Soon after this there appeared in print an article from J. B. Cook, in which he showed that there is no Scriptural evidence for keeping Sunday as the Sabbath, and he used this terse expression: “Thus easily is all the wind taken from the sails of those who sail, perhaps unwittingly, under the pope’s Sabbattic flag.” GSAM 250.2
Although Sabbath-keeping by these two men was of short duration, they had set a ball rolling that could not easily be stopped. The catch phrases, “pope’s Sunday-keepers,” “God’s commandment-breakers,” and “sailing under the pope’s Sabbattic flag,” were on the lips of hundreds who were eager to know the truth of this matter. Elder Joseph Bates, of Fairhaven, Mass., had his attention thus arrested, and he accepted the Sabbath in 1845. GSAM 250.3