Ellet J. Waggoner
The Present Truth : April 20, 1893
The New York Mail and Express has decided to spell Sunday hence forward with an “o” instead of a “u,” thus, Sonday, so as to indicate that the day is a Christian and not a heathen institution; and a request is made for everybody to do the same. The editor says: —
“We are only proposing a reform as to one day, which can be accomplished by the least amount of change. It is simply to close the top of the u. The proposed change philologically and etymologically only amounts to a part of one vowel—making u into o—and yet, morally the change from Sun to Son is the change from heathenism to Christianity.”
Exactly, Sunday observance is just that far removed from heathenism and no more. “Leo the Great speaks of Christians in Rome, who first worshipped the rising Sun, doing homage to the pagan Apollo before repairing to the Basilica of St. Peter.”—Schaff. As professed heathen, the sun had been their chief god. As professed Christians they still worship it, but “Christianized” the custom by claiming that they were doing homage to “the Sun of Righteousness,” the Son of God. Sunday is and always will be only “the venerable day of the sun,” and its heathen character can no more be changed by a change of spelling than the character of a thief can be changed by an alias.