Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1904-04-26

EDITOR GAZETTE AS the editor of our
most valuable county paper has opened
a department of correspondence by the
subscribers. l will contribute the follow
ing in regard to the Sabbath:
Now, all We know or can know, about
the Sabbath of the Lord VIC get from the
Bible We find it stated in Genesis 8 2
that God blessed the seventh day and
sanctihed it because that in it he had
rested from all his work which GOO
created and made. Now, it still re-
mains fact that God blessed and sancti-
fed the seventh day, and that he rested
upon that day, and that he did not sane
tify and rest and pronounce special
blessing upon any other day. Looking
further. We find as recorded in Exodus
10Th chapter that God withheld mama
from falling in the camp of the Israel
ties on the Sabbath, during their ex-
perience in the wilderness, causing twice
the usual amount to fall on the sixth
day, commanding them to gather a dou-
bic portion on the sixth day, in order
that they might not desecrate the Sab
bath by gathering and preparing food on
that day.
Passing on to the twentieth chapter of
Exodus we have the record of the giving
of the ten commandments by the Lord
upon Mt. Sinai. In the fourth or Sab
bath commandment it is here again
stated that the Lord blessed and hal
lowed the Seventh day. Now to hallow
is to make holy. There is no record in
the Bible that God ever made holy any
other but the seventh and comm anded
that it should be observed as a we ,kly
sabbath. 1t is quite generally believed
that the Lord changed the Sabbath from
the the seventh to the first day of the
week on the occasion of the resurrection,
but the Bible nowhere states nor i'm
plies any such change, on the contrary
there are very good reaaons for believing
it was not changed. The Saviour. when
on earth certainly knew which day was
the Sabbath. His disciples must also
have known. Now it is stated in the
gospels that the Lord rose from the dead
on the first day of the week and in con-
nection with that it is also stated that
the Sabbath had passed and that his dis
ciples had kept it according to the COM
mandment, which commandment states
that the seventh and not the first is the
Sabbath. Mark the last part of the
fifteenth and first part of the sixteenth,
and Luke last part of the twenty-third
and first part of the oath chapters. St.
Paul was Pharisee, the SON of Phari-
see Acts tWenty-third chapter and sixth
verse, which sect were the strictest Sab
bath keepers the world has ever known.
and yet Paul declares not long before his
death that he had committed nothing
contrary to the customs of his fathers,
Acts "A III. which he could not have said
if he had abandoned the keeping OF the
Sabbath as commanded and substituted
some other day. Many people who are
Jealous for the keeping of Sunday, the
frst day of the week are clamoring for
laws to compel the populace at large to
abstain from secular pursuits on that
day. Now that won't work. The Sab
bath is declared to be holy. Gods peo-
pie are commanded to keep it holy.
The majority of people are not holy,
and as they are not holy there is Ger.
tainly no propriety in trying to, compel
them by human, legal enactments to
keep an holy institution. They must
first be made holy which can never be
accomplished by compulsiye means.
G. P. WILLIS.
Blodgett, Oregon.