning on the eastern, and traveling to the western, continent. Especially is this true of the Christian world. But, again, is there not, aside from this providential arrangement and from the universal opinion that the day does begin in the east, as well as the fact that scientific men have established the point of changing the reckoning somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, some additional reason for supposing that God would choose this locality for the beginning of the day? We answer, There is. Should the day line run through any continent or large body of land it will be readily perceived that it would produce great confusion, since, on the one side of it, though imaginary in its character, individuals would be keeping the seventh day of the week, while on the other, their neighbors in close proximity to them would not yet have made their exit from the sixth. To avoid this difficulty, therefore, the only remedy which could be found would consist in the employment of some great natural boundary, such as a range of mountains, or an expanse of water, by which those on one side of the day line would be so separated as to prevent the disorder which must arise from constant and uninterrupted intercommunication. That there is any range of mountains stretching northward and southward from pole to pole which would answer the purpose in question, no one will insist. The only resource left, consequently, is that of those vast bodies of water called seas or oceans. Turning now to the one which is known as the Atlantic Ocean, it is found that the day line could not be run through it without intercepting some habitable portion of the globe. The only recourse which remains is found in the Pacific Ocean, which, as has been seen, has been selected by the mass of mankind as a suitable place in which to make those changes that would be necessary in case the day line was actually located therein. Happily, an examination of a large globe will prove that a line drawn from Behring’s Straits southward across the latitudes which are available for the homes of mankind will not touch any portion of land whatever, at least if it strikes any they would be so insignificant in their character that they would not be worthy of mention.

With these remarks, the subject of the day line is dismissed with the conviction that the necessity of its existence, the fact that it must be found in the Pacific Ocean if anywhere, and the uniform recognition of practice, if not in theory, by all nations, of its location in that sea, unite in furnishing a combination of facts which render assurance justifiable in the mind of one who does not insist upon more testimony than he ought to demand.

There remain now but two matters in the article of the gentleman which need to be disposed of. These are found in the contemptuous sneer at the insignificance of the numbers of Sabbatarians, and the witticisms, if such they may be called, which are indulged in in the employment of the suggestion concerning the use of the sponges saturated with stupefying chemicals and the gratuitous trip around the world, which it is proposed to give them. To answer these sallies to the satisfaction of some would be impossible, while with others, possessing the power of logical discrimination and knowing that the office of mere wit is most frequently that of diverting the attention from a course of reasoning which it is felt cannot be met, such an effort would be uncalled for. The paucity in numbers is the same old, threadbare objection which every great reform has been compelled to meet since the world began. While the administration of narcotics and the trip round the world would be just as fatal to the exact observer of the seventh part of time as it would to one celebrating a definite day, even though it were admitted that the consequences of such a journey would be as claimed by the writer.

(Continued on page 199.)