Editorial August 18, 1945 Issue

What Think You of the Fourth Commandment?

John Randall Dunn

At this hour of change and flux, of pressure and bustle, how sorely does the human family need to reexamine the fourth commandment of the Decalogue and ponder its deeper meanings! Today the strict Jewish or Christian observance of a seventh-day period of rest is a rara avis, except in isolated instances. Many readers of these words can recall the dreaded Sundays of their youth, when any activity save churchgoing and Scripture reading was taboo. Who does not know the story of the shocked Scottish mother who was informed that her lad had been heard "whustling on the Sabbath"?

Nowadays, the pendulum has appeared to swing to another extreme, when many persons make no distinction between their workdays and a Sabbath observance. And did mankind ever more need to understand a Sabbath rest than it does today? Let us therefore briefly consider the Mosaic command to keep holy the Sabbath day, and especially scrutinize this injunction in the light of the teachings of Christian Science.

The Jewish word "sabbath." as practically every student of language knows, means repose, rest. In that extraordinary code of religion and morals called the Ten Commandments is a definite provision for a time of rest every seventh day. Not a piecemeal or perfunctory rest is enjoined, but a cessation of every form of labor for master and servant, and even for one's animals. That orthodox Jewry was punctiliously obeying the Mosaic injunction when Christ Jesus appeared, there is little doubt.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

The Adventure of Discovery