Earlier text: REVERENCEHow Saints May Help the Devil.
THERE was a young minister once preaching very earnestly in a certain chapel, and he had to walk some four or five miles to his home, along a country road, after service. A young man who had been deeply impressed during the sermon requested the privilege of walking with the minister, with an earnest hope that he might find an opportunity of telling his feelings to him, and obtain some word of guidance or comfort. Instead of that, the young minister, all the way along, told the most singular tales to those who were with him, causing loud roars of laughter. He stopped at a certain house, and this young man with him, and the whole evening was spent in frivolity and foolish talking. Some years after, when the minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a dying man. He hastened thither with a heart desirous of doing good. He was requested to sit down at the bedside; and the dying man, looking at him and regarding him more closely, said to him, “Do you remember preaching in such a village, and on such an occasion?” “I do,” said the minister. “I was one of your hearers,” said the man, “and I was deeply impressed by the sermon.” “Thank God for that!” said the minister. “Stop!” interrupted the man, “don’t thank God until you have heard the whole story. You will have reason to alter your tone before I have done.” The minister changed countenance; but he little guessed what would be the full extent of that man’s testimony. Said he, “Sir, do you remember after you had finished your sermon that I, with some others, walked home with you? I was sincerely desirous of being led in the right path that night. But I heard you speak in such a strain of levity, and with so much coarseness, too, that I went outside the house while you were sitting down to your evening meal. I stamped my foot upon the ground. I said that you were a liar; that Christianity was a falsehood; that if you could pretend to be so earnest about it in the pulpit, and then come down and talk like that, the whole thing must be a sham. And I have been an infidel,” said he, “a confirmed infidel, from that day to this. But I am not an infidel at this moment. I know better. I am dying, and about to be damned, and at the bar of God I will lay my damnation to your charge. My blood is upon your head!” And with a dreadful shriek, and with a demoniacal glance at the trembling minister, he shut his eyes and died.—Sel. How, Where, and When.
By E. Southworth
WILL you be saved from sin? The Lord says that you and I are by nature the children of wrath, because all have sinned. 1. How, then, will you be saved? The Bible points out the way: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.” This grace and faith are found in Jesus, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The rule is very plain. Believe on him, take him for your goodness, accept him for your daily life, and live. Do not wait for signs; for the very moment you knowingly decide to have him for your all, that moment he decides to save you, and your witness will consist in the consciousness of your belief. This is the work of his Spirit; you need no better, indeed you can have no better, evidence. 2. Where will you be saved? Will it be in the future world? in Heaven? No; for no one ever enters there until he is saved with a new heart of holiness like God’s. You must, then, be saved in the earth. Christ came to this world, because souls must be saved here if anywhere. You should bear in mind that God so loved this world, and not the future, that he gave his Son for you here. The drowning man is taken while in the water, if ever saved. If not saved there, he is lost. So you must be taken by Christ while in sin, or be forever lost. “I am not come,” he says, “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 3. When will you be saved? At death? Probably not, if you purposely wait until that event. Facts are all against you. Your mind will most likely be clouded or deranged by sickness; or death may come unexpectedly and leave you no time! A ministerial brother of the writer lay very low with fever. When a friend called to visit him he said with great tenderness, “O brother, if I had not long ago fixed this matter of faith and salvation, I could not do it now; I am too weak.” What a warning! Yet all who have borne testimony on this point agree that on a death-bed is the worst possible time to seek salvation. The rule of sinning is also against you. If you be now really unwilling to turn to Christ at this moment, or if you neglect to do it, to-morrow will find you more unwilling, and nothing but a miracle can save you from this law of increasing guilt. But God has not promised to work such a miracle. Will you please read the seventh chapter of Romans? Now is the day of salvation. Only give God your will and accept Christ in a common-sense way, and you may be saved this very moment. For we have the glorious promise of Love, that “whosoever will” may come. It takes God no longer to save you in Jesus than it takes you to say in your heart, “I believe.” Satan is just now whispering to you that this is foolishness, that you can’t have feeling or know at this moment that Christ saves you. But he is a liar and the father of it. Believe Jesus who drove the devil away, and who will drive him away from you. He has the word already to speak. Read Matt. 8: 5–13; John 5:24; and Mark 5:36. “Be not afraid, only believe.”—E. Southworth. The Power of Forgiveness.
A SOLDIER, whose regiment lay in a garrison town in England, was about to be brought before his commanding officer for some offense. He was an old offender, and had been often punished. “Here he is again,” said the officer on his name being mentioned; “everything—flogging, disgrace, imprisonment—has been tried upon him.” Whereupon the sergeant stepped forward, and, apologizing for the liberty he took, said:— “There is one thing which has never been done with him yet, sir.” “What is that?” was the inquiry. “Well, sir,” said the sergeant, “he has never been forgiven.” “Forgiven!” said the colonel, surprised at the suggestion. He reflected for a few moments, ordered the culprit to be brought in, and asked him what he had to say to the charge. “Nothing, sir,” was the reply, “only I am sorry for what I have done.” Turning a kind and pitiful look on the man who expected nothing else than that his punishment would be increased with the repetition of his offense, the colonel addressed him, saying:— “Well, we have resolved to forgive you!” The soldier was struck dumb with astonishment. The tears started in his eyes, and he wept like a child. He was humbled to the dust. He thanked his officer and retired—the old refractory and incorrigible man? No; he was another man from that day forward. He who tells the story had him for years under his eye, and a better conducted man never wore Queen’s colors. In him, kindness bent one whom harshness could not break. He was conquered by mercy and forgiveness, and ever afterward feared to offend.—Sel. Some are always too late, and therefore accomplish through life nothing worth naming. If such a man promises to meet you at a certain hour, he is never present until thirty minutes after. No matter how important the business is, either to yourself or to him, he is just so tardy. His dinner has been waiting for him so long that the cook is out of patience. This course, the character we have described always pursues. He is never in season at church, at his place of business, at his meals, or in his bed. Persons of such habits, we cannot but despise. Scores have lost opportunities of making fortunes, and receiving favors, by being a few minutes too late. Always speak in season, and be ready at the appointed hour. We would not give a fig for a man who is not punctual to his engagements, and who never makes up his mind to a certain course till the time is lost. Those who hang back, hesitate, and tremble—who are never on hand for a journey, a trade, or anything else, are poor sloths, and ill-calculated for getting a living in this stirring world.—Sel. For what reason do men prefer the first day of the week to the ancient Sabbath of the Lord? On what authority do men continually violate the day which God sanctified, and commanded mankind to keep holy? Papists have for Sunday observance the authority of their church. Protestants deny the authority of the church of Rome, and attempt to vindicate the change of the Sabbath by an appeal to the Bible. This is what we wish them to do. We ask them, therefore, to present a single text in which it is said that God has changed his Sabbath to the first day of the week. The advocates of the change have none to offer. If they cannot present such a text, will they give us one which testifies that God ever blessed and sanctified the first day of the week? Its observers admit that they have none to present. But will they not give us one text in which men are required to keep the first day holy, as a Sabbath unto the Lord? They acknowledge that they have none. On what authority, then, do they exalt the first day of the week above the Sabbath of the Lord, which the commandment requires us to remember and keep holy? There is one reason urged for the observance of the first day of the week, which we will notice. “John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Rev. 1:10. It is claimed that “the Lord’s day” here mentioned is the first day of the week. But we ask, What right have they to assume the very point they ought to prove? This text, it is true, furnishes direct proof that there is a day in the gospel dispensation which the Lord claims as his own; but is there one text in the Bible which testifies that the first day of the week is the Lord’s day? There is not one. Has God ever claimed any day as his, and reserved it to himself? He has. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made.” Gen. 2:3. “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” Ex. 16:23. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:10. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day.” Isa. 58:13. “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28. Then the seventh day is the day which God reserved to himself when he gave to man the other six; and this day he calls his holy day. This is the day which the New Testament declares the Son of man to be Lord of. Is there one testimony in the Scriptures that the Lord of the Sabbath has discarded his holy day, and chosen another? Not one. Then that day which the Bible designates as the Lord’s day is no other than the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Will You Take the Responsibility?
A YOUNG man in Virginia had been sadly intemperate. He was a man of great capability, fascination, and power, but he had a passion for brandy which nothing could control. Often in his walks a friend remonstrated with him, but in vain; as often in turn would he urge his friend to take the social glass in vain. On one occasion, the latter agreed to yield to him, and as they walked up to the bar together, the bar-keeper said:— “Gentlemen, what will you have?” “Wine, sir,” was the reply. The glasses were filled, and the friends stood ready to pledge each other in renewed and eternal friendship, when he paused and said to his intemperate friend:— “Now, if I drink this glass and become a drunkard, will you take the responsibility?” The drunkard looked at him with severity, and said:— It was set down, and the two walked away without saying a word. Oh! the drunkard knows the awful consequences of the first glass. Even in his own madness for liquor, he is not willing to assume the responsibility of another’s becoming a drunkard. What if the question were put to every liquor dealer, as he asks for his license and pays his money, “Are you willing to assume the responsibility?” How many would say, if the love of money did not rule them, “Take back the license?”— Sel. WE can do more good by being good than in any other way. EVERY path that leads to Heaven is trodden by willing feet. No one is ever driven to paradise. A WRITER in the Detroit Evening News of Aug. 5, 1875, describing a trip to Lake Superior, speaks as follows of his entrance into the Sault Canal:— “It is now Sunday morning, and we are at the entrance of the Sault Canal. Nothing tells us better to which country this canal belongs than the large steamer just coming out of the lock, and others following. Did Canada own it, from 12 o’clock midnight, Saturday, until that hour Sunday, nothing would be done. But somebody at my elbow whispers that the demands of commerce must be heeded, and that the business man of America will worship God when he has nothing else to do.” The Third Day Since These Things Were Done.
By Uriah Smith
[Republished by request from Review, Vol. 87, No. 9.] On what day of the week was Christ crucified? and on what day did he arise from the dead? These are questions which have been the occasion of no little discussion. There are substantially two views held in reference to them. The first is, that Christ was crucified on Wednesday, was laid in the tomb near the close of that day, and rose from the dead a corresponding hour on the Sabbath, or Saturday, having lain in the grave exactly seventy-two hours; this being the three days and three nights during which the Son of man was to be in the heart of the earth, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly. The second view, and the one most generally entertained, is, that Christ was crucified on Friday, and rose early on the morning of the first day of the week. There are others who place the crucifixion upon Thursday instead of Friday, thinking this necessary to make harmony between all the statements of the evangelists concerning that event. This view, however, does not obviate the difficulty which the first view is designed to meet; namely, the apparent failure of the words of Christ that the Son of man should be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, if a period of time less than seventy-two hours elapsed while he lay in the tomb. The main question lies between the first and second views here stated. As already intimated, the first view rests wholly upon the testimony respecting Jonah. No other reason, at least of which we are aware, exists for placing the crucifixion so early in the week as Wednesday, except the statement of Christ that as Jonah was three days and three nights in the body of the fish, the Son of man should be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Assuming that the phrase “heart of the earth,” means the grave, which may perhaps be questioned, all rests upon the meaning of this phrase, “three days and three nights.” What do these words signify? Must they be taken absolutely as they would be understood if used at the present day? or, was there in that age a usus loquendi, in accordance with which they could be taken in an accommodated sense? There is nothing in the record in Jonah to throw any additional light upon the expression; that is, there is no other testimony there, and no other events recorded, which show us that a period of time, absolutely seventy-two hours in length, is meant by the term “three days and three nights.” We do have, however, in the evangelists, records of predictions and narrations of events, from which we can determine something respecting the time during which Christ lay in the tomb. Now, instead of taking the bare expression, “three days and three nights,” assuming that the meaning attached to it when it was used, was the same as we would give at the present day, and then using that as proof that Christ was for seventy-two consecutive hours in the grave, and trying to make all other testimony harmonize with this view, it seems to us it would be fully as legitimate a mode of reasoning to try to ascertain from the evangelists how long Christ was actually in the tomb, and use that as a key for the interpretation of the expression, “three days and three nights.” The words placed at the head of this article give us, if we mistake not, a good clue to the solution of this question. They are the words used by the disciples to Christ when on their way to Emmaus. The time when they were used is beyond dispute. It was in the latter part of the first day of the week. And they said, “To-day is the third day since these things were done.” From this, then, as a starting-point, let us count back and see how early in the week it is possible to place the crucifixion. If the first day of the week was the third day, the day before the first day, or the Sabbath, was the second day, and the day before that, or Friday, the first day, since the events of which they were speaking took place; and this would forbid our placing the events themselves farther back than the preceding day, or Thursday. Reasoning from this statement of the disciples, we see not how the trial and crucifixion of Christ can possibly be placed earlier in the week than Thursday. How, then, do those who place this event on Wednesday, meet this testimony? We have never heard any one try; but we have heard that some do attempt to get around it (for we can call it nothing less) by saying that the word since means from the first day; that is, the third day from the first day of the occurrence of these things. But it looks to us that this is not even respectable sophistry. If we are to reckon from some point subsequent to the occurrence of the events, then we are cut loose from all moorings, and might just as well say that that was the third day since Jonah was put into the whale’s belly. The original is very definite. “Τρίτην ταύτην ἡμέραν ἄγει σήμερον, ἀφ’ οὗ ταῦτα ἐγένετο. This day is the third day from the time when these things took place.” Suppose, now, that the crucifixion took place on Wednesday. He was laid in the tomb that day. All was accomplished before Thursday began. Would not Thursday, then, be the first day following those events? Would not Friday be the second, and Sabbath the third, even stretching the time all that it is possible to stretch it? The expression, since these things occurred, cannot exclude Thursday; for Thursday was not the day of the occurrence of these things, but the day following their occurrence; and the disciples did not say, To-day is the third day from the day following the occurrence of these things; but the third day from the time when they occurred. This is a nail in a sure place; for, in view of this testimony, we cannot go back more than two days from the first day of the week for the crucifixion, making it occur on Thursday, the third day, according to the most liberal reckoning, from that point. We do not say it did occur then, but only that we cannot go back farther than that day. The seventy-two-hour theory thus falls to the ground; and we are held to the conclusion that the expression, “three days and three nights,” cannot be taken to mean absolutely that length of time. The way is, therefore, now all open to adjust these events in such a manner as a harmonious interpretation of all the testimony shall demand. And first, we call the attention of the reader to those passages which declare that Christ would rise on the third day from the time of his trial and crucifixion. There are eight of them, as follows: Matt. 16: 21; 17: 23; 20: 19; Mark 9: 31; 10: 34; Luke 9: 22; 18: 33; 24: 7; and two passages state that he did rise on the third day: Luke 24: 46; 1 Cor. 15: 4. Take these texts with the declaration of the disciples, “To-day is the third day since these things were done,” and, as it seems to us, the day of the resurrection is clearly identified. Christ was to rise on the third day after certain events, and the disciples, naming those very events, and speaking on the first day of the week, say, “To-day is the third day since these things were done.” The day on which the disciples uttered these words, if they were correct in their reckoning, was the very day on which Christ was to rise, according to his own predictions. Did his predictions fail? If not, his resurrection is immovably fixed upon the first day of the week. There is a passage in Mark which we consider a direct declaration that Christ did rise on the first day of the week: Mark 16: 9: “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.” Greek: “Ἀναστὰς δὲ πρωῒ πρώτῃ σαββάτου, ἐφάνη πρῶτον Μαρίᾳ τῇ Μαγδαληνῇ,” &c. Literally, “And having arisen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,” &c. The only question here is, whether the words, “early the first day of the week,” are an adjunct of the participle, having risen, or of the verb, appeared. We think they qualify the participle; for, first, the verb has a qualifying word, in the word first, which seems to be all that the evangelist wished to assert respecting his appearing. There would be no propriety in saying that he appeared first to certain ones on the first day of the week, unless it is told to whom he appeared first upon some other day. Secondly, it would appear more important that the time of his resurrection should be named than the time when he appeared to his disciples. But if it is said that this is the important point, then we reply that this certainly took place on the first day of the week, and hence Sunday-keepers retain all the force of their argument for first-day, based on the resurrection of Christ, even though the resurrection itself be removed to another day. This brings us to another difficulty involved in the view that Christ lay in the tomb seventy-two hours, from near the close of Wednesday to near the close of the Sabbath; namely, it makes the resurrection of Christ occur on the Sabbath. Is there any testimony to show that Christ arose on the Sabbath? Matt. 28: 1, is claimed for this purpose. It is held by some that this language means, “Late in the Sabbath [the day ending at sunset] as the first day of the week was drawing on;” that is, before sunset on the Sabbath, came the two Marys to the sepulcher. Previous to their coming, there had been [margin] a great earthquake, the stone was rolled away, and an angel, assuring them that the Lord was not there, but had arisen, bade them go quickly and tell the disciples that he was risen, and would go before them into Galilee where they would see him. This, it is claimed, is the record of a previous visit, which none of the other evangelists mention, they all speaking of a visit on the following morning, after the Sabbath was past. We showed two weeks since that the language of Matt. 28: 1, is clearly susceptible of the translation given it in our common version, and that it means, after the Sabbath, in harmony with the other evangelists. Let us now inquire whether this idea of a previous visit, in Matt. 28: 1, is consistent with the record of the other evangelists. 1. According to the view under notice, this visit was made on the Sabbath. But Luke says (23: 56) that the disciples rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. It is hardly probable that they would thus clip the end of the Sabbath by a journey to the sepulcher, work from which they had so scrupulously abstained at its commencement; nor could such a course easily be reconciled with the testimony of Luke, above referred to. 2. The same Marys, according to Mark (16: 1, 2), came to the sepulcher very early in the morning of the first day of the week; and they brought the spices they had prepared to anoint the Lord, Luke 24: 2, and wondered who would roll away the stone for them. But how can it be supposed that they would come for this purpose on first-day morning, if they had been to the sepulcher the night before and found the stone rolled away, and been assured by an angel that the Lord was not there, but had risen? Were they so forgetful, or so thoughtless? 3. While the women were returning to tell the disciples, as the angel had bidden them, according to the record in Matthew 28, the guard went into the city, and between them and the chief priests the story was fabricated that the body of Jesus was stolen while they slept. Now, the supposition that Jesus rose in the daytime before the close of the Sabbath, involves the absurdity of supposing that the guard would acknowledge that they were asleep in the daytime! and that the body was taken in broad daylight! To avoid this, it is said that only the first eight verses of Matt. 28 refer to the Sabbath visit, the language of verse 9, and onward, referring to the morning visit which is noticed by the other evangelists. But this is a most forced and unnatural interpretation; for there is nothing in the language to denote a jump of a whole night between verses 8 and 9, and not an intimation that the record from verse 9 applies to an occasion different from that introduced in the preceding verses. But this view involves an absurdity equal in magnitude to the other; for it follows that the guard, after being struck down as dead men by the glorious manifestations attending the resurrection of Christ on Sabbath afternoon, waited a whole night, till first-day morning, before they went into the city to acquaint the chief priests with the wonderful events which had taken place. Having now found that Christ’s resurrection took place on the first day of the week, the only importance attached to fixing the day of the crucifixion is to show a fulfillment of Christ’s words, and make all the statements of the evangelists harmonize. It has already been shown that we cannot go back farther than Thursday for the date of that event. The question here, then, lies between Thursday and Friday where it is generally placed; and it is only material to take that day which is required by the testimony in the case. Let us suppose it to have occurred on Friday. The betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and entombment, of Christ, then, occupied almost that entire day. Could this be taken as the first day in the computation? If so, then Sunday would be the third day, as the disciples said. In Luke 13: 32, we read that Jesus sent this word to Herod: “Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.” The to-day in which Christ speaks is here made the first in the order of reckoning. In Acts 27, we have an account of some of53 Paul’s perils by sea. In verse 17, he speaks of a certain day of their distress. The next day, he continues, they lightened the ship; and the third day, cast overboard the tackling. Verse 19. Here it is evident that the day mentioned in verse 17 is called the first. In Esther 6, we have an account of a feast given by the queen to Haman and the king. The next day she gave another; and that next day is called the second. Esth. 7: 2. From this it is evident that when Christ predicted that he was to suffer certain things, be put to death, and rise the third day, he reckoned the day of his suffering as the first day in the computation. But how can a portion of Friday, the Sabbath, and a part of Sunday, be called, three days and three nights? There is no difficulty, if such was the manner of speaking in use among the Jews. What did they understand by it? This is the only question to be settled. There is a passage in Esther which would seem to throw some light upon the question. She told Mordecai (4: 16) to gather the Jews together who were in Shushan, and fast for three days, neither eating nor drinking night or day; and she would do the same, and so would go in unto the king. This expression is certainly equivalent to three days and three nights. And how was it fulfilled? In chap. 5: 1, we read that on the third day Esther appeared before the king. In like manner, we read of Joseph that he put his brethren into ward three days, but on the third day he released them and permitted them to depart to Canaan. From these instances it appears clear that, according to Jewish usage, it did not require three full days and nights to answer to the expression, “three days and three nights;” but that it was applied to a period of time covering the part of one day, the whole of another, and a portion of a third. The day following the crucifixion, the chief priests came to Pilate desiring a guard to be set; and it is objected that they would not do this upon the Sabbath. This is not the way, to be sure, we should expect the Sabbath to be spoken of; but as to the chief priests and Pharisees, we do not think we can presume much on the piety of men who were just then so infuriated with the spirit of the devil as to condemn the Saviour to the cross. It is far easier to suppose they would come to Pilate upon the Sabbath than to think that the Sabbath which followed that preparation day, Mark 15: 42; Luke 23: 54, and which the women kept according to the commandment, Luke 23: 56, was only a ceremonial sabbath. But, says one, if we could show that Christ did not rise on the first day of the week, how it would sweep away the argument for Sunday-keeping. To be of any service, the argument to this end must be very plain and positive; for all the world almost are established in the belief that his resurrection was on Sunday. The evidence is not so clear; and to try to use it, is to seize the sword by the head instead of the handle; for it would be a hundred-fold harder to make a person believe that Christ’s resurrection did not take place upon the first day of the week, than to show him that if it did, it proved nothing in favor of a Sunday Sabbath. Were we arguing with a Sunday-keeper, we would prefer to admit Christ’s resurrection on Sunday rather than otherwise; for we like to agree with an opponent as far as possible; and because, after he has carefully built up his argument, it is so easy to show that point after point is only assumption, and that the whole structure falls in hopeless ruin to the ground. And further, to undertake to prove Christ’s resurrection upon another day, is a tacit admission that if he did rise on the first day of the week, it is of force in behalf of a Sunday Sabbath; whereas if ten thousand resurrections could be shown upon that day, it would prove nothing whatever in its favor as a day of rest and worship. U. S. Keep it before the People.
By v. s.
In a ponderous volume of twelve pamphlet pages, the “Rev. H. L. Barnaby” essays to settle the great question of the Sabbath; and some of the assertions which he summons to his aid in the effort are truly astonishing. He says:— “So much has been written and said about the seventh day of the week, that one would naturally suppose the Bible to be full of lessons about it; and yet there is not a word said in the Scriptures about the seventh day of the week.”
The shallowness of this evasion was well exposed in the quotation we gave last week, from Bro. Waggoner’s Review of Baird. Because those particular words “of the week” do not occur, to deny that the week is meant, is to show one’s self ready to resort to tricks in argument of which a third-rate pettifogger would be ashamed. A moment’s thought shows that the week must be intended. Thus, when God set apart the seventh day, he did not set it apart for himself, but for man for whom the Sabbath was made. And he did not set apart that first seventh day which was past, but his blessing and sanctification pertained to the seventh day for time to come. Thus, then, it was ordained that men should devote to religious uses every seventh day from that time forward. No one can fail to see that as soon as this arrangement was entered into, the week was an established fact, and followed as inevitably as day and night follow the revolution of the earth upon its axis. All coming days were at once set apart in divisions of sevens; for when the next seventh day arrived after the one upon which God rested, it was to be observed in rest. Then the count must begin again; for the next seventh day was to be kept in like manner; and that being past, a new week must begin with a new count. And so on to the end. Thus the week of necessity existed as soon as the Sabbath was instituted and as evidently it owes its existence to that institution. And the seventh day of each of these weekly periods was the Sabbath; and when the word of God says the seventh day, without qualification, it means, and can mean, nothing else but this. “We find no command for, or example of, the observance of any day recorded in the Bible, prior to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.”
This man has been told better than this, and has no excuse for such an assertion. For any man of honest mind and sincere spirit, it is enough to find plain evidence that a command was given, though the express words of the command are not recorded. And it is positively stated in the record that such command was given to Adam. This is what we want kept before the people: There was a Sabbath commandment in the world, from the lips of God himself, binding upon all his people, for more than twenty-five hundred years before Sinai. People may dispute this point as much as they please, and ministers may profess a sanctimonious ignorance of it, but there is the record in unequivocal terms. It says that in the beginning God sanctified the day. To sanctify, means to set apart to a religious use. Now will some of those who deny that there was any command for the Sabbath before the exode, tell us how this was done. How was the Sabbath set apart in the beginning to a religious use? They know that this involves a command for its observance; that the sanctification of it was a command for the keeping of it, nothing more nor less. It could not possibly have been anything else. Whoever denies this, takes upon himself the disgrace of insulting truth and common sense. Here while yet the whole race stood in their representatives, Adam and Eve, and sin had not entered the world, the Sabbath was given to man, and with the institution a command to enforce and regulate its observance, in all places through all time. Yet ministers, without trembling at their own dishonesty, or blushing at their ignorance, will deliberately affirm that there was no command for the Sabbath till it was given from Sinai. Keep it before the people. Let them become so fully informed in regard to this matter, that all attempts to use this old misrepresentation will be nullified and spoiled. v. s. Add to your Faith Courage.
By Roswell F. Cottrell
THE victory is gained through faith. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” To faith naturally succeeds courage. Courage must be tempered with knowledge and temperance. The temperate can exercise patience. Next to patience in the ascending scale, is godliness, then brotherly kindness, and last of all, charity—that love toward God and man which will fit men for the society of angels and all holy beings. Oh, to reach the top of the ladder! In order to do this, begin at the bottom, laying a good foundation in faith, a faith that will surely support true courage; and these, held fast, will insure the victory. Courage in the Lord, brother, sister, we may be victors, and the victors will receive a crown of joy that will never fade.
R. F. COTTRELL.