WHAT is there about Sunday which leads its defenders to make such inexcusable blunders as that which appears in the following?:—
“When ought we to prepare for Sunday? Exodus 16:23.
“When God prepared food for the children of Israel, did he prepare any on Sunday? Exodus 16:27.”
These questions are part of a “catechism on the Sabbath,” which is printed in a late issue of the Christian Endeavor World, with the indorsement of John Willis Baer, the general secretary of the Endeavor organization. They amount to a definite assertion, that the children of Israel kept Sunday during their wanderings in the wilderness.
Now everybody knows that the children of Israel in the wilderness did not keep Sunday, or the first day of the week at all. Everybody knows that it is not claimed even by the most ardent advocates of Sunday, that the Israelites kept it. The very phrase “Jewish Sabbath” which those advocates delight to repeat in controversy, and by which they refer to the seventh day of the week, is a standing evidence of their belief upon this point.
The Jews have kept the same weekly day ever since they first became known as a nation. This no one will seriously dispute.
And now the general secretary of the Christian Endeavor Society deliberately puts it out as truth that the Jews, back in their journey from Egypt to Canaan, kept Sunday; that it was Sunday that God designated by miracles in connection with the falling manna, as his Sabbath!
We mention this because it leads us to make the inquiry, To what lengths of error will the great Christian Endeavor body be led in their support of Sunday? If they will believe this, as they are of course expected to, being printed in their leading organ and indorsed by the official who stands next to the president, what will they not believe in the line of religious error?
And since it is true that people act in accordance with their beliefs, and since the Christian Endeavorers are expected to be young men and women of action, what mistakes may they not be expected to commit in action? This, in the case of such a body, is a very serious question.