THE SABBATH AND SABBATARIANISM.

87

The Eastern origin of the "Sabbath " is made evident to us when we consider the earth as a whole, and contemplate the folly of considering a space of time "sacred," when days are not all of equal duration all over the world; at, or near, the Poles a day may be from three to six months long.

The Puritans of the sixteenth century confused the Sunday of the Roman Pagans and of Constantine with the Hebrew Sabbath which they read of in the O. T. These bibliomancists, with great fanaticism, and even cruelty, tried to introduce the ceremonial obligations of that Hebrew Sabbath into the keeping of Sunday, which it had been customary for many centuries to keep as a holiday—and with much success for a time-which secured for them the name of "Sabbatarians." And the idea has been kept up in this country by the retention in the Prayer Book of the State Church, of the Hebrew Decalogue, which was of Babylonian origin, with a prayer following each command, that the deity will "incline their hearts to keep this law," notwithstanding the new Hexalogue that Jesus is said to have delivered to his disciples (Matt. xix. 18). Sabbatarians bring forward as reasons for their superstition that on the first day of the week" Paul preached"; but he also preached on the Jewish Sabbath three times (Acts xvi. 13; xvii.; xviii. 4); the disciples "assembled for the breaking of bread"-but we are told they went about breaking bread every day from house to house (Acts ii. 46); and that "they were all with one accord in one place"-these commentators seem to forget that it was "on the feast of Pentecost,' which fell that year on the first day of the week, and that it was on account of the feast, not the day of the week, that they were gathered together; the last Jewish feast that Paul was anxious to keep (1 Cor. xvi. 8). Sabbatarians, to be consistent, ought not to permit fires to be lighted on their Sabbath, even in winter, for "ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day" (Ex. xxxv. 3); nor ought they to permit at any time the painting of pictures, the carving of sculpture, etc., for the command is explicit " any graven image, or any graven image, or the likeness of anything." Jesus is shown, in the N. T., to have abolished the Sabbath; for he tells his hearers that both he and his father worked on the Sabbath; and, when

rebuked by the Pharisees for breaking the Sabbath, he replied that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; and he is said to have performed most of his miracles on that day. The Jessæans and the Christians of a later day kept no Sabbath, and discountenanced the keeping of "Sabbaths" or "new moons." When Jesus was asked "what he should do to inherit eternal life," the questioner was told, according to the N. T., "to keep the commandments"; he was then asked, Which?-when the questioner was told the ones he must obey, among which was not a word about Sabbath-keeping. Sabbatarians have never yet explained satisfactorily by whose authority the first day of the week has been substituted by them for the seventh. The Hebrew God rested on the seventh, not the first, day of the week, which is the day he is said to have begun his work. Neither is it pretended that he delivered the Jews from the Egyptians (and there is no evidence to show that the former ever were kept in captivity by the latter) on the first day, but on the seventh, according to the O. T.

The only authority that Christians possess for a Sabbath is the Biblical account of the Jewish Decalogue, and its institution on two contradictory occasions; but this is not authentic history. The table containing the Decalogue was reputed to have been of divine origin. Moses is said to have ascended a certain mountain, carefully keeping his credulous followers, by penal threats, at the bottom; and, after forty days in which period he had ample time to do his carving-re-appeared, "horned," and in possession of the Decalogue. It is needless to say that the deity would not have required forty days in which to produce a tablet containing ten commands; his simple fiat surely would have been sufficient.

But the Sunday rest-day, or holiday, is spoken of in modern times in this country as if it were a divine ordinance, or as if it were a peremptory law of nature, like the law of gravitation; and a period of time has thus become, like "the Bible," a fetich. The only rest necessitated by nature, and that can be called a law of nature, is the nightly rest, the keeping of which is really of importance to health. There is no valid ordinance-divine or natural -to keep every seventh day as a rest-day, any more than there is to keep every sixth or eighth day. The idea is

THEORIES OF

"" "SOUL

66 AND FUTURE LIFE." 89

simply a relic, as we have seen, of moon worship, as is the story of creation.

We have seen that the idea of ghost, second-self, or shade, within the material body, was conceived in the mind of primitive man at a very early age, and at a time when the simplest natural phenomena were the subjects of the most fantastic speculations; when sleep and dreams produced the idea of a ghostly counterpart-ideas which have essentially survived to the present day. The only difference is in name. The ancient ghost, or shade, is the modern "soul."

The word soul was originally derived from the Gothic saios the sea-the soul being regarded as the moving, billowy element in man; and was intended to convey to the mind a spiritual wandering second-self, shadow, or essence, capable of leaving the body and returning to it at will. "When an ancient Roman was expiring the nearest kinsman would lean over him, and inhale the last breath, with the hope of absorbing the virtues of the departed."

Shadow, heart, ghost, and soul were synonymous words with many ancient tribes. Some imagined that at death the soul hovers round the corpse, and possesses some mysterious power of injuring the living; others, more intelligent, imagined that the soul proceeded to some distant region, there to resume the avocation so rudely interrupted by death. In the Tonga Islands it is only the chiefs who are believed to have souls. Modern definitions of "soul" are as numerous and variable as they are vague and contradictory, which only shows the impossibility of attempting to explain what no one has ever seen, and what no one knows anything about. The following are taken from Annandale's Encyclopædic Dictionary :

"The spiritual, rational, and immortal part in man, which distinguishes him from brutes;

"The immaterial part in man;

"The immortal spirit which inhabits the body;

"That part of man which enables him to think and reason;

"The immortal part of a beast, when considered as governed by human affections;

"The seat of life in an animal;

"The moral and emotional part of man's nature;

"The seat of the sentiments or feelings, as distinguished from intellect;

"The intellectual principle;

"The animating or essential part;

"The vital principle;

"The source of action."

We thus see it defined in one place as the immortal or spiritual part of man, which distinguishes him from brutes or beasts," and in another as the immortal (i.e., spiritual) part of the beast! Then wherein is the differentiation? If it forms any part of the "brute or beast" at all, it cannot differentiate man from the brute or beast, which latter must have a soul as well as man. But, for proof that man has an "immortal" soul apart from the lower animals, there is no evidence of any sort, except that to be found in the N. T. legends, which will be seen, when that collection of writings is examined, to be worthless, and no evidence at all. Then, again, the soul is defined in one place as being "that part of man which enables him to think and reason"; in another as "the seat of the sentiments and feelings, as distinguished from intellect"! How can both of these definitions be correct? And why is the thinking and reasoning faculty in man to be called "soul," and the same faculty in the "brute or beast" to be called something else? Man is not the only animal that thinks and reasons; the lower animals do the same, though—through their reasoning faculty not being so fully developed-not to the same extent as man; but it is simply a matter of higher order and development. The ant has sufficient intelligence to make him a good engineer and dairy-keeper-building up arches and spanning streams with bridges, and keeping his aphides for milking purposes, as man keeps his cows; though there is no evidence that the ant is a writer or a reader.

Philosophy teaches us that all knowledge is relative-i.e., that it is derived from likeness and difference. There can be no likeness or differene without matter or substance. Every existence must occupy space and possess form; it must, therefore, be material. The non-material must, then, be unknowable. But the soul is represented as not only having form and position, but the qualities of sensitiveness and volition. But form and position cannot be conceived apart

THEORIES OF

"SOUL" AND

66 FUTURE LIFE."

91 from substance; and sensitiveness and volition cannot be conceived apart from material nervous tissue. A substance is an entity; and that which has not substance is a nonentity—a non-existence, or a nothing-and is inconceivable. The non-material must, then, be not only unknowable to us, but inconceivable. We therefore know, and can know, nothing of that which is said to be immaterial; and, as the soul is said to be immaterial, we can know nothing of it, including its existence.

Again, if the soul is capable of leaving the body at death, it must have become incorporated with its body at conception or at birth, and must have had an origin. Whence, then, is the origin of these souls? Is the "Creator" to be understood to be "continually engaged in manufacturing fresh souls, the vast proportion of which are unable to pass the examination he himself sets, and are being eternally damned as utter failures"? And, if this were so, would this imaginary "Creator" not be much better employed in utterly annihilating the Devil once and forever-by which the souls already created might have a fair chance than going on creating fresh souls while the Devil is still free to prowl about?

It must be perfectly obvious, then, when the subject is rationally treated, that we know, and can know, nothing of the existence of such a thing as a ghost, spirit, or soul. It is simply an imaginary personification of the vital power, or the breath of life, evolved from the "ghost" of primitive man, in his endeavours to explain the phenomena of death, sleep, dreams, swoons, and faintings.

The Hebrews, though believing in ghosts and spirits, knew nothing of the soul as an immortal entity, or of an immortal life beyond the grave, until they adopted the beliefs from the Greek Platonists. Mosaic ideas of future rewards and punishments were limited to this world-" their corn and wine shall abound," etc.; and the Jewish God Yahuh (Jehovah) visited "the sins of the fathers on the children" -the punishment thus being purely mporal.

The only people who could have told us anything about such an existence were Jesus and the "saints' who "had slept, and rose again, and came out of the graves, and appeared to many"; but no information whatever, no statement of any kind, appears to have been given or made with