Restaurant Work
107
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There is danger that our restaurants will be conducted in such a
way that our helpers will work very hard day after day and week after
week, and yet not be able to point to any good accomplished. This
matter needs careful consideration. We have no right to bind our young
people up in a work that yields no fruit to the glory of God.
There is danger that the restaurant work, though regarded as a
wonderfully successful way of doing good, will be so conducted that it
will promote merely the physical well-being of those whom it serves.
A work may apparently bear the features of supreme excellence, but it
is not good in God’s sight unless it is performed with an earnest desire
to do His will and fulfill His purpose. If God is not recognized as the
author and end of our actions, they are weighed in the balances of the
sanctuary and found wanting.
[121]
Closing our Restaurants on the Sabbath
The question has been asked: “Should our restaurants be opened on
the Sabbath?” My answer is: No, no! The observance of the Sabbath
is our witness to God, the mark, or sign, between Him and us that we
are His people. Never is this mark to be obliterated.
Were the workers in our restaurants to provide meals on the Sab-
bath the same as they do through the week for the mass of people
who would come, where would be their day of rest? What opportunity
would they have to recruit their physical and spiritual strength?
Not long since, special light was given me on this subject. I was
shown that efforts would be made to break down our standard of
Sabbath observance, that men would plead for the opening of our
restaurants on the Sabbath; but that this must never be done.
A scene passed before me. I was in our restaurant in San Francisco.
It was Friday. Several of the workers were busily engaged in putting
up packages of such foods as could be easily carried by the people to
their homes, and a number were waiting to receive these packages. I
asked the meaning of this, and the workers told me that some among
their patrons were troubled because, on account of the closing of the
restaurant, they could not on the Sabbath obtain food of the same kind
as that which they used during the week. Realizing the value of the