and the most stalwart courage. The times demand men and women who are conscientious and courageous. Young men of Plainfield, especially, will you drift-backward and downward or will you come quickly to the help of the Lord against the mighty?

No one of us would entertain for a moment the thought of deliberately turning our backs upon the Law of God or the Book of his Word. We would not crucify again the Lord from heaven or trample upon the Sabbath of Jehovah,sooner than that let my right hand forget her cunning, and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; and yet it is so easy to let go and drift away. The remedy for all this is to keep close to Jesus. Are any drifting in the Sabbath-school, or the Christian Endeavor Society, or the prayer-meetings, or in the home religious life? Where are the soul-winners? Will you go to-day or to-morrow, it may be, to those who are not here to-day, and taking them by the hand. in love, repeat this text to them?

God is love and light and strength; and his eternal truth will triumph. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess his name. There is no occasion for discouragement; but

there is great need of watchfulness. Victory will certainly come to every faithful disciple. Then keep the lights and the fires burning. The Bible is our chart, heaven is our haven, hope is our anchor; Jesus the pilot and governor of our ship. Is not the reward worth all the struggle? Is not the victory well worth all the conflict? "Let us not be asleep as many, but awake to righteousness that we sin not." "Wherefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from them."

"The tide is flowing out, but hark! upon its bosom borne, a voice floats o'er the sea.

'Tis the Saviour calling to his sheltering breast; Come to me, ye weary; I will give you rest. Drifting nearer, nearer to the sea of eternity."

IN

VI

"And sanctified it."-Gen. 2:3

N speaking on what is called "the Sabbath question" to-day, no effort will be made to exhaust the subject or to dwell on points of theology, philosophy or history, except as they may be suggested in an effort to give a brief, concise, simple, orderly statement of what the Bible teaches about the seventh day. Our attention was called to this text by observing the fact that the word Sabbath does not occur in the book of Genesis. "And sanctified it." The word "sanctified," as used in this connection, needs but little explanation. It means to set apart to a sacred purpose. It is said of something that Jehovah hallowed it-that is, he made it holy; and that he sanctified it—that is, he devoted it to a sacred purpose. He made it to be different from other things of its kind. Different because of the holy, sacred purpose for which it was to be used. What was it that God sanctified? The word Sabbath is not used in this connection. He sanctified "it." This then is the subject to

day. Sanctified It. What it was, what it has been, what it is, and what it is to be.

"It" is the seventh day. Gen. 2: 3, "And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." Before there were races and nations, before there were tribes and families, before there were bond and free, Jew or Gentile, Jehovah set apart the seventh day for his own glory and for man's good. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are the history of primative man. At the very beginning of human history God gave to the whole race, as a priceless heritage, the Sabbath and the home. The statement of the text is vital and fundamental when it says of the seventh day of the week that Jehovah sanctified it. It was made for man. It was made when time began. When you study the Sabbath question begin at the beginning.

The sixteenth chapter of Exodus is of value in this discussion for two reasons. It identifies beyond question the Sabbath which the Hebrew nation observed with the seventh day of the week which God sanctified. God said, in speaking of the manna, verse 26, “Six days ye shall

gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none." The fact

that the manna was withheld on a certain day of each week for forty years answers any question about the possibility of a loss of reckoning. He sanctified it. "It" was the seventh day of the week. This chapter also shows distinctly that the Sabbath was known to the people some time before the giving of the commandments on Mt. Sinai.

The point of the chapter seems to be that Jehovah was making a test of the obedience of his people, and when some went out to gather on the Sabbath He said to Moses, "How long refuse ye to keep my commandments?" The passage ends, so far as the Sabbath is concerned, with this statement, v. 30, "So the people rested on the seventh day."

A little later, when the law was delivered to Moses, written by the finger of God on tables of stone, the Sabbath law had been placed in the very center of the moral code, and introduced by the word "remember," which implies a knowledge of the facts. In the commandment itself the language of Almighty God also identifies the Sabbath of the Exodus with the seventh day of the creation week. The Sabbath day is the seventh day.