We have proved in a former chapter that the Sabbath was extensively observed as late as the middle of the fifth century in the so-called Catholic church, especially in that portion most intimately connected with the Abyssinians; and that from various causes, Sunday obtained certain Sabbatic honors, in consequence of which the two days were called sisters. We have also shown in another chapter that the effectual suppression of the Sabbath in Europe is mainly due to papal influence. And so for a thousand years we have been tracing its history in the records of those men which the church of Rome has sought to kill.
These facts are strikingly corroborated by the case of the Abyssinians. In consequence of their location in the interior of Africa, the Abyssinians ceased to be known to the rest of Christendom about the fifth century. At this point, the Sabbath and the Sunday in the Catholic church were counted sisters. One thousand years later, these African churches are visited, and though surrounded by the thick darkness of pagan and Mahometan superstition, and somewhat affected thereby, they are found at the end of this period holding the Sabbath and first-day substantially as held by the Catholic church when they were lost sight of by it. The Catholics of Europe on the contrary had, in the meantime, trampled the ancient Sabbath in the dust. Why was this great contrast? Simply because the pope ruled in Europe, while central Africa, whatever else it may have suffered, was not cursed with his presence nor with his influence. But so soon as the pope learned of the existence of the Abyssinian churches, he sought to gain control of them, and when he had gained it, one of his first acts was to suppress the Sabbath! In the end, the Abyssinians regained their independence, and thenceforward till the present time have held fast the Sabbath of the Lord.
The Armenians of the East Indies are peculiarly worthy of our attention. J. W. Massie, M. R. I. A., says of the East Indian Christians:—
“Remote from the busy haunts of commerce, or the populous seats of manufacturing industry, they may be regarded as the eastern Piedmontese, the Vallois of Hindoostan, the witnesses prophesying in sackcloth through revolving centuries, though indeed their bodies lay as dead in the streets of the city which they had once peopled.”[940]
Geddes says of those in Malabar:—
“The three great doctrines of popery, the pope’s supremacy, transubstantiation, the adoration of images, were never believed nor practiced at any time in this ancient apostolical church.... I think one may venture to say that before the time of the late Reformation, there was no church that we know of, no, not that of the Vaudois, ... that had so few errors in doctrine as the church of Malabar.” He adds concerning those churches that “were never within the bounds of the Roman Empire,” “It is in those churches that we are to meet with the least of the leaven of popery.”[941]
Mr. Massie further describes these Christians:—
“The creed which these representatives of an ancient line of Christians cherished was not in conformity with papal decrees, and has with difficulty been squared with the thirty-nine articles of the Anglican episcopacy. Separated from the western world for a thousand years, they were naturally ignorant of many novelties introduced by the councils and decrees of the Lateran; and their conformity with the faith and practice of the first ages, laid them open to the unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism, as estimated by the church of Rome. ‘We are Christians and not idolaters,’ was their expressive reply when required to do homage to the image of the Virgin Mary.... La Croze states them at fifteen hundred churches, and as many towns and villages. They refused to recognize the pope, and declared they had never heard of him; they asserted the purity and primitive truth of their faith since they came, and their bishops had for thirteen hundred years been sent from the place where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians.”[942]
The Sabbatarian character of these Christians is hinted by Mr. Yeates. He says that Saturday “amongst them is a festival day, agreeable to the ancient practice of the church.”[943]
“The ancient practice of the church,” as we have seen, was to hallow the seventh day in memory of the Creator’s rest. This practice has been suppressed wherever the great apostasy has had power to do it. But the Christians of the East Indies, like those of Abyssinia, have lived sufficiently remote from Rome to be preserved in some degree from its blasting influence. The same fact is further hinted by the same writer in the following language:—