SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1091, 1 May 1913, Page 2

SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

On Sunday morning last the vicar of All Saints’ preached on the text St. Mark 2—23, the incident of Christ and His disciples walking through the corn field, after the synagogue service on the Sabbath day. He pointed out how the Pharisees watched Him, tor they were determined to lose no opportunity of fastening upon Him a charge to lay before the sanhedrim. Not finding anything against Jesus, they attacked his disciples, for they had plucked some ears of corn by the wayside, and had rubbed them in their hands, and eaten them. This was not theft, because the' law said, “When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thy hand.’’ But the Pharisees could turn and twist the law at their will, and so they had no difficulty in making out that the law had been broken. To them, to pluck the ears of corn was equivalent to reaping, to rub them in their hands the same as threshing—thus to reap and to thresh was to do work on the Sabbath day. They attacked the Master on the action of His disciples, and asked, “Why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful ?” Christ threw the shield of His protection over his followers. With one of those masterstrokes which He so often made, He recalled to their minds an illustration from the history of their greatest hero: “Have ye never read what David did when he had need and was an hungered, .he and they that were with him?’’ David, the great national Saint, had made no scruple in accepting some of the loaves from the golden table, and in the face of the law, which sanctioned the eating of those by the priests only, and within the holy place. How, then, in the case of need could they blame His disciples? The great lesson to be learnt from this was that God did not tie us down to any hard and fast rule; there were works ot necessity and works of mercy which were bound to be attended to on the Sabbath day. The vicar then referred to the recent discussion on Sunday observance. All he could do was to take them to the moral law —that distinctly stated the Sabbath was to be kept holy, and in it no manner of work was to be done. To work on a Sunday was a deadly sin according to the moral law. Either employer or employed, or cattle or stranger were to heed this command. To carry the law to its logical conclusion, it would be a breach of that law to use one’s time, for mere pleasure. One had to distinguish between works of necessity and works lor gain, and the whole observance depended on motion. He said he had been asked, “Was it a great sin to play bowls or any other games on a Sunday ?” and he had answered that to speak as an honest man he could not say it was a very great sin, because many of us did perhaps much worse than that on Sundays ; but there was a sin, and that lay in setting a bad example. If pastime on Sundays, however innocent it might be, was a stumbling block to others, then to continue in such recreation was wrong. The spirit of St. Paul was the right one: ‘“Wherefore, if meat maketh my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for ever more, that I make not my brother to stumble.’’ We were not to consider our own private opinion, but rather to look at it with the eyes of Christianity. If bowls, or golf, or hockey, or anything else give offence to anyone, then the only conclusion was to give it up. The vicar then pointed to the' peerless example of Christ as He walked through the cornfield —His enemies could find no fault in Him—and that should be the aim of every Christian, to so walk through this life that none would be offended.