CHURCH PICNICS ON SUNDAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22833, 18 March 1936, Page 7

CHURCH PICNICS ON SUNDAY

TO THE EDITOR. ■ Sir, —I have read with a good deal of interest the letters in your paper of late, dealing with the subject of church picnics on Sunday. In your issue of the 14th there were two letters, one by “ Maranatha ” and the other by Mr H. R. Turner. I am a little surprised at the ignorance of these writers regarding the institution of the Sunday, the first day of the week, as a Sabbath, in place of the seventh day. Both claim that the early Christiana altered the day. I ask, by whose authority? Certainly not God’s! “ Maran-atha ” quotes, to substantiate his claim, Revelation i, 10, putting iu brackets “ Sunday ’’ after "Lord’s Day.” Mr Turner does not give Scripture authority, but says that it is stated in the New Testament that the early Christians met for worship on the first day of the week. 1 would like him to give the Scripture reference. He also says that the Sabbath Commandment was given in the Law of Moses. I would also like Scripture proof for this. I have in my possession a Roman Catholic catechism, in which the question is asked, “ How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holidays? ” The answer is, “By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded bv the same church.” A statement by Cardinal Gibbons iu “Faith of our Fathers” (page 111) is: You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorising the sanctification of SunFrom another writer, the Rev. Isaac Williams (Church of England 1, in “Plain Sermons on the Catechism ” (vol. 1, page 334), 1 quote: “Whore are wo told iu the Scriptures that we arc to keep the first day at all? Wo are commanded to keep the seventh: but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first. The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but the church, has enjoined it. Just one more statement will suffice, 1 think, to show who is responsible for the change. “It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday iu remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is all homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of

the Catholic Church."—(“Plain Talk About the Protestantism of To-day,” by Alonsignor Segur, page 213.) lam, etc., Waitahuna. Student.