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

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Take, for instance, the meeting of Jesus with the apostles at the sea of Galilee (John 21), while they were engaged in a fishing excursion. Assuredly, this did not take place on Sunday; else, according to the view of our friends, they would not have been engaged in such an employment. Just what day it was, no one is able to decide; but all agree that its character was in no way affected by the profoundly interesting interview which occurred upon it between the Master and his disciples. If it were, then there is at least one holy day in the week which we cannot place in the calendar, since no one can decide whether it was the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth.

If, however, you would have a still more forcible illustration of the fact that religious meetings, were they never so solemn, can in nowise alter the nature of the hours on which they occur, let me call your attention to the day of the ascension (Acts 1). Here is an occasion of transcendent glory. If the statements in the sacred narrative of events, which transpired during its hours, could only be predicated of either one or the other of the first-day meetings of Christ with his disciples, it would at least be with an increased show of reason that they could be woven into the tissue of a Sabbatic argument. Here are found many of the elements essential to the idea of religions services, of which the instances in question are so remarkably destitute.