Lord, Nathan L., a Baptist missionarj' and phy- sician, was born in Norwich, Conn., in December, 1821, was educated at the Western Eeserve College (class of 184(), and, after completing a theological course, was employed for a time as agent and financial secretary of the college. Having decided to devote himself to the missionary work, he was ordained in October, 1852, and sailed with his wife for Ceylon, After six years of faith- ful labor, the failure of his health compelled him to re- turn to this count rA-, where he remained nearly four years, during a portion of which time he performed with'great acceptance the duties of a district secretary' of the Board of Missions in the southern districts of the West. He also attended several courses of medical lectures, receiv- ing the degree of JI.D. at Cleveland, Ohio. In 1863 he
sailed with his wife and children for the Madura Mis- sion of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, but the climate of India proving unfavorable to his health, he retm-ned in June, 1867. He died Jan, 24, 1868.
Lord's Day. The expression so rendered in the Authorized English Version {tv ry KvpiaKij t'lfiep^) oc- curs only once m the New Testament, viz., in Eev. i, 10, and is there unaccompanied by any other words tending to explain its meaning. It is, liowever, ■n-ell known that the same phrase was, in after ages of the Christian Chiu-ch, used to signify the first day of the week, on which the resurrection of Christ was commemorated. Hence it has been inferred that the same name was giv- en to that day during the time of the apostles, and ■was in the present instance used by St. John in this sense, as referring to an institution well kno^nn, and therefore requiring no explanation. This interpretation, howev- er, has of late been somewhat questioned. It will be proper here, therefore, to discuss this point, as well as the early notices of this Christian observance, leaving the general subject to be treated under Sabbath. In doing this, -we avail ourselves of the articles in the dic- tionaries of Kitto and Smith.
I. Interpretation of the Phrase "LoirTs Dag" in the Passage in question. — The general consent both of Chris- tian antiquitj^ and of modern divines has referred it to the weekly festival of our Lord's resurrection, and iden- tified it with " the first day of the week," on which he rose, with the patristical "eighth day," or "day which is both the first and the eighth" — in fact, with »/ roit 'RXiov 'UiJ.(pa, the " Solis dies," or "Sunday" of every age of the Church. On the other hand, the following different explanations have been proposed.
1. Some have supposed St. John to be speaking, in the passage above referred to, of the Sabbath, because that institution is called in Isaiah Iviii, 13, by the Al- mighty himself, " My holy day." To this it is replied : If St. John had intendecl to specify the Sabbath, he would surely have used that ■word, which was by no means obsolete, or even obsolescent, at the time of his composing the book of the Revelation. It is added, that if an apostle had set the example of confoimding the seventh and the first days of the week, it would have been strange indeed that every ecclesiastical wri- ter for the first five centuries shoidd have avoided any approach to such confusion. They do avoid it ; for, as Ildf5j3arov is never used by them for the first daj', so KvpiaKi'i is never used by them for the seventh day. See Sabbath.
2. A second opinion is, that St. John intended by the " Lord's day" that on which the Lord's resurrection was annually celebrated, or, as we now term it, Easter day. On this it need only be observed, that though it was never questioned that the weekly celebration of that event should take place on the first daj' of the hebdom- adal C3xle, it was for a long time doubted on ■what day in the annual cycle it shoidd be celebrated. T^vo schools, at least, existed on this point until considerably after the death of St. John. It therefore seems unlikely that, in a book intended for the whole Church, he would have employed a method of dating which was far from generally agreed upon. It is to be added that no pa- tristical authority can be quoted, either for the interpre- tation contended for in this opinion, or for the employ- ment of 7/ KvpiaKT] 'HfXfpa to denote Easter day. See Eastek.
3. Another theory is, that by " the Lord's day" St= John intended '• the day of judgment," to which a large portion of the book of Kevelation may be conceived to refer. Thus, " I was in the spirit on the Lord's day" (t-yf »-•('/( )jv iv -KVlvpaTi tv ti) KvpiaKij H/jipa) wiiuld imply that he was rapt, in spiritual vision, to the date of that "great and terrible day," just as St, Paul repre- sents himself as caught up locally into Paradise. ISow, not to dispute the interpretation of the passage from which the illustration is drawn (2 Cor. xii, 4), the abet-
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tors of this view seem to have put out of sight the fol- lowing considerations. In the preceding sentence St. John had mentioned the place in which he was writing — Patmos — and tlie causes which had brought liim thith- er. It is but natural that he should further particular- ize the circumstances under which his mysterious work was composed, by stating the exact daj^ on which the revelations were communicated to him, and the employ- ment, spiritual musing, in which he was then engaged. To suppose a mixture of the metaphorical and the lit- eral would be strangely out of keeping. Though it be conceded that the day of judgment is in the New Test, spoken of as 'H tov Kvpiov 'Hjiipa, the employment of the adjectival form constitutes a remarkable difference, ■which was observed and maintained ever afterwards (comp. 1 Cor. i, 8, U ; v, 5 : 1 Thess. v, 2 ; 2 Thess. ii, 2 ; Luke xvii, 24; 2 Pet. iii, 10). There is also a critical objection to this interpretation, for yh'ia^ai tv I'mipi} is not— diem agere (comp. Rev. iv, 2). This third theorj-, then, which is sanctioned by the name of Augusti, must be abandoned.