Earlier text: General ArticlesThe Great Earthquake of Lisbon, in 1755.
THE event so graphically described in the following narrative, is of special interest to the student of prophecy, inasmuch as it marked an important epoch in the fulfillment of one of the great prophetic lines of the book of Revelation. This was no less than the opening of the sixth seal, of Rev. 6: 12: "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake." The preceding seal takes us through the great work of the Reformation as it was accomplished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the middle of the eighteenth, 1755, the sixth seal was opened, as marked by the great earthquake. Twenty-five years later, May 19, 1780, occurred the darkening of the sun and moon, and half a century further on, the falling of the stars, Nov. 13, 1833, which brings us to the present time in the development of the events of this seal. The next event is one of a more momentous nature, even the departing of the heaven as a scroll when it is rolled together, and that last convulsion of nature, which shall move all the mountains and islands out of their places. And nearly half a century has already elapsed since the previous event, the falling of the stars, occurred. In the following description of the great earthquake of Lisbon, the reader will find an event of sufficient extent and magnitude to mark so important an era as the opening of a seal. It is from the pen of Sir Charles Lyell, who says:— In no part of the volcano region of southern Europe has so tremendous an earthquake occurred in modern times as that which began on the 1st of November, 1755, at Lisbon. A sound of thunder was heard under-ground, and immediately afterwards a violent shock threw down the greater part of that city. In the course of about six minutes, 60,000 people perished. The sea first retired and laid the bar dry; it then rolled in, rising fifty feet above its ordinary level. The mountains of Arrabida, Estrella, Julio, Marvan, and Cintra, being some of the largest in Portugal, were impetuously shaken, as it were, from their very foundations; and some of them opened at their summits, which were split and rent in a wonderful manner, huge masses of them being thrown down into the subjacent valleys. Flames are related to have issued from these mountains, which are supposed to have been electric. They are also said to have smoked; but vast clouds of dust may have given rise to this appearance. The most extraordinary circumstance which occurred at Lisbon during the catastrophe, was the subsidence of a new quay, built entirely of marble at an immense expense. A great concourse of people had collected there for safety, as a spot where they might be beyond the reach of falling ruins; but suddenly the quay sunk down with all the people on it, and not one of the dead bodies ever floated to the surface. A great number of boats and small vessels anchored near it, all full of people, and were swallowed up as in a whirlpool. No fragments of these wrecks ever rose again to the surface, and the water in the place where the quay had stood, is stated, in many accounts, to be unfathomable; but Whitehurst says he ascertained it to be one hundred fathoms. In this case, we must either suppose that a certain tract sunk down into a subterranean hollow, which would cause a "fault" in the strata to the depth of six hundred feet, or we may infer, as some have done, from the entire disappearance of the substances engulfed, that a chasm opened and closed again. Yet in adopting this latter hypothesis, we must suppose that the upper part of the chasm, to the depth of one hundred fathoms, remained open after the shock. According to the observations made at Lisbon, in 1837, by Mr. Sharpe, the destroying effects of this earthquake were confined to the tertiary strata, and were most violent on the blue clay, on which the lower part of the city is constructed. Not a building, he says, on the secondary limestone or the basalt, was injured. The great area over which this Lisbon earthquake extended is very remarkable. The movement was most violent in Spain, Portugal, and the north of Africa; but nearly the whole of Europe, and even the West Indies, felt the shock on the same day. A seaport called St. Ubes, about twenty miles south of Lisbon, was engulfed. At Algiers and Fez, in Africa, the agitation of the earth was equally violent; and at the distance of eight leagues from Morocco, a village, and the inhabitants to the number of about eight or ten thousand persons, together with all their cattle, were swallowed up. Soon after, the earth closed again after them. The shock was felt at sea, on the deck of a ship to the west of Lisbon, and produced very much the same sensation as on dry land. Off St. Lucas, the captain of the ship Nancy felt his vessel so violently shaken that he thought she had struck the ground; but, on heaving the lead, found a great depth of water. Captain Clark, from Denia, in latitude 36° 24' north, between 9 and 10 in the morning, had his ship shaken and strained as if she had struck upon a rock. Another ship, forty leagues west of St. Vincent, experienced so violent a concussion that the men were thrown a foot and a half perpendicularly up from the deck. In Antigua and Barbadoes, as also in Norway, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Corsica, Switzerland, and Italy, tremors and slight oscillations of the ground were felt. The agitation of lakes, rivers, and springs, in Great Britain, was remarkable. At Loch Lomond, in Scotland, for example, the water, without the least cause, rose against its banks, and then subsided below its usual level. The greatest perpendicular height of this swell was two feet four inches. It is said that the movement of this earthquake was undulatory, and that it traveled at the rate of twenty miles a minute. A great wave swept over the coast of Spain, and is said to have been sixty feet high at Cadiz. At Tangiers, in Africa, it rose and fell eighteen times on the coast; at Funchal, in Maderia, it rose full fifteen feet perpendicular above high-water mark, although the tide, which ebbs and flows there seven feet, was then at half ebb. Besides entering the city and committing great havoc, it overflowed other sea-ports in the island. At Kensale, in Ireland, a body of water rushed into the harbor, whirled round several vessels, and poured into the market place. It was before stated that the sea first retired at Lisbon; and this retreat of the ocean from the shore at the commencement of an earthquake, and its subsequent return in a violent wave, is a common occurrence. In order to account for the phenomenon, Michell imagined a subsidence at the bottom of the sea, from the giving way of the roof of some cavity, in consequence of a vacuum produced by the condensation of steam. Such condensation, he observed, might be the first effect of the introduction of a large body of water into fissures and cavities already filled with steam, before there had been sufficient time for the heat of the incandescent lava to turn so large a supply of water into steam, which, being soon accomplished, causes a greater explosion. The New Criticism.
By Howard Crosby
THE right position of the Christian mind before the assertions of the new criticism is the conservative one. All the presumption is against the assaults upon the word of God. The faith of ages cannot be overthrown by a handful of nineteenth century scholars. A dozen learned men of this age cannot, by their fine-spun theories, convict of error the ten thousand giants of learning who have lived and testified to the integrity and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. Moreover, the internal testimony of the Bible is a complete stopper to this revolutionary idea. Our Lord, through his ministry, held up the Old Testament (just as we have it) as the ultimate standard of divine truth, and recognized the Pentateuch as the work of Moses. The new criticism corrects our Lord and gives Moses the credit of only a few chapters, while the mass of the Pentateuch was a composition of a period from seven hundred to one thousand years after Moses. It will require a large army of Welhausens to make a Christian believe this. If the Messiah made such a fundamental error as to bolster up a pseudo-Moses, and endorse a pious fraud of Josiah's time and Ezra's time, alas for the truth and righteousness of the Messiah's spiritual kingdom! The only fact established, on which these slashing critics build, is the fact that the Old Testament is documentary. From this they leap to the conclusion that it is a hap-hazard patchwork, a pot-pourri of various ages and objects, put together by clumsy workmen with the design to perfect a polity, which, by their own acknowledgment, had already decayed! The whole of this kite-tail is manufactured out of modern material, and attached to the one fact of documentary originals. They use in the manufacture the argumentum a silentio, and the free use of the exscinding scissors, wherever a passage awkwardly stands in their way, and in this brusque manner have an easy time of it, in burying Moses, and showing our Lord's ignorance. Because the men who do this thing are learned men, thousands are ready to follow them, or at least to shake their heads very wisely at their dicta, as if these were oracles not to be despised. But learned men have often been the biggest fools. The knowledge of Hebrew and all the Semitic languages, however thorough and exhaustive, does not make a man wise. The learning of a whole university does not give a man common sense. Walking dictionaries and talking encyclopaedias are often as destitute of clear logic as the dictionaries and encyclopaedias which we buy at the bookstores. To follow a man's conclusions because he is learned, is to become acolyte to an ignis-fatuus. These learned men of the new criticism should be treated as we should treat any others who attack a deeply rooted belief, with very great caution and with all the presumption against them. A haste to accept their doctrine or to show it respect, betrays a weakness that is too often entitled liberality. A man ready to embrace every new Bathybius, cannot be trusted as a guide. These theorists ought to learn modesty from the ludicrous displays of dogmatic nonsense made by such as they in former days. The Dendera temple, we all remember, was, according to the most learned men in Europe, built seventeen thousand years before Christ. The man who doubted this dictum was behind the age. He belonged to the order of infantile Bible worshipers, whom scientific men despise as the ignobile vulgus, unworthy of any other regard than a sneer. Weak-backed Christians saw the Dendera temple and immediately collapsed. Up went the white flag of surrender. The zodiac was proof positive. Moses and Jesus alike were annihilated by that writing on the wall. Moses lay dead for twenty years under this terrific blow, but with wonderful resurrectionary power he revived when the false copying of the temple was removed, and the name of Tiberius Caesar was revealed as the builder of the temple. The marvel is that our theorists did not then insist that Tiberius flourished seventeen thousand years before Christ. We think they could have manufactured that story with the tools they had. At another time the Kuenens and Wellhausens of the day, with their Robertson Smith echoes, found that the inspired writer or compiler of Chronicles had a very big and ugly hole in his inspiration. He had (2 Chron. 33: 11) recorded that the King of Assyria carried Manasseh to Babylon, when, of course, no king of Assyria would have done such a thing. He would have carried him to Nineveh, his capital. But the ignorant writer, writing in a late age, perhaps in the Maccabæan period, had a dim notion of a Babylonish captivity in the past, and therefore naturally sent Manasseh to Babylon. The weak-backed Christians rushed at once into their favorite retreat in time of danger. "Oh! the Scriptures were not given to teach us geography or history." The Scriptures may make all sorts of mistakes in every science, and tell us the moon is made of green cheese, and yet be God's holy word of truth! Infidels chuckle when they find Christians ready to acknowledge that the word of God, so reverently quoted and exalted by our Lord, is brimful of crude errors and ridiculous mistakes. However, as to Babylon, when the Assyrian discoveries showed that Esar-haddon, the conqueror of Manasseh lived not at Nineveh, but at Babylon, we did not hear any "beg your pardon" from the learned critics, but they went zealously to work to find another ugly hole in the inspiration of the Bible. And they are hard at it still, hunting for holes, and every now and then shouting "Heureka," at which shout the feeble ones tremble and the liberal ones say, "Amen," for are they not learned men who shout? —Dr. Howard Crosby. Good deeds remain; all things else perish. The Sabbath-School.
By Ellen G. White
Peter's Denial of Christ.
After deserting their Master in the garden, two of the disciples regained their presence of mind and ventured to follow, at a distance, the mob that had Jesus in charge. These disciples were Peter and John. The priest recognized John as a well-known disciple of Jesus, and admitted him to the hall where the Saviour was being questioned, because he hoped that John, while witnessing the humiliation of his leader, would become affected with the same spirit that actuated his enemies, and scorn the idea of one who could be subjected to such indignities being the Son of God. John, having secured himself an entrance, spoke in behalf of his companion, Peter, and gained the same favor for him. The coldest hour of the night was that preceding the dawn, and a fire had been lighted in the hall. Around this a company were gathered; and Peter presumptuously took his place with the rest by the fire, and stood warming himself. He did not wish to be recognized as one of the disciples of Jesus, and he thought by mingling carelessly with the people he would be taken for one of those who had brought Jesus to the hall. But, as the light flashed upon Peter's countenance, the woman who kept the door cast a searching glance upon him; she had noticed that he came in with John, and conjectured that he was one of Christ's followers. She interrogated him in a taunting manner: "Art not thou also one of this man's disciples?" Peter was startled and confused: the eyes of the company instantly fastened upon him. He pretended not to understand her, but she was persistent, and said to those around her that this man was with Jesus. Peter, feeling compelled to answer, said angrily, "Woman, I know him not." This was the first denial, and immediately the cock crew. O Peter! So soon ashamed of thy Master! So soon to cowardly deny thy Lord! The Saviour is dishonored and deserted in his humiliation by one of his most zealous disciples. In the first place Peter had not designed that his real character should be known; and, in assuming an air of indifference, he placed himself on the enemy's ground, and became an easy subject to Satan's temptation. He appeared to be disinterested in the trial of his Master, while in reality his heart was wrung with sorrow as he heard the cruel taunts and saw the mockery and abuse he was suffering. In addition to this he was surprised and angry that Jesus should humiliate himself and his followers by passively submitting to such treatment. Under these conflicting emotions, it was difficult to preserve his character of indifference. His appearance was unnatural, as he endeavored to join with the persecutors of Jesus in their untimely jests, in order to cover his true feelings. He was acting a lie, and while trying to talk unconcernedly he could not restrain expressions of indignation at the abuse heaped upon his Master. Accordingly attention was called to him the second time, and he was again charged with being a follower of Jesus. He now denied the accusation with an oath. The cock crew the second time; but Peter heard it not, for he was now thoroughly intent upon carrying out the character which he had assumed. One of the servants of the high priest, being a near kinsman to the man whose ear the disciple had cut off, asked him, "Did not I see thee in the garden with him?" "Surely thou art one of them; for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto." At this, Peter flew into a rage, and to fully deceive his questioners, and to justify his assumed character, he denied his Master with cursing and swearing. And immediately the cock crew the third time. Peter heard it then; and while the degrading oaths were fresh upon his lips, and the shrill crowing of the cock was yet ringing in his ears, the Saviour turned his face from the frowning judges, and looked full upon his poor disciple. At the same time Peter's eyes were involuntarily fixed upon his Master. He read in that gentle countenance deep pity and sorrow; but there was no anger there. Peter was conscience-smitten; his memory was aroused; he recalled to mind his promise of a few short hours before, that he would go to prison or to death for his Lord. He remembered his grief when the Saviour told him in the upper chamber that he would deny his Master thrice that same night. Peter had just declared that he knew not Jesus, but he now realized with bitter grief how well his Lord knew him, and how accurately he had read his heart, the falseness of which was unknown even to himself. He groaned in spirit as he realized that not only was his Master enduring the bitterest humiliation at the hands of his enemies, but he was suffering additional dishonor at the hands of one of his disciples, who had forsaken and refused to acknowledge him in the hour of his trial. The look of Christ conveyed volumes to the repentant Peter. He read in that glance sorrow, love, and pardon. A tide of memories rushed over him. He remembered the Saviour's tender mercy, his kindness and long-suffering, the patience with which he dealt with his followers. He remembered the caution of Jesus to him: "Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." He reflected with horror upon his base ingratitude, his falsehood, and perjury. He looked once more at his Master, and saw a sacrilegious hand raised to smite him in the face. Unable to longer endure the scene, he rushed, heart-broken, from the hall. He pressed on in solitude and darkness, he knew and cared not whither. At last he found himself in the garden of Gethsemane, where a short time before he had slept while the Saviour wrestled with the powers of darkness. The suffering face of his Lord, stained with bloody sweat and convulsed with anguish, rose before him. He remembered with bitter remorse that Jesus had wept and agonized in prayer alone, while those who should have sustained him in that trying hour were sleeping. He remembered his solemn charge: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." The scene of a few short hours before came vividly to his mind. He witnessed again the tears and groans of Jesus. It was torture to his bleeding heart to know that he had added the heaviest burden to the Saviour's humiliation and grief. He fell prostrate upon the very spot where his Lord had sunk beneath his inexpressible weight of woe. Peter's first mistake was in sleeping when Christ had bidden him to watch and pray. At the most critical moment, when the Son of God was in need of his sympathy and heartfelt prayers, he was incapable of giving them to him. The disciples lost much by sleeping; Jesus designed to fortify them for the severe test of faith to which they were to be subjected. If they had spent that mournful period in the garden in watching with the dear Saviour, and in prayer to God, Peter would not have been left to depend upon his own feeble strength; he would not have denied his Lord. This important night-watch should have been spent by the disciples in noble mental struggles and prayers, which would have brought them strength to witness the terrible agony of the Son of God. It would have prepared them, as they should behold his sufferings upon the cross, to understand in some degree the nature of the overpowering anguish which he endured. They would then have been better able to recall the words he had spoken to them in reference to his sufferings, death, and resurrection; and amid the gloom of that trying hour some rays of hope would have lighted up the darkness, and sustained their faith. Christ had told them before that these things would take place. He knew the power which the prince of darkness would use to paralyze the senses of his disciples when they should be watching and praying. The disciple John, upon entering the judgment hall, did not try to conceal the fact that he was one of the followers of Jesus. He did not mingle with the rough company that were insulting and mocking his Master. He was not questioned, for he did not assume a false character and thus lay himself liable to suspicion. He sought a retired corner secure from observation of the mob, but as near Jesus as it was possible for him to be. In this place he could hear and see all that transpired at the trial of his Lord. If Peter had been called to fight for his Master, he would have proved a bold and courageous soldier; but he became a coward when the finger of scorn was pointed at him. Many who do not hesitate to engage in active warfare for the Lord, are driven to deny their faith through the ridicule of their enemies. They place themselves in the way of temptation by associating with those whom they should avoid. They thus invite the enemy to tempt them, and are led to do and say that which they would never have been guilty of under other circumstances. The disciple of Christ, who, in our day, disguises his faith through dread of suffering or reproach, denies his Lord as virtually as did Peter in the judgment hall. There are always those who boast of their freedom of thought and action, and laugh at the scruples of the conscientious who fear to do wrong. Yet if those righteous persons are persuaded to yield their faith, they are despised by the very ones who were Satan's agents to tempt them to their ruin.—Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 3. What Young Men Have Done.
As a stimulus to young men we cull out the following: Alexander the Great died at thirty-three. Napoleon had achieved all his victories at thirty-seven. Washington was twenty-seven when he covered the retreat of the British army under Braddock, and not forty in 1776. At thirty-three, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. At thirty, Hamilton helped to frame the Constitution of the United States. At twenty-three, Melanchthon wrote the Loci Communes, which passed through fifty editions in his lifetime. At thirty-three he wrote the Augsburg Confession. At twenty-nine, Ursinus wrote the Heidelberg Catechism. Zwingle wrote his chief works before forty and died at forty-six. At the Disputation of Leipsic, Luther was thirty-five; at the Diet of Worms, thirty-seven. At twenty-seven, Calvin wrote the Institutes. Moses sent young men to spy out the land of Canaan, and Joshua sent young men, as spies, to Jericho. Saul, David, and Solomon achieved their greatest works before they had reached middle life. John the Baptist and the apostles did their life-work as young men. Reader, are you waiting till you grow older? May these examples incite you now to put your hand to the plow, and let the Lord work mightily through you. "I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abideth in you." 1 John 2:14.—Selected. THE YOUTH'S INSTRUCTOR.
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ONE of the lessons to be learned from Peter's denial of Christ is to distrust self. Peter was not a hypocrite. He did not intend to deny his Master. When he said that he was ready to go with Christ to prison or to death, to fight for him if need be, he meant it. And if fighting had been necessary, he would have stood his ground. This is seen by his action in the garden, when he was going to fight the whole band. He was brave even to rashness. He would have faced any number of men in physical combat, and would no doubt have died in defense of his Lord. How then do we account for his base denial? In this way: The trial came in a way that he was not expecting. He was ready for battle, but not for reproach. When he saw that resistance was not allowed, his courage fled. He was not armed at all points. And so it will ever be. If we are strained to resist a certain form of temptation, we may rest assured that Satan will make his attack in another manner. He will take us anawares if it is possible. This, then, ought to serve as a check against self-confidence. We are to resist Satan “steadfast in the faith;” not faith in ourselves, but faith in Christ. We must have all the armor on, not occasionally, but constantly. “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” Scriptural Meaning of the Word Soul.
THE Hebrew word neh-phesh is sometimes rendered creature in the Authorized Version of the Old Testament. It might have been so rendered many times with the strictest propriety. Indeed, some scholars have rendered neh-phesh hhay-yah (Gen. 2:7, and others), a breathing creature, because the first word is from the verb nah-phash, the meaning of which is to breathe, and the second has its primary signification to live, and is hence applied to all creatures possessed of animal life. The first instances of the use of neh-phesh, in Gen. 1, 2, and 9, are of great importance in an investigation of this subject, as they show the first application and the primary meaning of the word, with the adjunct of life, or living, as above. Gen. 1:20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life. Heb., sheh-retz neh-phesh hhay-yah. This expresses somewhat more than the English, moving living creature. On the text Prof. Bush remarks:— "This may be rendered by apposition, and collectively, the living reptile, the living creature; but Rosenmüller prefers the construction by regimen [the genitive], the swarming reptile of a living soul, i. e., possessed of a living soul; and this is countenanced by the Greek, herpeta psuchōn zōōn, creeping things of living souls. To the leading sense of the term it is not material which of the readings we adopt, and grammatical canons will warrant either." Gen. 1:21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth. Verse 24. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind. Verse 30. To everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life. Gen. 2:7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. We give this text in this connection because it should not be an exceptional use of the phrase, as the Authorized Version really makes it. Prof. Bush, who, as an unbeliever of the resurrection of the dead, spiritualized everything as far as it was possible, without doing open injustice to the text, gave Gen. 2:7 in his list of passages in which neh-phesh, accompanied with hhay-yah, has the sense of living creature. It was an inexcusable error of the translators to render the phrase different from its rendering in the preceding texts. Gen. 2:19. And whatsoever Adam called any living creature, that was the name thereof. Gen. 9:12. This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature. Verse 16. That I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature. Closely related to these instances is the following:— Lev. 24:18. He that killeth a beast shall make it good: beast for beast. Heb., neh-phesh tah-hhath neh-phesh. On this text Prof. Bush says: "The established rendering undoubtedly gives the true sense, but it would have been better to have translated according to the letter, as we feel at once the violence of rendering neh-phesh by beast." This is an exceedingly strange remark, for, 1. Inasmuch as it is conceded that neh-phesh admits of various renderings, it would seem that that rendering is nearest to "the letter" which gives the "true sense" of the original. 2. There is no more "violence" in rendering neh-phesh by beast, than in rendering it by creature, if the creature to which it refers is a beast. 3. There is no violence done to a text of Scripture by a translation which gives the true sense of the original. The violence was evidently done only to the theory of the man who thus wrote. 4. If, in giving the "true sense" of a text, "violence" is done to a theory, that theory stands condemned by the text. Thus sensitive are people who have a theory of their own to maintain, in regard to the application of the original for soul, which, as Dr. Clarke says, is applied to every grade of animals, even to the very lowest manifestations of animal life. In the remark quoted above, no doubt Prof. Bush intended to intimate that the literal rendering of Lev. 24:18 would be life for life. It would still remain that neh-phesh is applied to the life of beasts as well as of men, and he would gain nothing to his theory. But the primary signification of the word is creature or person, and life is a signification acquired by association, as it is always applied to those creatures which have life—animal life. That no violence is done in the established rendering in this case is further shown by another expression in the text and in the context. Lev. 24:17 says: "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death." For "killeth" the Hebrew has, "smiteth the soul of a man." Verse 18 has the same form of expression in reference to the beast. "He that smiteth the soul of a beast shall make it good; soul for soul." If soul and beast are not identical here, it will be hard to prove identity in any case. And yet it is claimed that in Gen. 2:7 there was a soul superadded to the creature or man. This is certainly not in the record; the assertion is not justified by the record. If Gen. 2:7 were in all respects like Chap. 1:30, the claim would be urged with greater confidence than it now is. The latter text now reads: "To everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein is a living soul." Now it is affirmed that, in distinction from the lower animals, man has a living soul superadded to him, within him. But, unfortunately for that theory, this form of expression is used in reference to the lower animals instead of to man. The texts in which a soul is said to eat and drink, to be possessed of animal appetites and passions, are so numerous that we fear the reader would be wearied were we to quote them all. But this class of texts we must notice. In every one of these the word neh-phesh, soul, refers to a person, or physical being, or creature. Person or creature would be a correct translation in all such cases. IN a speech in favor of the Sunday Law, delivered not long since, a prominent lecturer said: "We are not now concerned as to whether or not Sunday is the Sabbath; the question is, Having a Sunday Law, shall it be enforced? Perhaps the speaker did not mean that his object was to have the Sunday Law enforced regardless of the question of right and wrong. It is possible that he felt so sure that Sunday is the Sabbath that he did not think it worth while to spend time discussing it. We do not presume to say. But we do know that the sentiment expressed by him is the prevailing one among those who are working for a strict observance of the Sunday. It is rare that any one, preacher or layman, undertakes to give any divine authority for Sunday-keeping. We have repeatedly gone to church to listen to what we had been led by the announcement to think would be a Scriptural argument for the observance of Sunday, and have invariably been disappointed. In one instance the speaker commenced with the fourth commandment, and presented a strong seventh-day Sabbath argument. Then he said, "It is a simple matter of history that the Sabbath has been changed to the first day of the week," and without telling how, when, or by whom it was changed, or what history contained the record, he urged his hearers to work earnestly for a Sunday Law. Sometimes the speaker will give the Scriptural argument which shows the seventh day to be the Sabbath, and then will say that God sanctified simply the institution, leaving the day indefinite; and will then urge his hearers to unite in keeping a definite day, the first day, a thing which he says the Lord never intended. And still others will assume, in spite of the Bible declaration to the contrary, that Sunday is the day that was originally sanctified! But in all this there is an entire absence of argument for the Sunday itself. They never come to the point. The appeals are made, not to the Bible, but to the prejudices of the hearers. Why is this? There is but one answer. It is because there is no divine authority for Sunday-keeping. We do not fear that this statement will be controverted. In a matter of such general importance, which is claimed by some as the "foundation of our holy religion," surely some Scriptural argument would have been presented long ago, if any existed. But what shall we say of those lecturers and ministers of the gospel, who are laboring zealously for the maintenance of the Sunday, who are claiming that it is a sacred institution? They are not ignorant men. Can it be that they do not know that the Bible contains no authority for Sunday-keeping? or are they unable to distinguish between a valid argument and one that has no point? We cannot think so, for they reason logically on other matters. And so we are almost constrained to believe that they are really "not concerned as to whether or not it is right," and that, taking counsel of policy and convenience, they are bound to enforce the Sunday Law, right or wrong. Out of many texts of Scripture which give color to this view, we quote only two: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables." 1 Tim.4:3, 4. "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so." Jer. 6:30, 31.