“BY general agreement of scholars the beginning of our Christian era has been set four years wrong. By general agreement the Christmas day, December 25th, has also been set wrong…. So little have feast days and celebrations to do with religion that it never occurred to one of the four evangelists to tell us the day and the month…. All this teaches us the old lesson, that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, nor birthdays or birthyears, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Such is a very truthful observation made by the New York Independent, of December 17; and another equally truthful which it suggests is that no surer evidence of the decadence of Christianity in the life of the people could exist than the general and ever-spreading deference paid to such celebrations by the Christian churches. The Independent will bear correction on one point: “feast days and celebrations” do have a great deal to do with religion; but nothing to do with Christianity. They simply put the stamp of paganism upon the religion of which they are made a part.
It was on this very point that the Apostle Paul wrote with the deepest concern to the church he had established in Galatia. “How turn ye again,” said he, “to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and [10] years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Galatians 4:9-11. What would the apostle say to-day were he to write to the churches, in view of their ostentatious observance of Christmas, Easter, and other festivals which God never instituted, while totally disregarding the one day which he has solemnly ordained as his everlasting memorial—the seventh day of the week?