June 22, 1899
THE Sabbath is in the world to save men; not men to save the Sabbath.
THE Sabbath, to be kept at all, must be kept holy, and as no human law can command holiness, no such law can promote or protect Sabbath-keeping. Hence, even were Sunday the Sabbath, a Sunday law could be no barrier to Sabbath-breaking.
SUNDAY laws overlook the fact that a man must be good on other days than the Sabbath in order to keep it. People who are not good on week days are very apt to be bad on the Sabbath, and certainly do not come up to the seventh day in any condition to remember it to keep it holy.
THE Sunday-closing people want everybody and everything, good and bad—the irreligious, the atheistic, the saloon, the theater and the gambling house—to keep the Sabbath. God wants nobody to try to keep the Sabbath before he is converted; and wants no evil thing to pretend to do homage to his day. There is no call for such places to be closed on the seventh day.
IT is the proper business of the Christian clergy to proclaim to the people, not condemnation, but reconciliation; not the power of human law for the punishment of the guilty, but the power of God for their salvation.
THE nation has an Independence day, but this does not matter nearly so much to you as the answer to the question whether you have one or not. Are you independent, and do you govern yourself?
THE Christian life is lived not by depending upon the world, but by overcoming it. Christianity seeks no aid from any worldly source.
ABRAHAM of old was obliged to leave “his country,” and from the modern standpoint would not have ranked very high as a patriot. But he forsook his country that he might not forsake the right. And people who profess to be children of Abraham can be consistent only by doing as he did. They can be citizens of no country which has forsaken the right. They must be content to accept the name “pilgrim” in the place of “patriot.”