The Newtown bee., 1909-10-08
The NeWtoWn Bee. Newtown, Friday. october 8, 1909,
SUNDAY RESTRAINT UPON
 AVARICE.
From The Constitution, Atlanta. Ga.

creation, it iB said that on the seventh
 day God ended His work which He
 had made. And God blessed the
 seventh day and sancti6ed 1t because
 that in it He had rested from all His
 work which He created and made.
 In sealing the opening chapters of
 Genesis remember that with the Lord
 one day is as q thousand years, and q
 thousand years as one day. The days
 of creation were God days, and not
 necessarily twenty-fOur hours of
 mans kind. There can be no doubt
 that Moses in the Pentateuch ems
 bodied traditions and doctrines which
 had been preserved from earlier
 times. The custom of dividing time
 into weeks of seven days existed in
 the very earliest periods of the
 worlds history. Many of the ancient
 nations praCticed 1t. The Egyptians
 and the Chaldeans did The Greeks
 first divided the months into periods
 of ten days, but afterwards adopted
 the week of seven days. The Romans
 had a week of eight days, but
 changed 1t to one of seven. Some thing of this character was found among the aborigines in North and South America. But, though there is this general concurrence in the practice of dividing time into periods of seven days, there is no such agree ment in the custom of observing one of these seven days as Sabbath for rest from ordinary labor and the cele- bration of religious worship. The practice of dividing time into weeks is one thing; the practice of observ- ing one day in every week for wor- ship, quite a different thing. But one suggests and supports the other, showing the original purpose and in- tention of the division, why the day was set apart from the other six.
 The words of our blessed Lord are worthy of careful consideration. The Sabbath was made for man. Yes, for man-not for the Jew only, but for mankind-mar everywhere, whatever his race, whatever his color, his lan- guage, his country. All men need the Sabbath, it was made for all. The Jewish Sabbath was founded upon a definite divine command-one of the ten words" AS to the duty of their keeping the SaDDath day holy, there is no question. The particular day was fixed. The people were not at liberty tc make the first day the Sabbath, nor the second day, nor the fourth. To have rested the first day md worked the seventh would have been a plain violation of the con- God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. The purpose of the day is expressly given. It was a commemoration of the great work of creation-and acknowledgment that Jenovah made heaven and earth, man and all thinge else. The maner in which the day was to be spent was stated: " In it thou shalt not do any work" Work is forbidden, but not in 1ocent pleasure and wholesome recre- ation. The Jews seem to have regarded
 1t as day fer worship, for the in- structing their children in the law, md also as day for family parties and social festivals The early Christian he luxurious and self mdulgent man. Ter of spending the day. St Augustine ells them it would be better to blow han to dance on lne Sabbath It is plain hat dancing was not forbidden but blowing was. So far from supposisng he day should be kept as fast it was insisted that tne very idea and purpose If the day required that it should be a estival; all the great and good things Or glad remembrance-fo day of joy Lnd gladness. The command requiring he sacrifices in the Temple to be dou ,led of the Sabbath certainly gives the | lay religious character.
 The Sabbath law was enforced by se- ere penalties, death; the Sabbath-break- 1T was stoned. Was this unnecessarily | evere? Nothing like it has been found | with other people. It was in harmony | lation was holy unto Jehovah, set | part from all other nations for a spe- | ial purpose. Within the nation was | chosen tribe. set apart for temple | ervice, and within the tribe of Levi one i 'erson was set apart from all his inn mediate brethren as hig4 priest. Con- ecration unto the Lord So the first | ruitS of the harvest and the firstlings f the cattle were devoted to Jehovah. 'hus the seventh day was Jehovah's. i \ consecrated nation, consecrated men, l onsecrated property, consecrated place, ! Onsecrated time, all declared that God | laimed the nation as His own, and in very department of life insisted on be- ng confessed as Lord of all; To ,vio- ate the Sabbath was to profane time tod claimed peculiarly as his own. As here was but one tabernacle in the wilderness and later one temple at Je usalem, lnere was little to remind the eople of God save this Sabbath rest. it's observance had not been strong y insisted upon and it's disregard and iolation severely punished, God would asily and soon have been forgotten.
 he weekly rest from common labor was
 constant reminder of the God of their athers. In like manner Sunday does or nee upon Him, our relations to Him. ven though the death penalty does not ang over our heads. We will not be toned, but worse; there is great dan CT to the soul in Sunday neglect and he dissertation of the Lords time. Men 7ithout Sunday would soon become len without souls. Spiritual death is lore to be feared than stoning of the ody.
 Look now at some of the benefits owing from the Sabbath observance
 est from labor, made for free om. Human life was not so hard mong the Jews as with us. Their
 innate was mild, the soil fertile under the country was small the ealth more evenly distributed, their ants were few, for their life was sim
 e. No large towns crowded with peo- e, who keep from starvation by con ant monotonous labor; No clouds of noke hung over the cities of Judea; the 'ar and rattle of the machinery was