Chapter 3 - part 4
All this time
the proprietor of Brown’s repair shop was casting uneasy and
apprehensive glances at his friend the preacher; but the latter did not
return them. To honest-hearted Sam it looked as if his ally was
floundering about for some additional argument that would have some
weight; and he found himself being a little ashamed of his pastor, and
actually to be beginning to pity him. His idol of irrefutable Sunday
argument was toppling. But the preacher was not giving up yet.
"Anyway, my
dear man," he took up the debate, "you must acknowledge that
time may have been lost, and many calendar changes have been made; so
there is no way of telling now just which is the seventh day of the
week."
"As to
that," came back Richards readily, "there is no way to tell
which is the resurrection day, either, if time has been lost. The two
stand or fall together as to finding out which day of the week they came
upon. For we all agree perfectly that the Old Testament Sabbath came just
before the resurrection day, and you celebrate the latter on Sunday. I
have heard that you are an ardent advocate of Sunday laws. And to think
that you, a minister of the gospel of love and tolerance, would throw
people into jail for refusing to keep a day about which there is no
certainty at all as to whether or not it is the day you think it is. No,
reverend sir, you are resorting to tactics unworthy of you, and your
arguments eat each other up.
"But I would
fain save you from yourself. Truth to tell, time has not been lost.
Referring to the Bible in which you trust, if time records had been lost
up to the time when Israel came out of Egypt, time was found again then.
God Himself set men right then, if they were wrong before that. For during
a period of forty years, fifty-two times in a year, God performed a double
miracle to denote which day was the Sabbath. For the first five days of
the week a certain amount of manna fell; then on the sixth day a double
amount fell, and on the seventh day, the Sabbath, none at all fell. Thus
the definite seventh-day Sabbath was indelibly impressed on the minds,
customs, and national records of from one to three millions of people for
the period of a whole generation. And that people happens to be the only
racial group that from ancient times has kept distinct and has had almost
no mingling with other peoples. Today they are scattered far and wide
throughout the world. So ask Jews anywhere, everywhere, which is the
seventh day of the week, and without exception they will tell you it is
Saturday.
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