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With a Happy Sabbath Day of Worship and Rest, June
23
Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of
rest, ... ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in
all your dwellings.
Leviticus 23:3
.
Whatever of ours God claims from us, He returns again, enriched,
transfigured, with His own glory....
The Sabbath and the family were alike instituted in Eden, and in
God’s purpose they are indissolubly linked together. On this day more
than on any other, it is possible for us to live the life of Eden. It was
God’s plan for the members of the family to be associated in work and
study, in worship and recreation, the father as priest of his household,
and both father and mother as teachers and companions of their children.
But the results of sin, having changed the conditions of life, to a great
degree prevent this association. Often the father hardly sees the faces
of his children throughout the week. He is almost wholly deprived of
opportunity for companionship or instruction. But God’s love has set a
limit to the demands of toil. Over the Sabbath He places His merciful hand.
In His own day He preserves for the family opportunity for communion
with Him, with nature, and with one another.
Since the Sabbath is the memorial of creative power, it is the day
above all others when we should acquaint ourselves with God through His
works.... Happy the father and mother who can teach their children God’s
written Word with illustrations from the open pages of the book of nature;
who can gather under the green trees, in the fresh, pure air, to study the
Word and to sing the praise of the Father above.
By such associations parents may bind their children to their hearts,
and thus to God, by ties that can never be broken
The Sabbath should be made so interesting to our families that its
weekly return will be hailed with joy
[182]
79
Education, 250, 251
.
80
Testimonies for the Church 2:585
.
186