“Our world is a vast globe which makes a complete revolution upon its axis once every twenty-four hours. In consequence of this, it is night to a portion of its inhabitants while it is day to the other portion. The day is therefore twelve hours earlier on one side of the globe than it is upon the other. And unless we can fix some line, or point, or place, from which to begin the reckoning of the day, we are thrown into confusion as to the definite day. Moreover, those who circumnavigate the globe in one direction gain a day by the operation; while those who sail around it in the opposite direction lose a day. We cannot, indeed, actually gain a day, nor is it possible for us really to lose one. It would therefore be more correct for us to speak of adding a day to our reckoning, or of dropping a day from it, than to speak of a day as actually lost or gained. We drop a day in circumnavigating the globe from east to west. This is done by going with the sun, and thus prolonging the time that it remains above the horizon. By this means we make each of our days a fraction more than twenty-four hours long. And in the complete circuit of our globe, we thus use up one entire period of twenty-four hours. And we add a day to our reckoning by going round the world from west to east. For as we thus travel in a direction opposite to the sun, we make the period of sunlight each day a fraction less to ourselves than it would have been had we remained stationary. And so also of the night, which we shorten in the same manner. As we thus take a fraction from each period between the successive sunsets, we do, in the complete circuit of the globe, thus save one day as the sum total of these fractions, though we have had no more real time than those who remained at home, whose reckoning is one day less than ours.
“Or to state it in another form: If we travel in the same direction with the motion of the earth, we gain one revolution of the sun by going ourselves one time more around the earth’s axis than do those who, during the same time, remain in their own land. And, again, if we travel in the direction opposite to the motion of the earth, i.e., if we go as the sun appears to go, from east to west, we actually make one revolution around the earth’s axis less than do those who remain at home. For as we travel against the motion of the earth, our circuit of the globe offsets one of the revolutions which the earth has made on its axis during this time. As a consequence, those who go round the world eastward are, when they arrive at their starting point, one day in advance of the reckoning of those who live in the country from which they started. And those who go around it in a westerly direction come out one day behind the reckoning of their own country.
“These considerations are supposed to prove that the observance of the definite seventh day is impossible, and that the fourth commandment requires, not the seventh day, but the seventh part of time. But before adopting a conclusion which compels us to deny some of the plainest statements of the Bible. . . .
“‘The Sabbath was made for man.’ Mark 2:27
“God, who made our world, made it of a globular form, and made man to dwell on all the face of it. And that the creation of the world might be commemorated, He set apart the seventh day of the week, because He rested upon it from that work, to be observed by the human family as the Sabbath of the Lord. . . . Wherever in the providence of God men are placed, the definite seventh day is to be found, and can be kept by those who are so minded. The observers of the first day of the week have attempted to show, in the things above examined, that the observance of a definite day in impossible, because the days of the week are indefinite and uncertain. The real intent of their action is to excuse themselves for not observing the day enjoined in the commandment. . . .The excuse is without foundation in truth; and we close by calling attention to the remarkable fact, that, whereas Sunday-keepers, who have a definite day to celebrate in their ‘first day of the week,’ have much to say concerning the impossibility of keeping a definite day the world over, no observer of the seventh day, wherever situated, whether Hebrew or Christian, ever found any difficulty of this kind in keeping the definite rest-day of the great Creator.” –The Definite Seventh Day, p. 1, 15
J.N. Andrews
J.N. Andrews wrote an entire book about the Sabbath entitled History of the Sabbath and the First Day of the Week.