Hawaii holomua = Progress., 1894-06-16
THE SABBATH.
The Progressive Memorials
Of the Sabbath.
A Sermon by Bishop
Willis.

tuct CNt tHt0cc through u gQty
hand and by a stretched out arm
therefore the Lord thy God COM
mauded thee to keep the Sabbath
day" Deut. V. Is.
Last Sunday. l pointed out
that the obligation imposed on
mankind by the Fourth Com
mandment is the duty of giving
to God a ssrenh of our time. six
days shalt thou labour, but the
seventh thou shalt rest. | showed
you that Seventh day is not
necessarily the Seventh day of the
week; that for any one to say
that the Seventh day must be
Saturday, and can only be Satur
day, is to be like one, who,
having learnt the Key of c. on
the piano, maintains that b is the
seventh note of the scale, and
that no other note can be the
seventh note. But as IN music
the seventh note changes accord
Ing to the key in which you play,
but yet is always subject to a
particular law, so the Seventh
day to be kept holy has fallen on
d fierent days under different dis
pensations; Saturday having been
the day of rest under the Jewish
Covenant. while Sunday is the
Christian Sabbath, or the Lords
Day.
This evening | suppose to trace
with you the reason of the changes,
and in so doing we shall see the
progressive character of the mem
orials attached to the day of rest |
at successive periods of the
worlds history.
First of all it is to be noticed |
that
THE ORIGIN OF WEEKS
is to be traced to the Divine In
stitution of the Sabbath. If God
had not given man the Sabbath,
time would never have been
broken up into those periods, we
call weeks Mankind could not
have learnt this division of time
from nature. Man learnt the year
by observing the return of the
sun to the same position in the
heavens after, as was supposed
in primitive times, journey
through the signs of the Zodiac.
From new moon to new moon gave
the month. But nature has no
subdivision of the month into
weeks. Perhaps you ask, is not
the week natural subdivision of
moon into quarters7 A week,
however, is not quarter of a
moon. There are 29l days in a
not % Still it might
be said. though not an accurate
it is the nearest sub
division obtainable, seven being
The largest number that viii 60
four times into 29l. To this the
answer is-From time immemor-
Ial every nation under heaven has
kept wears and months, but not
weeks. The observance of the
week has been by no means uni
rersal. Though observed among
he primitive nations of the earth,
|, had no place in the calendar of
he Greeks and the Romans. 1t
IS unknown to the Chinese. 1t is
,nly of late years that it has been
into Japan. The Ha-
xaiians with name for every
Law in the month had no knowi-
sdge of the week. until mission ,
sries came from Boston, and sad 3
y mixed them up by giving them
/ week which is neither Christian
lor jewish. For calling the
second day of the week
and the sew
nth Poaoao. they caused ethe
lords Day. which they called
Iapuis. to be regarded as the
seventh.
1t will now be clear to you that
he week has different origin TO
he year aud month. Its origin
S the obligation to keep every
seventh day as a day of rest.
which was part Of the Law writ
en- on the heart of man at the
Remember that there
N Z L 81 4