Sir,-Your eminently thoughtful and reasonable editorial "On the Seventh Day" effectively covers the fundamentals. But fanatics clamouring for Sunday observance will still cling to their narrow point of view. They might be commended to reflect on the fact that the Old Testamant Sabbath falls on our Sat-urday-the Jewish Sabbath. Our Sunday is the Mithraic sacred day adopted by the Gentile Christian Churches to mark their breakaway from the first Christian Church in Jerusalem-which observed the Old Testament Sababth. The first dictator about our Sunday appears to have been the Roman Emperor Constantine, who, after becoming allegedly Christian, issued an edict calling for the solemn observance of Sunday. On that day, nobody was to do any work, although presumably, cows would still have to be milked and animals, fed. But Constantine was the originator of "Blue Sunday" laws under which mankind has groaned more or less evér since. It is a mistake to suppose that life is necessarily elevated to higher levels by ritual observances. If the heart is right in its relation to the insoluble mysteries of the universe and life, and functions on principles of toleration and affection for mankind as a brotherhood, it makes no matter on what days you do or refrain from doing specific acts. After all. the kinedom of heaven is
within ‘us.
J. MALTON
MURRAY
(Oamaru).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19560810.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 888, 10 August 1956, Page 5
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222Untitled New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 888, 10 August 1956, Page 5
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