Читать книгу The Constitutional Amendment: or, The Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and Restitution онлайн

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Before we sanction this view of the subject, however, let us give our attention for a moment to the manner in which the previous portion of the day, then closing, had up to that point been spent. Certain it is, that Jesus had not, during its declining hours, been suddenly moved by a newly created impulse for the accomplishment of an object which had been just as desirable for twelve hours as it was at that moment. Sunday sanctity had already become a fixed fact, and its knowledge as essential to the well-being of the disciples in the morning, as at the evening. We naturally conclude, therefore, that the very first opportunity for its disclosure would have been the one which Christ would embrace. This was afforded in his conversation with Mary. But, while there is no evidence that it was imparted, it is at least presumable that she was left entirely ignorant of it.

The second occasion was presented in that of the journey of the two disciples from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a distance of seven and a half miles. Jesus walked with them and talked with them by the way, reasoned with them about the resurrection, made as though he would have gone farther, discovered himself to them in the breaking of bread, and disappeared, leaving them to retrace the seven and a half miles to the city, with no word of caution against it on his part. Nay, more; his marked approval of the propriety of the act might properly have been inferred from the fact that he himself accompanied them in the first instance, in the garb of a wayfaring man; at the same time acting the part of one who was so far convinced of the rectitude of his own and of their action, that he was ready to continue his journey until night should render it impracticable. (Luke 24:28.) Following these men now, as they retrace their steps to the city from which they had departed, and to which they were now returning—manifestly all unconscious that they were trespassing upon time which had been rescued from that which might properly be devoted to secular pursuits—let us observe them, as they mingle once more with their former companions in grief. How does it happen that they are congregated at this precise point of time? Is it because they have at last discovered the fact that it has been made in the special sense a proper day for religious assemblies? If so, whence have they derived their conviction? Certainly not from Mary, or the two disciples just returning from Emmaus. Assuredly, also, not from Christ himself.