Our readers will recollect that the chief difference between the second and the third theories of the Christian Sabbath, as we stated them in our last issue, is in reference to the question of time. Seventh-day Sabbatarians, on the one hand, maintain that the last one of the seven days of the week is the sacred day, and that the observance of this very day is absolutely essential to the proper observance of the Sabbath of the Lord, and the keeping of the fourth commandment. On the other hand, we set forth what we believe to be the true theory of the Christian Sabbath, according to which the essential idea of the law of the Sabbath is the consecration to God of an appointed proportion of time—one day in seven, and not the essential holiness of any particular day.

We have already seen that the interpretation of the fourth commandment which insists on the essential holiness of the last day of the week would convict the risen Lord, and his inspired apostles, and the whole church of Christ, even in its purest days, of the violation of that precept of the divine law. But let us now examine a few practical points in connection with this second theory.

1. If the seventh day of the week is to be rigidly adhered to, as the law of the fourth commandment, it must be the seventh from the creation, in regular weekly succession. Will any seventh-day Sabbatarian venture to affirm that, through all the changes of our race, through all the breaks of history, through the bondage in Egypt, and the repeated captivities of God’s ancient people, to say nothing of the miracles in connection with Joshua’s victory, and Hezekiah’s sickness, unbroken succession of the weekly divisions of time has been maintained? Does the last day of our week answer, in an exact numbering of days, to the seventh day on which God rested after completing the work of creation? The interpretation which we are now considering demands this conformity to the fourth commandment in its letter. He would be a bold man indeed, who would affirm that his seventh day in this nineteenth century is the exact day which his own view of the law of the Sabbath would require him to keep holy. Our present first day may correspond to the original seventh day. Who knows?

2. But admit that these essentially holy twenty-four hours, at the close of each week, may be marked without doubt, how can all Christians in different parts of the world keep them? How can men in different longitudes and latitudes so mark off the week as to have it end with this intrinsically holy portion of time? The difference in local time in different parts of the earth is a fact familiar to every school-boy. The circumference of the earth, for the convenience of calculation, is divided into three hundred and sixty degrees. As the sun appears to make a circuit round the earth every time the earth rotates on its axis, that is, every twenty-four hours, the apparent motion of the sun from east to west will be fifteen degrees each hour. Let it be noon of the seventh day at any given point in our land, and it will be sunset ninety degrees east, and sunrise ninety degrees west. At what point of the earth’s surface shall men claim the right to have the seventh or holy day begin with their sunset or their midnight, and demand that all others east and west shall measure their holy day from so many hours before or after their own midnight or sunset, as their portion may require?

Or, again, in extreme northern and southern latitudes, where perpetual day and constant night alternate with the annual revolution of the earth, how shall the seventh day be marked? How shall this essentially holy day of twenty-four hours be known? As God, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to make our earth, and ordain the laws of its diurnal revolution on its axis, and its annual orbit round the sun, it is simply impossible for the inhabitants of the world to keep holy the same identical period of time. The interpretation of the law of the Sabbath at which we are looking is in conflict, therefore, with the laws of the solar system.

3. Our seventh-day friend, perhaps, retreats to his last refuge. There is no portion of absolute time essentially holy. That was never meant. Very well, then, what is meant? Why, that each one in his own longitude or latitude should observe the seventh day as it is measured by his own local time. We apprehend that, in some latitudes, the seventh day, measured by local time, running through some thousands of hours, would be a weariness to the strictest even of seventh-day Sabbatarians. But we will leave these extreme cases. They must keep holy the appointed proportion—one-seventh of their time. That must be the law of the Sabbath to them. But in the belt of the earth nearer the equator, local time, measured by the natural division of days, must be followed.

Now, let it be said, we have no desire to treat a serious subject lightly. But our friends insist on an interpretation of the fourth commandment which can hardly be treated seriously. We can scarcely blame Dr. Geo. Junkin for employing this shaft of ridicule. He says, substantially, suppose all our seventh-day Sabbatarians (and their number is not an insuperable objection to the experiment), having labored six days, according to the commandment, come to the night of Friday. By an excusable artifice, sponges, saturated with a powerful anæsthetic agent, are held to their noses, and they are laid up, in perfect unconsciousness, for a whole day beyond the close of their usual time of sleep. They awake, supposing it to be the seventh day of the week, as to them, so conscious intelligent beings, and subjects of law, it certainly would be to all intents and purposes. But in fact, by the actual measurement of time, it is the first day of the week. Might there not be in this way a practical solution of the whole difficulty?

But the actual rising and the setting of the sun may be insisted on whether our seventh-day advocates are conscious or not. Suppose, then, that one of them takes the now rather popular trip of a tour round the world. Going west at the rate of, say thirty degrees a week, starting from New York, he would lengthen each of his days from sunrise to sunrise—supposing the sun to rise at six o’clock, local time, all along the belt of his course—a little over seventeen minutes; and thus, keeping his own count of time, and observing every seventh solar day, on his return to New York at the end of twelve weeks, his seventh-day Sabbath would really be the first day of the week. Though he might not be mentally converted to the first-day theory of the Christian Sabbath, he would at least be physically converted, and would either be compelled to accept the change, or make a week of six solar days to harmonize in Sabbath observance with his seventh-day brethren at home, or take to his journeying again, and complete the circuit of the earth in the opposite direction, in order to maintain unbroken the succession of weeks of seven days each, and have his Sabbath fall on the one and only day which will suit his interpretation of the fourth commandment.

If, instead of going by the west, our traveler should go by the east, journeying at the same rate of thirty degrees each week, he would diminish the length of each of his days a little over seventeen minutes, and on arriving once more at New York, at the end of twelve even weeks by the time of that city, but twelve weeks and one day by his own time, his seventh-day Sabbath would fall on the sixth day of the week, and we would have a new order of Sabbatarians.

The reason of the diversity is obvious. The trip around the world, according to the supposed rate of travel, would occupy just twelve weeks, or eighty-four days of twenty-four hours each, measured by local time at New York. The total number of hours, reckoning each day twenty-four even hours, would be 2,016. The traveler, proceeding westward at the rate of thirty degrees a week, would add to each day’s length just seventeen and one-seventh minutes—making each day from sunrise to sunrise, reckoning this always at six o’clock, local time, twenty-four hours, seventeen and one-seventeenth minutes long. He would, therefore, in the whole number of hours of his trip, 2,016, see the sun rise only eighty-three instead of eighty-four times. Going east, he would shorten each day’s length, reducing it from sunrise to sunrise, to twenty-three hours and forty-two and six-seventh minutes. In this case, the whole number of hours, 2,016, would divide up into eighty-five solar days. To one remaining at New York, there would be eighty-four solar days; to the one going west around the world, the same absolute time would be summed up in eighty-three solar days; and to the one going east, it would extend itself to eighty-five solar days. Thus at the close of every trip round the world, the Christian traveler or sailor must readjust the reckoning of his days, in order to observe the Lord’s day with his brethren at home. When our Constitution shall have been amended, and a true Christian regard shall be shown to all citizens, if our seventh-day friends feel grievously oppressed by the Sabbath laws, which will then be no dead letter, we shall do our utmost to have the national government provide a number of comfortable vessels, and give our friends a gratuitous trip round the world. We shall take care that the officers are instructed not to sail by the east; for our seventh-day Sabbatarians would then go away only to come home and be sixth-day Sabbatarians. Due care will be taken to have them proceed in the right direction, and to induce them on their return to stay at home, and government’s oppression of them by Sabbath laws will then forevermore have ceased.

In all seriousness, we ask, How can a thoughtful man, in view of the fact of the earth’s revolution round the sun, and its effect on the measurement of time, hold to the second theory of the Christian Sabbath? We have a matter of fact to record just here. In 1790, nine mutineers from the English vessel, the Bounty, along with six men and twelve women from Tahiti, landed on what is known as Pitcairn’s island in the Pacific Ocean. John Adams, one of the mutineers, after the violent death of the other men, was converted by reading a copy of the Bible, and became a true Christian. Keeping his own count of the days, he observed the weekly Sabbath, with the community which was growing up, and which he was at great pains to instruct in the Christian religion. Some time after, an English vessel visited the islands, keeping their count of the days. The officers and crew of this vessel landed at the island on Saturday, but, to their astonishment, found a Christian community keeping the Christian Sabbath. The original settlers and the visitors had gone to the island in different directions. Did the sailors, who kept one day, not observe the Sabbath? Or did the islanders, who kept another day, violate the fourth precept of the decalogue?

Two colonies of seventh-day advocates might leave the same port, one going east and the other west, and might locate on islands on the same parallel of longitude, but on different parallels of latitude. Each, keeping its own record of time, would be found, on settling in their permanent home, to be observing a different day as the weekly Sabbath. Would either colony admit that it was in the wrong? If they were to live apart, each might properly observe its own day; if together, would it matter which day might be observed?

Thus the principle as to time in Sabbath observance insists, not on the essential holiness of any twenty-four hours in themselves, but on the dedication to God of one day in seven, one seventh of the time as nearly as that proportion can be measured by the most convenient means available. This, the third theory does, while it accepts all the facts of history. With one more article, in favor of the third theory of the Christian Sabbath, we shall close this whole discussion.