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 2,016. 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 six o’clock, local time,
twenty-four hours, seventeen and one-seventeenth minutes long. He would,
therefore, in the whole number of hours of his trip, 2,016, 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 and forty-two and six-seventh minutes. In this case,
the whole number of hours, 2,016, 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 own 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.
A REJOINDER.
“THE PRINCIPLE AS TO TIME IN SABBATH OBSERVANCE.”
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 them 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 that which 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 those 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 be 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 twill 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 form them, either to disregard their own
convictions of duty, or to keep two days holy, would lie 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 pans 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; and, therefore, that a twenty-four
hour Sabbath, definitely located upon the last day of the week, is out
of the questions. 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 Isis 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 doctored 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 mine 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, this practice of separating the day of his rest by a weekly
miracle from all others was continued. 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.