Suppose a company of the advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath, going forth as missionaries, should discover, in a distant sea, an island inhabited by a people in many respects highly civilized, possessing a portion of the Bible, and observing one day in seven, say the fourth day of the week, as a day of rest and worship of the true God, and acknowledging it as such in their Constitution of government. Suppose that in the same island should be found a large and active minority, thoroughly infidel and atheistic, striving in every way to overturn the Sabbath. The missionaries, perceiving much room and opportunity for doing good to the people, settle among them, and seek, among many things, to change the Sabbath to what they regard as the proper day. In what way would they attempt to accomplish this? Would they permit themselves for a moment to be classed with the infidel and atheistic opponents of the Sabbath? Would they not stand side by side with those who defended the Sabbath observances of the country against the attacks of immoral and unbelieving enemies of all Christian institutions? If these missionaries were advocates of the first-day Sabbath, and we were of the number, for our part, this is what we would do: We would practice for ourselves the observance of what we are persuaded is the Christian Sabbath. We would multiply and scatter abroad copies of the entire Bible, and seek to convince the people and the nation that God’s law requires the observance of the first day. In the meantime, confident that, by the blessing of the Head of the church, the circulation of the divine word and the proclamation of its truths would at length change the conviction of the islanders, we should say to them: “Do not cease to observe a day of rest and worship. To have one such a day in every seven is right. Do not blot out its acknowledgment from the Constitution. You need its legal safe-guards. True, there is no divine warrant for the observance of the fourth day of the week instead of the first. But a fourth-day Sabbath is better than no Sabbath at all. We will help you to preserve from the assaults of our common enemies the observances of the Sabbath, that you may have them to transfer, as we urge you to do, to the first day of the week.” Would the advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath do otherwise, except in substituting the seventh day for the first? And now let us take the actual, corresponding case in our own land. The great mass of Christians here, as elsewhere, regard the first day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord. Admit, for the sake of the illustration, that they have no better ground for their opinion than the islanders mentioned above. Is it not right for them to have a day of rest and worship? Is it not right for them to observe one such a day in seven? Is it maintained that, because the day is not the proper one, there is and can be nothing right about these Sabbath observances? Then,