108
Testimonies for the Church Volume 7
wholesome foods obtained at the restaurant, they protested against
being denied them on the seventh day and pleaded with those in charge
of the restaurant to keep it open every day in the week, pointing out
what they would suffer if this were not done. “What you see today,”
said the workers, “is our answer to this demand for the health foods
upon the Sabbath. These people take on Friday food that lasts over the
Sabbath, and in this way we avoid condemnation for refusing to open
[122]
the restaurant on the Sabbath.”
The line of demarcation between our people and the world must
ever be kept unmistakably plain. Our platform is the law of God, in
which we are enjoined to observe the Sabbath day; for, as is distinctly
stated in the thirty-first chapter of Exodus, the observance of the Sab-
bath is a sign between God and His people. “Verily My Sabbaths
ye shall keep,” He declares; “for it is a sign between Me and you
throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that
doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy
unto you.... It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever:
for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh
day He rested, and was refreshed.”
We are to heed a “Thus saith the Lord,” even though by our obedi-
ence we cause great inconvenience to those who have no respect for
the Sabbath. On one hand we have man’s supposed necessities; on the
other, God’s commands. Which have the greatest weight with us?
In our sanitariums the family of patients, with the physicians,
nurses, and helpers, must be fed upon the Sabbath, as any other family,
with as little labor as possible. But our restaurants should not be
opened on the Sabbath. Let the workers be assured that they will have
this day for the worship of God. The closed doors on the Sabbath
stamp the restaurant as a memorial for God, a memorial which declares
that the seventh day is the Sabbath and that on it no unnecessary work
is to be done.
I have been instructed that one of the principal reasons why hy-
gienic restaurants and treatment rooms should be established in the
[123]
centers of large cities is that by this means the attention of leading
men will be called to the third angel’s message. Noticing that these
restaurants are conducted in a way altogether different from the way
in which ordinary restaurants are conducted, men of intelligence will
begin to inquire into the reasons for the difference in business methods,