But the Sabbath is not mentioned from Moses to David, a period of five hundred years, during which it was enforced by the penalty of death. Does this prove that it was not observed during this period?[41] The jubilee occupied a very prominent place in the typical system, yet in the whole Bible a single instance of its observance is not recorded. What is still more remarkable, there is not on record a single instance of the observance of the great day of atonement, notwithstanding the work in the holiest on that day was the most important service connected with the worldly sanctuary. And yet the observance of the other and less important festivals of the seventh month, which are so intimately connected with the day of atonement, the one preceding it by ten days, the other following it in five, is repeatedly and particularly recorded.[42] It would be sophistry to argue from this silence respecting the day of atonement, when there were so many instances in which its mention was almost demanded, that that day was never observed; and yet it is actually a better argument than the similar one urged against the Sabbath from the book of Genesis. The reckoning of time by weeks is derived from nothing in nature, but owes its existence to the divine appointment of the seventh day to a holy use in memory of the Lord’s rest from the six days’ work of creation.[43] This period of time is marked only by the recurrence of the sanctified rest-day of the Creator. That the patriarchs reckoned time by weeks and by sevens of days, is evident from several texts.[44] That they should retain the week and forget the Sabbath by which alone the week is marked, is not a probable conclusion. That the reckoning of the week was rightly kept is evident from the fact that in the wilderness of Sin on the sixth day the people, of their own accord, gathered a double portion of manna. And Moses said to them, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”[45] The brevity of the record in Genesis causes us to overlook many facts of the deepest interest. Adam lived 930 years. How deep and absorbing the interest that must have existed in the human family to see the first man! To converse with one who had himself talked with God! To hear from his lips a description of that paradise in which he had lived! To learn from one created on the sixth day the wondrous events of the creation week! To hear from his lips the very words of the Creator when he set apart his rest-day to a holy use! And to learn, alas! the sad story of the loss of paradise and the tree of life![46]