From the Improvement Era, November 1939 –

The Lost Day – A Short, Short Story

By Bula F. Garett

One time, in a large city, a great many people all lost the same thing at about the same time, and the loss was very keenly felt. The peculiar thing about the whole situation, however, was that the people were not quite sure what it was that was gone. They only knew that something they had loved and needed to make them happy had disappeared and must be found.

“Perhaps,” they said, “it is the joy of good hard work that we have lost. We may be thinking too much of how many hours we work and the profits we make and not of the satisfaction that comes from work well done. Let us forget ourselves in our work.”

So the people in the great city went to work early in the morning and worked until very late at night. Each one put his whole heart into his work and many fine things were accomplished; but the people were not happy. They were dull and tired. The something was still lost.

“It must be pleasure we have lost,” they said. “We need some new ways to have fun.”

So men went to work creating new entertainments for them. Great resorts and dance halls and theatres ran night and day while the people tried to find happiness in drinking and dancing, but there was none. There were only poor, tired, bored people, seeking for pleasure they couldn’t find.

At last there came to this big city a humble old man. He chose a small house on the outskirts of the city. And he watched the people around him hurrying through every minute of every day, trying to find happiness in faster cars and bigger houses. He himself lived a very simple life, and yet his eyes held a constant brightness and peace and joy that the people had long been trying to recover. So at last they came to him to discover his secret if they could, and to find out what it was that they had lost. And the old man said, “Yes, I can see what it is you have lost. You have no Sunday.”

The people thought he didn’t know what he was talking about. They brought their calendars to show him. “See here: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We have Sunday the same as everyone else. The calendar says so.”

“Ah,” replied the old man, “but you have lost the spirit of the Sabbath. This is not really a Sunday at all, for you have not made it the Lord’s Day, and because of that you have no longer the feeling of His nearness to you. You have not made it a day of prayerful meditation and so you go on blindly, not knowing why you are living. You have not made it a day of rest, and so all days are the same to you and your minds and bodies grow weary of living. Had you kept the Sabbath as you should, you would have had a day in which to think of helping others, a chance to grow closer to your families, and an opportunity to read good books and think on life.”

Then the people began to see that they had lost the spirit of the Sabbath indeed, and they resolved to spend it as they once had long ago: in going to church to worship God and learn of His ways; in visiting with their families; in resting from the regular routine of their lives; and in looking at the many good things that God had given them.

There were some who were afraid that they might lose the Sabbath again, and they said, “Tell us what things we must not do on the Sabbath lest we lose it.”

And the old man answered, “That I cannot do, but ask yourself these two questions, ‘Is it restful?’ and ‘Does it help me think of the Lord?’ and if in your hearts you feel the thing is in keeping with His Holy Spirit, you will not do wrong.”

And so the people in the great city remembered what he had told them, Once more on one day out of seven they worshipped together and rested from their labors, and they found joy.