Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1886-04-02
THE OLD SABBATH,
A Day that Is Older than the Book of
Genexis

Genesis
When one notes the origin of the
Sabbath, studies the attitude of the
bible in regard to it, and follows its
history down through the church, the
day becomes one of the rare curiosi-
ties Of superstition. Let us then look
at the Sabbath little, for the facts
concerning it ought to help the solu-
ton of what has come TO be the Sun.
day newspaper question.
The day is ages older than the Jew
ls1 people or the book of Genesis.
There is no rational doubt that it orig
mated in Sabsism or planet worship.
1t is found among the Acadians, s,
TuraRiau people, who occupied the
valley of Euphrates long before Baby
Ion became city. If strictness and
severity are tests OF goodness there
was time when the old pagan As
syrians were better Sabbath keepers
than any Jew or Christian has ever
been since. For the king himself was
forbidden to est any cooked food, to
change his clothes, to take medicine,
though i'll, Or even to engage in who
ship. As near as possible to nothing
at all was the only thing one was per
mitted to do on the Sabbath in those
good old times"
The day did not then originate with
the bible, and there is no proof that
the infinite God of this universe ever
commended the keeping OF any such
day as Rev. Joseph Cook became so
warm over in his last Monday lecture
For in two Of the books of the Old
Testament two inconsistent and mu-
tually exclusive reasons are given for
keeping it. Oae of these reasons is
the caIldish one that God rested, as
though tired out, after the SIX days
work of creation. But in the New
Testament Jesus Himself fiatly con-
tradicted that statement, though, even
if he did not, science does for it demon.
strate the fact that the creative work
is going Oh to-day as much as ever,
and has always been going on. And
then the Jewish Sabbath, according
TO the best scholarship, was no more
like the one that New England has
tried TO support on divine authority
than Easter is like the Fourth of
July.
And when we come 10 the New
Testament we find Jesus himself pub
iicly branded as a Sabbath breaker,
while the writer of the Epistle to the
| Colossians distinctly and in terms
abrog ates the Sabbath law, declaring
Tito be no longer binding on Chris
tians. There if no trace anywhere
of any authoritative transfer Of Sab
bath .keefing on Sunday. The Jewish
Christians continued to keep the Sab
bath, while, at the same time, they
met on Sunday morning to celebrate
the Lords supper, and keep in mem
! DRY their faith in the resurrection of
Jesus. But the gentle Christians
generally kept Sunday only. And for
| hundreds of years it never occurred to
the early church that there was ever
any question aoout it being wrong to
work on Sunday, after their religious
services were over, or to engage III
anv occupation they pleased.
The very first law ever past was the
| edict OF Constantine, issued A. d
321, But that only made it what we
would call holiday, releasing people
from the obligation of labor. 1t ex-
pressly excepted agricultural laborers,
whose crops might need attention
and it said not word about its
being wrong to work. 1t was not
until the year 52S that all work was
prohibited
And all the way down through the
history of the early church there is
clearly seen an endeavor on the part
of the Christian leaders to discourage
what they regarded as the Sabbath
superstition of the Jews st.
Cyril, Jerome, Luther, Calvin, Tyn-
dale, and others are at one on this
point. They all declare the Sabbath
a matter of church custom and conve-
nience, and no part of any religious
or moral law
Sunday, as New England has known
it, was an institution unheard of in
either Jewish or Christian history IN
Ill the time of puritanism in England.
81, however good thing it may be.
let us at least tell the truth about ii
and if we wish to keep it, let us rest
it on the foundation on which it be-
longs Globe.