Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

PREFACE
VU
tiful which he has not yet attained, and which no
man fully appreciates; that is about all.
But at such a time as this it must be clearer than
ever before to any religiously minded person that
all questions which are at bottom spiritual are important.
One of these is the question of Sabbath
observance. Spiritually apprehended, Sabbathism
becomes of timely, vital, practical significance to
the twentieth century. Spiritually discerned, the
question of Sabbath reform becomes a large question.
It no longer appears a small, or legalistic,
or casuistical, or ceremonial issue. It instantly
transcends sectarianism. It becomes, not a
question of formal deeds, but a question as
to what men shall be at heart. It is inseparable
from the struggle between flesh and
spirit, between naturalism and a spiritual philosophy
of life. It is the question whether time is merely
a metaphysical puzzle, or whether men can transcend
time by consecrating it,
and live in the eternal
while yet in time.
Sabbath reform in the twentieth
century can mean nothing less than this. In this
century three words are on trial for their life
the words "sacred," "eternal," and "Sabbath."
Most Christians probably think that the fate of the
last word has already been settled adversely, and
that of the first two favorably. But to think so is