At the present time there is a great emphasis being made in American society on returning to traditional family values. A recent article in Atlantic Monthly magazine emphasizes that Dan Quayle was right about the family and how children are the victims of parental neglect. Part of that neglect has to do with the failure of parents to teach moral and religious principles.

When a group of female students at an eastern college were asked how they would rate The Ten Commandments in importance, they ranked the fourth, the one dealing with the Sabbath, as the least important. Such a poll should not be shrugged off by our churches and religious leaders.

It might be that this commandment, more than any other, is regarded by many to be the least important. Attendance at our churches on any given Sunday indicates that many people who call themselves Christian do not attend worship. Many people who are still outraged by adultery, horrified by murder and disturbed by stealing, could care less about whether they worship on The Lord's Day. People seem to pick and choose which commandments they think are important and it would seem the fourth is far down on their list of priorities.

This does not mean that the commandment is unimportant to God. After God tells us He is to be first in our lives, that we are not to make graven images, and that we are to be careful about the use of His name, we are given the commandment on worship.

Keeping the Lord's Day is a part of honoring God. It is a time for remembering His goodness and mercy. Each week as we worship we have time to look at our lives and see where God fits into our existence. It helps us get the proper perspective on all the other things we have to do.

We must continue to work to keep the Lord's Day. Worship is important to God and what is important to God must be important to us. In order to help strengthen the family unit in our society, we need to encourage families to worship together and we need to do all we can to make it possible for worship to be a central part of our living.

In our efforts to get away from the extreme Sunday legalism of a former day, we have done ourselves and future generations a disservice in failing to recognize the Christian's moral obligation to keep Sunday a holy day. The resented legalism needs to be replaced with a deep desire to maintain a day that is both meaningful and enjoyable as God intended.