Report Teaches Us A Lot About Where We Are

The following report was submitted and adopted into the minutes of Central Mississippi Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (April 13-15, 1926).

Your Committee on Sabbath would respectfully submit the following report:

Your committee on Sabbath Observance can at the very outset but express regret that they are forced to come again before you with the same mournful statement as in the past, that they have nothing either bright or encouraging to present, but rather the reverse.

It pains our hearts to say it, yet truth demands the statement, that while the Christian world seems to be pressing with unwonted strides toward the goal in other directions, aiming to get nearer to the Scripture ideal, in bringing the world more and more under the influence of gospel truth, yet in the matter of Sabbath observance, in stead of lifting up, it seems actually more and more to be losing its hold upon the masses; and just here we are confronted with the startling inquiry, whether the world, with all its boasted progress, can really and truly be getting upon a higher plane, while the Sabbath of the Lord remains in the dust, and this sign of divine sovereignty lies trampled under the foot of man.

We would not be guilty of gross pessimism, or painting the cloud too dark, but while some of our people are fairly well observing the Sabbath, yet it is rapidly assuming the characteristics of the continental Sabbath, so far as the masses are concerned, being by them regarded as a day of recreation and pleasure, and even of business, if necessary, and especially is this true in the cities and towns and sections of country adjacent to them. If we would be called upon to say why this is the case, we would unhesitatingly say that it is due to the apathy and indifference of a large part of God’s professed people.

If all the professed Christian in America were united in their opposition, the evil would soon be abated. It is when “men sleep” that the enemy does the work of “sowing tares.”

Is the Sabbath a divine institution of permanent and universal obligation? Is it of God and did He intend it for all mankind? These are the questions that lie at the root of the present-day Sabbath day controversy. We unhesitatingly answer, YES, it’s a divine institution; YES, God intended it for all mankind, but many are losing a sense of the sacred quality of the day. Many are turning it from a holy to a holiday, and the crying need of our time is to have a sense of sacredness of the day revived in the hearts of the people. It is useless to talk about the manner in which the Sabbath should be observed, unless the people are convinced of its sacred character.

As to the best course to be pursued in meeting this growing and great evil, your committee is wholly unable to say. They would, however, venture one or two suggestions.

The first is, that as the matter is more directly and intimately under the eye and purview of the pastors and officers of the church, your committee would urge upon them the duty and responsibility of constantly keeping this subject before the people, with a view of awakening a deeper interest. We feel that much can be done in this way. Second, that the pastors and officers by their utterances and example put all the people on their guard against the great danger of becoming — by their patronage — “partakers of other men’s sins” unwittingly though it may be.

Respectfully submitted,

C.P. Colmery, Chairman