I should not like to shock your ears or to leave with one of our twilight gatherings such memories as would haunt you, were I to continue my quotation; so I have only given a faint glimpse of a country without a Sabbath and its gracious Giver. May the little help us to realise more fully the preciousness of His first gift to mankind.
I wonder if you, my dear girl friends, have ever thought of a fact which establishes the Divine origin of the Sabbath. You know how we measure our years, calendar months and days, and how these periods are accounted for by the journeying of the earth round the sun, and other movements and positions which regularly recur. But there is nothing to divide week from week, or to mark a definite period of seven days, save the Divine example and the Divine command, as recorded in the Bible.
The story of God’s creative work during six days, and of His resting and sanctifying the seventh, the commandment, “Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” are our only warrant for the division of time which we call a week. The lunar month divided by four will not give fully seven days. The calendar months are of unequal lengths, and even the year cannot be divided into so many exact weeks.
This fact may be already known to most of you, but you may have gone over the figures many a time without saying to yourselves, “The movements of the earth and her attendant moon mark various periods, but never an exact term of seven days. For this division we must refer to God’s word and His command to give six days to work and the seventh to rest.”
Are you saying to yourselves that I am dwelling too long on the institution itself, whereas you want to know how best to keep it in these days of varied opinions and many temptations? Forgive me if I have stepped aside a little from the path you asked me to tread. I longed—I cannot tell you how earnestly—to impress upon your minds, first of all, a sense of God’s love in bestowing the day of rest and the infinite benevolence it manifests. We can neither value nor use such a gift as we ought to do, unless we feel that it was bestowed for our good and to make us both better and happier. Having once realised this, how can we help thanking God for it and feeling anxious to use it aright, so that we may derive from it all the benefit intended for us?
Most people, however irreligious and indifferent to the sanctified part of the Sabbath, practically acknowledge it as the best day of the seven. If they do not, why should it be the day for clean raiment, for the best clothes to be worn, the best food to be provided, and all done that can be done, according to the lights of different individuals, to make it stand out as being unlike the other six days?
It ought to be the brightest and happiest day of the week, and I, for one, have no sympathy with those who would make it a day of gloom and weariness to the young. On the other hand, I have as little sympathy with those who would leave God out of it, and dedicate it wholly to what they call pleasure, but which often results in over-wearied bodies, unrefreshed souls and unfitness to begin the work of the six days that follow.
To enjoy our Sabbath we must feel glad of and thankful for it, and we shall not be satisfied unless our immortal part is refreshed and strengthened, as well as our body, by the opportunities it gives.
We shall need no special command, no hard and fast rule to direct us. Our grateful hearts will incline us to turn our steps towards the house of God once during the day, if it be possible for us to do so. And, if not, we can mark the day in the quiet of home by devoting an hour to special study of God’s word, prayer, thanksgiving and self-examination.
There are many waking hours in our day. Let us ask ourselves whether, when prevented from joining in public worship, we habitually dedicate one in the way I have named.