MANY persons, although they would not acknowledge it, prefer to seat a child at a second table rather than teach him such rudiments of good breeding as will make his presence acceptable at the common table. It is a mistake to leave the supervision of a child’s meals to a servant, or to neglect them entirely. If a child’s table manners and actions are such that he can not eat quietly with his elders, there is an indication of a deplorable lack of training.
It is true that the average child has but little respect for table customs and observances. The little head bends unrebuked until it nearly touches the plate; the fingers are used as freely as the silver, and much of the food is daubed upon the face. One might recite worse offenses without being in any way extravagant.
One thing is universal: our children eat too quickly, and the food is improperly masticated. To this may be directly blamed the poor stomachs of the last generation. One must admit that there is rarely a perfectly healthy family.
As soon as the child is old enough to feed himself, he should be taught to hold a spoon properly. It is a wrong idea to give a child a spoon, a knife, or any article from the table to be used as a plaything. Do not tolerate any playing with the silver, dishes, or food. If the baby in the high-chair throws food or spoon upon the floor, reprove him, and take away all that remains, denying him the right to feed himself until the habit is corrected. A child soon learns.
Do not place too large a portion of any food upon the child’s plate. A little, and not too many kinds at a time, is much better. Call a child’s attention to any spot or stain upon the cloth; and if the youngster is old enough, make him bring a damp cloth and carefully clean it. After a few times, the child will exercise the necessary ounce of prevention, and the lesson will be of far more value than any amount of reproof.
A child should not be allowed to grow capricious in the selection of his food. Many mothers have to prepare two or three meals because the different members of the family will not eat the same diet. One mother confessed that she had to serve five different breakfast foods, and that each member of the family wanted eggs prepared in a different style.
On the other hand, the little one must be allowed some individuality at the table. Any actual dislikes should be respected. The child should not be forced to eat food that is distasteful to him; but care should be taken to see if the dislike is genuine or is merely caprice.
As the meal is often the only time of the day when all the members of the family meet together, teach the child to come to it clean and smiling, with only pleasant speech. Teach him the effect of a right condition of the mind upon the digestive organs of the body. Instil a pride in his own table deportment and in the perfect appointments of the table. If the setting of the table falls to him, teach him to look upon it not as a duty but an art. Allow him to arrange the flowers unaided, gently guiding his taste; and although the effect may be almost grotesque at first, you will be rewarded by his interest and improvement in table manners.—American Motherhood.
Catarrh: Its Causes and Treatment
By P. A. De Forest
P. A. DE FOREST, M. D.
The body may be compared to a tube having two surfaces,—an external, the skin; and an internal, the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, with the canals which open into it. The respiratory and genito-urinary passages are also lined with a special form of mucous membrane. These surfaces are not only engaged in the work of absorbing and secreting, but they have an excretory, or eliminative function as well. The kidneys, skin, intestines, liver, and lungs excrete, or eliminate, from the blood effete matters of a gaseous, liquid, or solid nature, all of them being poisonous when retained in the body. The quality and the quantity of the poisons thrown off from these surfaces vary with the activity of the organs engaged in excretion, and the amount of poison formed in the body. The fullest activity of all of the excretory organs is necessary to prevent the accumulation of the natural waste products; and when one or more of them fail of accomplishing their part, the remaining organs are taxed to their utmost capacity, overloaded, and finally enfeebled, so that the effete matters accumulate in the body. This is autointoxication, which may be said to be the fundamental cause of catarrh. The circulation is unbalanced because of imperfect and irregular nerve action. The nerves are either irritated by irritant poisons or anesthetized by hypnotic poisons. These poisons produce fatigue, lassitude, and a disinclination to active exercise. The blood-stream stagnates, and catarrh ensues.
The circulation is further unbalanced by excessive brain work, a sedentary8life, constipation, too much clothing on one part and not enough on the other, too warm rooms, too much food, corsets, tight shoes, and a host of other causes which produce autointoxication indirectly, and at the same time break down the vital resisting power of the tissues.
This state of autointoxication does the mischief, as it establishes a vicious circle, in which the bodily functions are performed with gradually increasing difficulty. The harmonious action so necessary to health is interfered with, and the wheels of life are clogged.
The sufferer from catarrh must shake off his distaste for active exercise. The health of the excretory organs depends on the activity of the body as a whole. Muscular exercise enables the liver to excrete more bile; the lungs, being more active, throw off more carbon dioxid and organic poisons; the kidneys are spurred on by the nervous system and the increased circulation to eliminate a variety of excrementitious and highly toxic products; the skin is forced into activity to get rid of the excess of heat produced by muscular activity, and the perspiration which ensues drains away much poison. The strength imparted to the muscles reacts on the muscles of the intestines, and constipation is overcome; and thus the clogged system is relieved by its own efforts.
If one excretory organ is especially congested and catarrhal, it is well to stir up the others to renewed activity, so as to give the sick organs a rest. If nasal catarrh is present, the liver needs treatment. Cholesterin, an excrementitious substance found normally in the bile, is often present in the secretions of nasal catarrh, which fact shows the mutual interdependence of the organs. In this case the liver has perhaps been loaded down by poisons from coffee, tea, tobacco, meat, old cheese, condiments, etc.
The way to health is to stop this way of living and try a better one. Eat pure food, breathe pure air. Dilute the poison-laden blood-stream with pure water. Stir up the unused muscles, and set them going to help the heart; for every muscle is another form of heart—a pump to accelerate the flow of blood and lymph. Keep the skin clean and active. The poisons thrown from the epidermis are reabsorbed if not frequently removed; therefore bathe and change the clothing often. Work for health, and it will be yours, and catarrh will be left far behind.
Local Treatment
Catarrhal surfaces being but an expression of inward intoxication, with outward infection, one of the best means of cure is to cleanse the nasal or other passages of mucus; for mucus is almost always infected with pus germs and other microbes.
Local treatments are positively indicated in germ catarrhs, or where local infection is present, with or without general unbalancing of the circulation, because the microbes generate poisons which tend to perpetuate the evil.
The common method of cleansing is to irrigate the passages by water in which medicaments are dissolved. Here is a good formula: Biborate of soda, one part; bicarbonate of soda, two parts; common salt, three parts; one to three tablespoonfuls to a quart of very hot water.
The value of very hot irrigations to stimulate vital activity can not be overestimated, whether used on old, indolent ulcers with granulated surfaces, or simply as a nasal wash. Common salt alone—a little less than one-per-cent solution injected by irrigation, or snuffed up from a sponge at a temperature of 115° to 130° F.—is also good.
Medicated solutions may be applied by means of a good nebulizer or vaporizer.
Another formula for irrigation purposes is the following: Listerine, 10 parts; sodium chlorid, 20 parts; boracic acid, 20 parts; benzoic acid, 1 part; water at 115° to 130° F., 1,000 parts.
Gland, Switzerland.
Calling the Cows
By C. H. Stone
The evening sky is all aglow;
The sunlight falls in last caress
Upon the hills, and seems to press
A parting kiss; the poplars throw
Their lengthening shadows on the grass.
Bearing their clover-gathered store,
Belated bees now homeward pass;
The stir and heat of day are o’er,
But on the evening calm I hear
A bell-like summons ringing clear,
“Co’, boss! Co’, boss!”
An answering note comes faintly back,
The tinkle of a distant bell;
From rocky slope and leafy dell
Following many a well-worn track,
The meek-eyed cows come down and pass
Yonder to the milking-sheds,
Cropping the sweet and dewy grass,
Fragrant with bending clover-heads,
In calm contentment, one and all
Obedient to the evening call,
“Co’, boss! Co’, boss!”
The drowsy bell is heard no more;
The birds and beasts have gone to rest,
Seeking on nature’s loving breast
The balm she ever holds in store.
One by one the peaceful stars,
God’s acolytes, illume the sky;
And still I lean upon the bars,
And muse on happy days gone by
When I, as evening’s mantle fell,
Called home the cows from hill and dell,
“Co’, boss! Co’, boss!”
— C. H. Stone.
What Imagination Will Do
Dr. Charles K. Mills, of Philadelphia, told at a dinner an amusing story of the influence of the imagination on the health.
“A young bank clerk,” he said, “feeling fagged from the excessive heat of a trying summer, consulted a physician. The physician questioned him, sounded his lungs, and then gravely said, ‘I will write you to-morrow.’”
“The next day the bank clerk received a letter from the medical man, telling him that his right lung was gone, and his heart seriously deranged, and advising him to lose no time in putting his affairs in order.”
“‘Of course,’ the doctor said, ‘you may live for weeks; but you would do well to leave nothing important unsettled.’”
“Naturally, the young bank clerk was very much depressed by this sad letter. He did not go to work that morning, and before noon he was having trouble with his respiration, while severe pains shot rapidly through his heart. He did not get up all day, and toward midnight he had a sinking-spell that caused his people to send post-haste for the doctor.”
“The doctor, on his arrival, was astounded.
“‘Why,’ he cried, ‘there were no symptoms of this sort yesterday! What on earth have you been doing to yourself!’”
“The patient’s face screwed up with pain; he pressed his hand to his breast, and said, feebly, ‘It’s the heart, I suppose, doctor.’”
“‘The heart?’ said the doctor; ‘there was nothing the matter with it yesterday.’”
“‘My lungs, then,’ the patient groaned.
“‘What ails you?’ the doctor cried. ‘You don’t seem to have been drinking.’”
“‘Your letter, doctor—you told me I had only a few weeks to live.’”
“‘Nonsense! Are you crazy? I told you to take a month’s vacation at the seaside, and you’d be as good as new again.’”
“The patient drew the fateful letter from a drawer beside his bed.
“‘Well,’ said the doctor, glancing at it, ‘this is a pretty mess. This letter was intended for another man. My secretary must have mixed the envelopes.’”
“The patient laughed. He sat up in bed. His recovery was rapid. That night, in fact, he was well again.
“And what,” ended Mr. Mills, “what of the dying consumptive, who received this young man’s letter? The consumptive, delighted with the prediction that a month at the seaside would make a sound man of him, packed his trunk and took the first train for New England. That was ten years ago, and to-day he is in fair health.”—Selected.
Stop and Weigh
One morning an enraged countryman came into Mr. Moody’s store. He left a team in the street, and had a stout stick in his hand.
“Mr. Moody,” said the angry man, “I bought a paper of nutmegs here in your store; and when I got home, more than half of them were walnuts; and that’s the boy I bought ’em of,” pointing to John.
“John,” said Mr. Moody, “did you sell this man walnuts for nutmegs?”
“No, sir,” was the ready reply.
“You did, you young villain!” said the man, still more enraged at his assurance.
“Now look here,” said John. “If you had taken the trouble to weigh your nutmegs, you would have found that I put in the walnuts gratis.”
“O, you gave them to me, did you?”
“Yes, sir. I threw in a handful for the children to crack,” said John, laughing.
“Well now, if you ain’t a young scamp,” said the man, his features relaxing into a smile.
Much hard talk and bad blood would be saved if people would stop to weigh things before they blame others. “Think twice before you speak once,” is an excellent motto.—Christian World.
Boston Brown Bread
Mix and sift one cupful each of rye-meal, granulated corn-meal, and Graham flour; add one teaspoonful of salt, three-fourths teaspoonful of soda, three-fourths cup of molasses, and one and three-fourths cups of sweet milk. Stir until well mixed, turn into a buttered mold, cover, and steam three and one-half hours. Do not fill the mold more than two thirds full. The cover should be tied down firmly with a string; otherwise the bread in rising might force it off. If a steamer is not at hand, place the mold on a trivet in a kettle containing boiling water, allowing the water to come half-way up around the mold. Cover closely and steam, adding more boiling water as needed.—Woman's Home Companion.
Najibabad, India
By S. A. Wellman
S. A. WELLMAN
One year ago plans were laid for opening a dispensary at this place, a native city of two thousand inhabitants in the northern portion of the United Provinces. It is located on the plains near the foothills of the Himalayas, and has the advantage of a good climate. It has been worked but little by other missions.
Photo by S. A. Wellman
Photo by S. A. Wellman
In March, 1910, the dispensary was opened, and about the same time the Girls’ School was transferred to that place from Dehra Dun. The work was carried on in both these branches until November.
Our dispensary, under the supervision of Sisters B. M. Kurtz and M. B. Shryock, with native assistants, has been a source of great blessing, and has done much to allay prejudice, and make warm friends among the people. One case in particular comes to mind. A Mohammedan woman from a village eight miles from Najibabad came to the city to obtain help at the time her child was to be born. Having been given up by the native midwives, and hearing of our workers, she came to this city. Being unable to find our dispensary, she went to the Mohammedan inn, expecting to die, when some one came in who knew our workers, and directed her husband to them. The nurses immediately went to her assistance. Although the child did not live, they were able to save the life of the mother. In a day or two she went home, after begging our workers to come to their village, not only to help them physically, but to teach them from the Bible concerning the Saviour. Later our workers visited the village, and found their hands full until late in the evening, and the people willing to listen to the truth, as well as to be helped in their bodily infirmities.
The reasons for the temporary abandonment of so favorable a location for our work are these: The workers were surrounded by native houses. Disease in every form could not be properly guarded against. Then came the epidemic of bubonic plague. Among the first to succumb was the son of our native brother. Our workers attended him carefully, in spite of the danger to themselves. For two weary months they remained, bravely doing their work, while the plague carried off its victims all about them. At night the silence would be broken by the wailing of those who had lost their loved ones, the weird cries and screams piercing the heart as one realized the cause of the sorrow. Conditions grew worse, until from twelve to fifteen were dying daily in this little city, and it was deemed best temporarily to call the workers from the station.
Word was sent them; but before they could leave, Sister O’Conner was taken with the dreadful disease. A telegram from Sister Shryock came to us in Lucknow, during the general meeting, just before the Sabbath service, telling us of the new development. Unitedly we sought God, who graciously brought deliverance, and our sister recovered. After two weeks’ isolation in grass huts, all our workers were brought from this station, with the hope that we might be able to renew the work in the city at an early date, when the plague should cease.
The proper way to work such places is to have buildings of our own outside the city proper, in a place where we can have good yards, plenty of fresh air, and be a little way removed from the unsanitary and at most times filthy conditions of the native quarter. Days spent in such surroundings while laboring for the people are sufficiently dangerous to health and life without having to spend the whole time facing death. As our workers go out into these places, they sacrifice much; but should they be expected to take their lives constantly in their hands? There is not one who is not looking forward to the day when the big fund will be raised, and we shall have the means to put up plain little homes for the workers, in good, open locations, from which they may go forth to their labor of love. Then we hope it will not be necessary to abandon stations to save the lives of the workers.
Lucknow, India.
Progress in Korea
By Irwin H. Evans
I. H. EVANS
KOREA is a very interesting field for evangelistic endeavor. Its people are in a state of transition. Cutting loose from superstitions hoary with age, they are now looking to the Occident to bring to them knowledge; to establish among them schools; and to give to them light and truth which will place them on vantage-ground with other peoples, and especially with Western civilization.
It is strange that no heathen people desire the Christian religion. They covet knowledge, money, power, and the influence which Christianity has brought to the world; but the one thing, the chief thing of all, the great producing cause, they neither desire nor aim to possess. Like all unregenerate hearts, these heathen people require the same effort, the same patient teaching, to bring them to accept Christ as their Saviour that sinners in the home lands of Europe and America require.
In every land, among every people, the10human heart seems blinded toward God; and to persuade sinners to accept salvation through faith in a crucified and risen Saviour, demands the same earnest efforts in preaching the living Word, and the same watering by the Holy Spirit. When the Word of God is preached in simplicity and with the power of the Holy Spirit, souls are born into the kingdom of God. Nothing will take the place of preaching the Word. Whatever has been substituted for this Word, whether eloquence, rhetoric, or philosophy, has failed. The Word of God, believed, lived, and preached by mortal man, is God's way of reaching hearts. Wherever this method is followed, results in souls accepting salvation are seen. When schools, sanitariums, and other agencies take the place of preaching the Word of God and personal work for souls, barrenness and failure follow the effort. Is it not time Seventh-day Adventists should closely follow the early church in the great work of preaching the gospel, making secondary, and using as auxiliaries, other agencies, rather than relying on these agencies to accomplish the work of reaching souls in darkness and sin?
A little over one year ago there was not an Adventist within many miles of the city of Seoul, the capital and metropolis of Korea. Some of our workers moved to that city, and began work. They did not start a school; they had no sanitarium; and they had but little literature. A cheap Korean house was rented, fitted up, and meetings were held. Little by little, this small beginning grew, until they had to enlarge their meeting-place, renting a better compound in the very heart of the most densely heathen portion of the city. Last October, when other denominations centered their efforts in Seoul to complete that splendid year's work for God, which probably was accompanied with more prayers and greater endeavors than had ever characterized Christianity before in the Hermit Kingdom, we were assigned this heathen portion of the city as our part to work.
Invitation cards were printed, and three thousand of them were circulated. An attendance was secured far beyond our ability to seat and accommodate. Every night the Word of God was preached, and souls were convicted and converted to God. Last January it was my privilege to meet with them. On the Sabbath eighty-one were present, though the thermometer registered about zero, and the people were poorly clad and shivering with the cold. Thirty women were seated in a little room 8 x 12 feet. It was my privilege to help organize a church of thirty-one members, with a full set of church officers. Many more will join the church when they have had more experience and have received baptism.
Pitiful pleas for some one to come and preach came from little companies in all directions. At Chemulpo ten persons had begun keeping the Sabbath, and were pleading for help. On Monday morning three brethren arrived, having walked fifty li, and faced a cold, pelting snow-storm. They begged that some one go home with them, and instruct a company of twenty who were keeping the Sabbath. It was impossible to send any one; for our foreign workers are already breaking under the work they are doing.
A special number of the Korean paper was printed, and the whole working force of Korea undertook to circulate a ten-thousand edition. The last report brought the news that the whole number had been sent out, and nearly all had been sold. The brethren showed skill in pushing this work. They divided the students into companies of four or five. With each of these companies a foreigner went out, working side by side with the students, and helping them succeed. The students took a thousand of these papers to sell. To some this may seem a small number, but this was the first time they had ever undertaken to sell papers. They did not know what they could do. Seldom have I ever attended a better missionary meeting than the one in the little mud school building on the hill at Soonan, when those boys and girls for the first time stepped to the front and endeavored to do work for God.
Dr. Riley Russell accompanied the youngest and most inexperienced students north as far as the Yalu River, selling in every town those gospel-filled messengers of truth. He wrote me that the thermometer went down to seven below zero; but they covered their territory, and sold their papers. The last report I had from him was that two precious souls had accepted the truth, and that others were interested.
Sister May Scott took the girl students, and they did work almost as good. Brethren R. C. Wangerin, C. L. Butterfield, and H. A. Oberg each took a company, and worked with the students selling the papers. The church-members caught the spirit, and joined in the campaign to sell the printed page.
Another special number will be published at the close of school, and they hope to sell twenty thousand copies.
We were compelled to buy a cylinder-press. The brethren had been using an old, rickety, George Washington lever proof-press, and it was impossible to do the work on it. The new press is now in operation, supplying a great need in the growing cause in Korea.
Seventy students were in attendance at the school, and we could have had a hundred had we been able to accommodate that number. Among them are some strong, sturdy fellows, who have responded splendidly to the training of the school under Dr. Russell. The doctor works with his boys in the field, sowing and reaping and tending crops. Contrary to all traditions in this part of Korea, the boys enter heartily into the work. They are paid by the hour, and charged with their board and schooling.
I had two weeks in Korea, and greatly enjoyed every hour. It is a thriving field. One feels here the spirit of labor. The very air is electrified with doing work for God. A score of openings demand help. It is not, “Where can we find an opening?” but the cry is, “What shall we do first? Which place shall we help next?” Brethren, pray for the work in Korea.
Shanghai, China.
Mission Notes
W. C. Walston reports a baptismal service at Solusi, Rhodesia, South Africa, when twenty-five were buried in the watery grave. The workers were greatly encouraged.
Last December a unique scene took place on the street of a certain city in Iowa. A corn pyramid was dedicated to missions after a short missionary sermon by a Methodist minister. The farmers had been invited to give to missions two sacks of shelled corn or four in the ear. This they willingly did, and the pyramid was built. A congregation was soon gathered by music, and the pyramid was dedicated to China. The money value was about thirty-one dollars.
The first native woman physician in the Philippine Islands, Dr. Olivia Salamanca, was graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia in June, 1910. After spending the summer in Philadelphia, doing some special work in the study of tuberculosis, she returned to the Philippines, where she received from the medical board her license to practise medicine in the islands. She has been elected secretary of the Anti-Tuberculosis Society of the Philippines. Dr. Salamanca is a young woman who commands the respect of both Americans and Filipinos, and who gives promise of a very useful career.
Such reports as the following are especially encouraging when it is taken into account that after all the greatest need of the human heart is the indwelling Christ, the water of life poured into the soul through the ministry of the Word and the Holy Spirit: “From — I went to —, where meetings were begun in the church. We had a good attendance from the start; and when we came to the Sabbath, we had a Pentecostal blessing. I think I can safely say that I never was in a more powerful meeting. Every band was broken, and prisoners were set free. Confessions were made, wrongs corrected and made right, and backsliders reclaimed. The church is in the best condition that it has been since its organization.” How quickly everything can be cleared up when heartfelt confessions of wrong are made to one another. After all, this is the greatest work to be done in all the world. God will see that those without the church hear the message when the Pentecostal blessing comes to those within it.
Some Opposers of the Sabbath in Early Centuries
By W. A. S.
Editorial
Some Opposers of the Sabbath in Early Centuries
From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures know but one day of rest, the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord our God. The last glimpse we get of the New Testament church shows it keeping the Sabbath, just as Christ had set the example for all time and all people, in his own life; so that Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, could say truthfully to the Jews at Rome, near the close of his life:—
“I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers.” Acts 28:17.
Had he been keeping the first day instead of the seventh, or teaching others to do so, he could not have said this.
But as soon as we pass on in secular history to the times of apostasy, we find the forces of error attacking the Sabbath and those who observed it. As Schaff says:—
The councils, while they turned the Lord’s day itself [meaning Sunday] into a legal ordinance handed down from the apostles, pronounced with all decision against the Jewish Sabbathism.—“History of Christian Church,” Vol. III, page 382.
It was not Sabbath-keeping by Jews that troubled the councils. It was the observance of the divine day of rest by Christians that stirred the enmity of the apostasy. The Sabbath is the mark of loyalty to the true God and to his law, and all through the centuries the keeping of it has aroused the spirit of the dragon.
In the year 364, the council of Laodicea recommended a sort of Sunday observance, but vigorously denounced Sabbath-keeping Christians:—
Canon 29.—Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [“Sabbath” is the word in the text], but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ.
Two hundred fifty years later, in Rome itself, Sabbath-keepers were troubling Gregory the Great (pope, 590-604). In a letter “to the citizens of Rome,” dated in the year 602, he said:—
Gregory, servant of the servants of God, to his most beloved sons the Roman citizens.
It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these but preachers of Antichrist, who, when he comes, will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord’s day to be kept free from all work. For, because he pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord’s day to be had in reverence; and, because he compels the people to Judaize that he may bring back the outward rite of the law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to be observed.
For this which is said by the prophet, “Ye shall bring in no burden through your gates on the Sabbath day” (Jer. 17:24), could be held to as long as it was lawful for the law to be observed according to the letter. But after that the grace of Almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has appeared, the commandments of the law, which were spoken figuratively, can not be kept according to the letter. . . . On the Lord’s day, however, there should be a cessation of earthly labor, and attention given in every way to prayers, so that if anything is done negligently during the six days, it may be expiated by supplications on the day of the Lord’s resurrection.—“Epistles of Gregory the Great,” book 13, epistle 1.
We may judge somewhat the laxity of Sunday observance in those times from the reproof administered by Gregory to Januaris, a bishop in Sardinia, to whom he wrote (book 9, epistle 1):—
It has been told me that on the Lord’s day, before celebrating the solemnities of the mass, thou wentest forth to plow up the crop of the bearer of these presents; and after plowing it up, didst celebrate the solemnities of the mass.
This work in the field before the Sunday mass, and by a bishop, shocked the Pope. He considerately added: “Since we know thy simplicity accompanying thy old age, we meanwhile hold our peace.”
Those Sabbath-keepers in Rome could scarcely have been impressed by the strange jumble of argument advanced by so great a pope against their Scriptural teaching.
But four centuries later this letter of Pope Gregory’s was again used against Sabbath-keeping witnesses. The Saxon princess, Margaret of England, had married King Malcolm of Scotland, in 1069. She was an ardent Catholic, and quickly learned that the ancient Culdee Church of Scotland, founded in early centuries by Columba and his teachers, was not fully following papal tradition. “They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical manner.”—Lang’s “History of Scotland,” Vol. I, page 96. Queen Margaret set about to bring the Scottish church into line with Rome.
The original record is in the “Life of St. Margaret,” by Talbot, her confessor. We give the following extracts from his account, quoting but a portion of some of the sections:—
Section 16. Observing that many practises existed among the Scottish nation which were contrary to the rule of right faith and the holy customs of the universal church, she caused frequent councils to be held, in order that by some means or other she might, through the mercy of Christ, bring back into the way of truth those who had gone astray.
Sec. 17. Among these councils the most important is that in which for three days she, with a very few of her friends [three priests had been sent her by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury], combated the defenders of a perverse custom with the sword of the Spirit, that is to say, with the Word of God. . . . In this discussion the king himself took part as an assessor and chief actor, being fully prepared both to say and do whatever she might direct in the matter at issue. And as he knew the English language quite as well as his own, he was in this council a very exact interpreter for either side.
Sec. 18. The queen introduced the subject under discussion by premising that all who serve one God in one faith along with the Catholic Church ought not to vary from that church by new or far-fetched usages. [They did not properly observe Lent and Easter, as this section goes on to show.]
Sec. 20. Again, there were certain places in Scotland in which masses were celebrated according to some sort of strange rite [doubtless a comparatively simple celebration of the Lord’s supper in the vernacular, instead of in the Latin tongue], contrary to the usage of the whole church. Fired by the zeal of God, the queen attempted to root out and abolish this custom, so that henceforth, in the whole of Scotland, there was not one single person who dared to continue the practise.
It was another custom of theirs to neglect the reverence due to the Lord’s day, by devoting themselves to every kind of worldly business upon it, just as they did upon other days. That this was contrary to the law, she proved to them as well by reason as by authority. “Let us venerate the Lord’s day,” said she, “because of the resurrection of our Lord, which happened upon that day, and let us no longer do servile works upon it; bearing in mind that upon this day we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. The blessed Pope Gregory affirms the same, saying: ‘We must cease from earthly labor upon the Lord’s day, and we must devote ourselves entirely to prayer, so that upon the day of our Lord’s resurrection we may make expiation for such negligence as we may have committed during the six days.’ The same father, Gregory, after censuring with the greatest severity a certain piece of worldly business which had been done on the Lord’s day, decreed that the persons who had advised it should be excommunicated for two months.” The arguments of the queen12were unanswerable; and from this time forward those prudent men paid such respect to her earnestness that no one dared on these days either to carry any burden himself or to compel another to do so.
So the Scottish people were led to fully follow Rome. But the forces of opposition were never able wholly to suppress the witness to God’s Sabbath in those early centuries. Through the Dark Ages, the light of this blessed truth was kept dimly burning, here and there, to break out brightly as the days of Reformation came. And all along the bitterest of persecution was waged against the Sabbath-keepers, even in times when Sunday itself was a holiday rather than a rest day.
Sabbath-keeping was the thing that the enemy of truth hated, with the testimony that true Sabbath-keepers have always to bear against the assumed authority of apostasy, of which the Sunday institution is the mark. And so it is in the last days. The story of modern Sunday legislation shows that it is the testimony of loyalty to God’s law that the power behind all apostasy still seeks to silence, even as the prophecy says: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus.” Rev. 12:17. W. A. S.
