EXCEPT for the selfishness of professed Christians, all the world would long since have been compelled to admit the mild and benign character of the religion taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. But for centuries the course of the Church, both Protestant and Catholic, has been such as to fasten upon the minds of men the idea that intolerance exists as the legitimate fruit of Christianity, instead, as is really the case, in site of the beneficent teachings of its Author, and in utter disregard of the plainest principles and precepts of his gospel.
WE are not sure after all but that the term “American Sabbath” is properly applied to Sunday. It is certainly not the Sabbath of the Lord, neither is it the Lord’s Sabbath. It is true that as a holiday, Sunday is very ancient; but as a rival of the Lord’s day—the true Sabbath—it is comparatively modern. As a first-class fraud it is indebted more to America than to any other country in the world, and America ought to have the credit. There is also a fitness in the term “American” used in this connection, for it is a confession that Sunday is not the Sabbath. The very use of the terms, “American Sabbath,” “Christian Sabbath,” “Weekly Independence Day,” etc., mark the contrast between the day to which they are applied and that which inspiration designates simply as the Sabbath.