What complaint is made against Sunday trains and Sunday newspapers?
Answer
"They get a great many passengers, and so break up a great many congregations." "The laboring
classes are apt to rise late on Sunday morning, read the Sunday papers, and allow the hour of worship to go
by unheeded."-Elgin (Illinois) Sunday-law Convention, November, 1887.
NOTES. - In the fourth century, Sunday games and Sunday theatres, it was complained,
"hindered" the "devotion" of the "faithful," because many of the members attended them in preference to
the church services. The church, therefore, demanded that the state should interfere, and enforce Sunday
observance by law. "In this way," says Neander, "the church received help from the state for the
furtherance of Her ends." In this way church and state were united, and the Papacy was placed in power.
The same course pursued now will produce the same results.
It is proper and right for the church to teach Sabbath observance, and to decry Sabbath
desecration; but it should not attempt to secure Sabbath observance through compulsory legislation; nor
should it seek to fasten upon the people by any means the observance of a day which God has never
enjoined, and for which, as is admitted on all hands, there is no Scriptural command. See admissions on
pages 133, 134, 146-148.
In what scripture does Christ apply the same emblem to Himself ?
What was the fourth beast declared to be?
3. What urgent petition of the prophet connects this prayer with the vision of the taking away of the continual mediation and the desolation of the sanctuary recorded in Daniel 8?
When asked which commandments, what did Jesus say?
When the church had received help from the state to this extent, what more did she demand?
When we see all these things, what are we to know?
In ministering to the needy, whom are we really serving?
Questions & Answers are from the book Bible Readings for the Home Circle