The record-union., 1893-02-13

NOW the truth OF the whole matter is
that the Christian Sunday is the old An
glo-Saxon "Sunnan dag" or Sun day, i.
e., the day on which the ancients wor-
shipped the sun. Sabbath is from the He
brew tShabbath), and means "a rest day."
With the Hebrews it was the seventh day,
because the Mosaic law had so ordered it.
To this ancient Jewish custom we owe
our one day in seven as period of rest,
but not the first day of the week. While
the Jews claim Moses as an authority,
the excavations OF modern autiquarians
in the valley of the Euphrates have sadly
injured the reputation of Moses for orig
inality of thought. Nevertheless, he was
no doubt the great law-giver of Israel
who gave the notion form and started it
upon its course through the world.
Moses was educated in Egypt, which,
in his day, led the world. Here he nc
doubt obtained knowledge of the tradi-
tons of other peoples besides his own,
and freely used such knowledge liz franz
ing his system of government. He was
by no means the originator of the Sab
bath. but to him we owe its preservation,
and after him we owe it to the Jewish ma
ton.
THE AKKADS.
Five or six thousand years ago there
dwelt in the mountainous regions of Asia
people who were neither of the Semetic
race, whence the Hebrews came, nor OF
the Aryan race, which so many centuries
since peopled India and Europe, but of a
strange stock, older and more mysterious
yet. called the 1u9Gaial,, from which the
modern Tartar is supposed to have come.
This hardy race OF mountaineers in those
far-oH days moved westward and south
ward and downward until they took pos
session OF the Euphrates Valley. Here
they established their cities and founded
an empire. These people called their
original home Akkad, or the highland;
and they called themselves Akkadians, a
highland men.
Curious as 1t may seem these highland
folk had literary taste and literary
habit. They not only organized gram
NAUTICAL language, but they constructed
an alphabet and invented writing, q
thing which, so far as we know, had not
been accomplished at that time by any
other people, unless it was the Egyptians.
They made their books with stylus on
clay tablets, which were afterward baked
to brick. Some of these have been pre-
served beneath the ruins of Babylon and
other Eastern cities of antiq uity, and sc
have come down to be interpreted by ou1
modern antiquarians. 1t seems that these
people had an organized religion. They
had traditions of creation of the deluge
and of the Tower of Babel-traditions
indeed, from which our Bible accounts
seem to have been taken.
But most surprising of all, they had q
habit of observing the seventh day OF
the week as a day of rest, just as the
Hebrews did subsequently, and they
called it by the very name which has
''Sabbitu." They described it as day oil
rest to the heart, and as a day in which
work was unlawful.
In an Akkadian calendar written at
least five thousand years ago the idea OF
the day and the method of keeping it are
thus set forth:
THE seventh day-a holy day-a Sab
bath for the ruler of great nations"
His clothes he shall not changer
New garments he shall not put on"
Sacrifices he shall not offer"
I'm regal fashion he shall not legislate' -
"a review of the army he shall not
hold"
Medicine for the sickness of his body
he shall not apply"
During the ensuing night the King
may erect his altar, make a sacrifice, anu,
lifting up his hands, worship in the hipb
places of the Lord"
Here, then, more than five, perhaps
six thousand years ago, among the old
Turanians, we find a Sabbath well
known, long established and fully deyel-
oped as day of absolute rest and of re-
ligious observance.
Gradually the Arabian Semites invaded
the Euphrates Valley, conquered its
cities, drove the highlandmen back to
their hills, where they seem to have gone
the way OF all broken nations, back to
darkness and oblivion, except, as some
say, 1t may be that the Tartars are their
descendants.
Their conquerors, however, preserved
traditions of their literature, and, like
the Teutons of Northern Europe after
conquering Rome, adopted some of the
habits and customs of the people they
conquered.
1t SO happened that Abraham, who, ac-
cording to tradition, was born in Ur of
the Chaldees, an ancient Akkadian CITY,
was reared among Sabbath customs that
his Semetic forefathers had obtained
from the people they had conquered.
Abraham retained these customs and
handed them down to his children's
children, and when they at last became
slaves in Egypt they still chung to them.
Moses, loyal to his own race, preferred
these traditions and institutions to those
of the Egyptians because they carried the
stamp of the authority of the God that
Abraham had worshiped.
The books commonly accredited to
Moses were compiled long after his day,
but, no doubt, in them are preserved
many of his laws.
The first of Genesis to the third verse
of the second chapter was written as a
poem, describing the creation of the
world as though God were an Israelite.
working day after day until the Sabbath,
and then resting, as was their custom.
This poem of creation is of fabulous
worth to humanity as literary produc-
ton, being the work of lofty genius,
whoever he was.
1t moves along like the march of the
ages. Beginning with chaos, it moves
along from day to day, evolving creation
until all is finished, then blessing and
rest. 1t never could have been written
had not the institution of the Sabbath
| been already in existence, unless we con-
cede the miraculous element.
| Efforts have been made ever since the
| Reformation to make Jesus in some way
responsible for our first ddg, but so far,
nothing can be found in either secular OF
sacred history that is of any authority
whatever. The truth is, Jesus never kept
either the seventh day or the first day Of
! the week in the modern sense at all. He
said very little about the Sabbath, and
what he did say cannot be used in sup
| port of Puritanical strictness. He knew
| that it was human institution, "made
for man, not man for it." He declared
that the Pharisees made its observance OF
more importance than justice and mercy
ttHo hilhS, oHiSS anu CuuiHllu, Sdlu
| he, 'but neglect the weightier matters o.
the law"
! So Beecher once said: 'There are many
people in the world who will not black
| their boots on Sunday who have no COM
Function about backing their neighbors
characters all the week.
Jesus preached righteousness, not cere-
monies, feasts or holy days All days
were alike holy to him.
My Father worketh even until now,''
| said he land i work y when accnsad nt