“Some have endured great torments, because they would not keep Sundays and festival days, in despite of Antichrist: seeing they were days appointed by Antichrist, they would not hold forth any thing which is like unto him. Others observe these days, but it is out of charity.”[927] Thus it is seen that within the limits of the old Roman Empire, and in the midst of those countries that submitted to the rule of the pope, God reserved unto himself a people that did not bow the knee to Baal, and among these the Bible Sabbath was observed from age to age. We are now to search for the Sabbath among those who were never subjected to the Roman pontiff. In Central Africa, from the first part of the Christian era—possibly from the time of the conversion of the Ethiopian officer of great authority[928] but very certainly as early as A. D. 330[929]—have existed the churches of Abyssinia and Ethiopia. About the time of the accession of the Roman Bishop to supremacy, they were lost sight of by the nations of Europe. “Encompassed on all sides,” says Gibbon, “by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten.”[930] In the latter part of the fifteenth century, they were again brought to the knowledge of the world by the discovery of Portuguese navigators. Undoubtedly they have been greatly affected by the dense darkness of pagan and Mahometan errors with which they are encompassed; and in many respects they have lost the pure and spiritual religion of our divine Redeemer. A modern traveler says of them: “They have divers errors and many ancient truths.”[931] Michael Geddes says of them:— “The Abyssinians do hold the Scriptures to be the perfect rule of the Christian faith; insomuch that they deny it to be in the power of a general council to oblige people to believe anything as an article of faith without an express warrant from thence.”[932] They practice circumcision, but for other reasons than that of a religious duty.[933] Geddes further states their views:— “Transubstantiation and the adoration of the consecrated bread in the sacrament, were what the Abyssinians abhorred.... They deny purgatory, and know nothing of confirmation and extreme unction; they condemn graven images; they keep both Saturday and Sunday.”[934] Their views of the Sabbath are stated by the ambassador of the king of Ethiopia, at the court of Lisbon, in the following words, explaining their abstinence from all labor on that day:—