THE SCOTS AND THE SABBATH
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The writer of the article under the above heading remarks very truly " there is no good reason why the restric- tions of the Jewish Sabbath should be transferred to the Christian Sunday." The statement needs still greater emphasis. To keep the Christian Sunday as if it were the Sabbath Day is indeed a fundamental error, and to base our conduct on a fallacy is to invite disaster.
May the essential difference between the two days be stated clearly yet once more ?
The Jewish Sabbath was to be kept on the seventh day ; it commemorated the Creation, and man was ordered to rest from his labour. The Christian Sunday, on the first day of the week, commemorates the Resurrection. Its chief idea is not rest, but worship, calling for the exercise of man's highest spiritual energies. Originally amongst the Land of Christians, both days were observed, as in Ethiopia today, but everywhere else this double commemoration ceased.
The confusion of these two ideas, due to Puritan influence, has done enormous damage to the cause of true religion, especially in Scotland, and must continue to do so, so long as men refuse to clear their minds of cant, and prefer not to face the truth. The change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday was made by the early Church, acting on its own authority. It is possible that during the great Forty Days, from Easter to the Ascension, our Lord Himself gave this particular direction to His apostles, together with many things He taught concerning the Kingdom of God, and of which we have no record whatever in the Scriptures. These commands, whatever they were, He enjoined upon the Apostles " to observe and to do."
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