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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of
the Lord hath spoken it.”
When the Sabbath commences, we should place a guard upon
ourselves, upon our acts and our words, lest we rob God by appro-
priating to our own use that time which is strictly the Lord’s. We
should not do ourselves, nor suffer our children to do, any manner of
our own work for a livelihood, or anything which could have been
done on the six working days. Friday is the day of preparation. Time
can then be devoted to making the necessary preparation for the
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Sabbath and to thinking and conversing about it. Nothing which
will in the sight of Heaven be regarded as a violation of the holy
Sabbath should be left unsaid or undone, to be said or done upon the
Sabbath. God requires not only that we refrain from physical labor
upon the Sabbath, but that the mind be disciplined to dwell upon sa-
cred themes. The fourth commandment is virtually transgressed by
conversing upon worldly things or by engaging in light and trifling
conversation. Talking upon anything or everything which may come
into the mind is speaking our own words. Every deviation from right
brings us into bondage and condemnation.
Brother P, you should discipline yourself to discern the sacred-
ness of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment and should labor to
raise the standard in your family and wherever you have, by example,
lowered it among God’s people. You should counteract the influence
you have cast in this respect, by changing your words and actions.
You have frequently failed to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy;” you have often forgotten, and have spoken your own words
upon God’s sanctified day. You have been unguarded, and have upon
the Sabbath joined with the unconsecrated in conversation upon the
common topics of the day, such as gains and losses, stocks, crops,
and provisions. In this your example injures your influence. You
should reform.
Those who are not fully converted to the truth frequently let their
minds run freely upon worldly business, and, although they may rest
from physical toil upon the Sabbath, their tongues speak out what is
in their minds; hence these words concerning cattle, crops, losses,
and gains. All this is Sabbath breaking. If the mind is running upon
worldly matters, the tongue will reveal it, for out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh.