ims as the sign of her
authority. It is the spirit of the papacy,--the spirit of conformity to
worldly customs, the veneration for human traditions above the
commandments of God,--that is permeating the Protestant churches, and
leading them on to do the same work of Sunday exaltation which the papacy
has done before them.

If the reader would understand the agencies to be employed in the
soon-coming contest, he has but to trace the record of the means which
Rome employed for the same object in ages past. If he would know how
papists and Protestants united will deal with those who reject their
dogmas, let him see the spirit which Rome manifested toward the Sabbath
and its defenders.

Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances sustained by secular
power, were the steps by which the pagan festival attained its position of
honor in the Christian world. The first public measure enforcing Sunday
observance was the law enacted by Constantine.(1007) This edict required
townspeople to rest on "the venerable day of the sun," but permitted
countrymen to continue their agricultural pursuits. Though virtually a
heathen statute, it was enforced by the emperor after his nominal
acceptance of Christianity.

The royal mandate not proving a sufficient substitute for divine
authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and who was
the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the claim that
Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single testimony of
the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself
unwittingly acknowledges its falsity, and points to the real authors of
the change. "All things," he says, "whatever that it was duty to do on the
Sabbath, these _we_ have transferred to the Lord's day."(1008) But the
Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in trampling
upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored by the world
accepted the popular festival.

As the papacy became firmly established, the work of Sunday exaltation was
continued. For a time the people engaged in agricultural labor when not
attending church, and the seventh day was still regarded as the Sabbath.
But steadily a change was effected. Those in holy office were forbidden to
pass judgment in any civil controversy on the Sunday. Soon after, all
persons, of whatever rank, were commanded to refrain from common labor, on
pain of a fine for freemen, and stripes