The following is a concise statement of the testimony by which the fathers are made to prove that John used the term Lord’s day as a name for the first day of the week. A chain of seven successive witnesses, commencing with one who was the disciple of John, and extending forward through several generations, is made to connect and identify the Lord’s day of John with the Sunday-Lord’s day of a later age. Thus, Ignatius, the disciple of John, is made to speak familiarly of the first day as the Lord’s day. This is directly connecting the fathers and the apostles. Then the epistle of Pliny, A. D. 104, in connection with the Acts of the Martyrs, is adduced to prove that the martyrs in his time and forward were tested as to their observance of Sunday, the question being, “Have you kept the Lord’s day?” Next, Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, is made to speak of Sunday as the Lord’s day. After this, Theophilus of Antioch, A. D. 168, is brought forward to bear a powerful testimony to the Sunday-Lord’s day. Then Dionysius of Corinth, A. D. 170, is made to speak to the same effect. Next Melito of Sardis, A. D. 177, is produced to confirm what the others have said. And finally, Irenæus, A. D. 178, who had been the disciple of Polycarp, who had been the disciple of John the apostle, is brought forward to bear a decisive testimony in behalf of Sunday as the Lord’s day and the Christian Sabbath. These are the first seven witnesses who are cited to prove Sunday the Lord’s day. They bring us nearly to the close of the second century. They constitute the chain of testimony by which the Lord’s day of the apostle John is identified with the Sunday-Lord’s day of later times. First-day writers present these witnesses as proving positively that Sunday is the Lord’s day of the Scriptures, and the Christian church accepts this testimony in the absence of that of the inspired writers. But the folly of the people, and the wickedness of those who lead them, may be set forth in one sentence:— The first, second, third, fourth, and seventh, of these testimonies are inexcusable frauds, while the fifth and sixth have no decisive bearing upon the case. 1. Ignatius, the first of these witnesses, it is said, must have known Sunday to be the Lord’s day, for he calls it such, and he had conversed with the apostle John. But in the entire writings of this father the term Lord’s day does not once occur, nor is there in them all a single mention of the first day of the week! The reader will find a critical examination of the epistles of Ignatius in chapter fourteen of this history. 2. It is a pure fabrication that the martyrs in Pliny’s time, about A. D. 104, and thence onward, were tested by the question whether they had kept the Sunday-Lord’s day. No question at all resembling this is to be found in the words of the martyrs till we come to the fourth century, and then the reference is not at all to the first day of the week. This is fully shown in chapter fifteen.