The American Sentinel 10
August 15, 1895
“The Enforcement of ‘Law’” American Sentinel 10, 32, pp. 249-252.
“WE have a law, and by our law he ought to die,” 1 has been the justification of injustice and persecution in all ages. AMS August 15, 1895, page 249.1
It was civil “law” that cast the three Hebrews into the fiery furnace; 2 that consigned Daniel to the lions’ den; 3 that put to death the apostles; that gave to the wild beasts the early Christians; that clothed with authority the Inquisition; that burned Huss and Jerome and tortured and put to death millions of martyrs in the Dark Ages that whipped, banished, and hanged Quakers and Baptists in New England and Virginia, and that is to-day imprisoning honest men in Maryland and driving Christians in the chain-gang in Tennessee. AMS August 15, 1895, page 249.2
Except in isolated cases of mob violence, no martyr ever suffered except under the color and forms of civil “law;” and yet men are slow to learn the lesson that mercy is above statute, that justice is above “law;” that any act which contravenes the laws of nature, that attempts to alienate inalienable, God-given rights, is not law and ought to be treated as void in practice as it is in fact. AMS August 15, 1895, page 249.3
“By the light of burning heretics Christ’s bleeding feet I track, AMS August 15, 1895, page 249.4
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back.” 4
The measure of religious liberty which we enjoy in this favored land to-day, is due, under God, to the fact that God-fearing men violated so-called civil laws, and continued to violate them, and to suffer the penalty, until by their sufferings they brought their fellowmen to the recognition of the fact that there is a limit to civil authority; that human law is not supreme; that God has not abdicated the throne of moral dominion; that what other nations call religious toleration is in reality religious rights, of which “government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small;” that though “despotic power may invade those rights, Justice still confirms them.” 5 AMS August 15, 1895, page 249.5
“They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.”
Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,“
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, just through Oblivion’s sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low forebodeing cry.
Of those Crises, God’s stern winnowers, from whose feet earth’s chaff must fly;
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.”
AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.1
The press of the country has spoken out nobly in denunciation of the persecution of Seventh-day Adventists in Tennessee and elsewhere. But there are a few ignoble exceptions. The Commercial-Appeal, of Memphis, ridicules and slanders the persecuted men, and then says:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.2
The laws against the violation of our day of rest are unrepealed, and no matter whether just or unjust, wise or unwise.... they should be enforced. 6 AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.3
This sentiment is worthy of an Inquisitor of the “Holy Office,” and had the editor of that paper lived in the days of the Inquisition, he would, if consistent, have said: “The laws against the violation of our religion are unrepealed, and whether just or unjust, wise or unwise, they should be enforced.” Yea, he would have stood by and seen the cruel, red-hot pinchers sear and tear the flesh of the tortured victim; or, perchance, he would have himself heated the instruments of torture or brutally bared the breast of the shrinking maiden or of the devoted mother to the gaze of the rabble and to the bloody work of the scarcely more cruel iron. AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.4
The Evening Sentinel, of Knoxville, Tenn., also says, “Enforce the law,” though it does not manifest the bitterness shown by the Commercial-Appeal. In its issue of July 22, the Sentinel publishes a number of interviews with ministers at Knoxville, from which we make the following extracts:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.5
The [Evening] Sentinel man interviewed Rev. Dr. Moore, pastor of the Church Street Church, on the question, putting three questions to him, which he answered, as follows: AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.6
“Are you in favor of the strict enforcement of the laws in Tennessee against sabbath desecration?” AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.7
“As every other good citizen ought to be, I am in favor of the strict enforcement of all laws till they are repealed. If they are good laws let them be enforced, if they are bad, let them be repealed.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.8
“What do you think of the recent imprisonment of the Seventh-day Adventists in Rhea County for working on Sunday?” AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.9
“I think Seventh-day Adventists, as well as any other people, should be punished according to law, for violations of law.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.10
And so Dr. Moore, had he lived in the days of the Inquisition, would have gazed unmoved upon the auto-da-fé, and as the flames encircled their victims he would have said, if consistent: “As every other good citizen ought to be, I am in favor of the strict enforcement of the laws till they are repealed. I think these Protestants, as well as any other people, should be punished according to law, for violations of law.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.11
To the Evening Sentinel’s question Rev. Thomas C. Warner, D.D., replied:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.12
Laws are enacted with reference to the punishment of the evil-doer, and for the protection of society in all its rights and interests. The question of righteousness should never decide whether an existing law is to be enforced or not. Is it the law of the land? That question settled in the affirmative, then let the law be enforced. If the law is unjust, if it works hardship to innocent persons, still let it be executed so long as it remains upon the statute books. The surest way to secure the modification or repeal of an unjust law is to illustrate its prejudice by enforcing it. Whatever may be my private opinion touching the Sunday laws of Tennessee, I am in favor of their impartial execution. Whether they interfere with a man’s religious views or his business practices, so long as they are of record for the regulation of public conduct and private practice, let them be rigidly applied. AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.13
It almost passes belief that these words could fall from the lips of a professed representative of the Man of Calvary, the Prince of Peace. Had this minister lived in the days of the Inquisition, when in every country in Europe and in every civilized country in the world it was against the “law” to disbelieve the dogmas of Rome; he must, if in France or Spain, or the Netherlands, have stood by the burning pile, or by the gallows tree, and said:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.14
“The question of righteousness should never decide whether an existing law is to be enforced or not. Is it the law of the land? That question settled in the affirmative, then let the law be enforced. If the law is unjust, if it works hardship to innocent persons, still let it be executed so long as it remains upon the statute books.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.15
In view of such utterances, is it any wonder that the prophet of God, in describing the very times in which we live, said: “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter”? 7 AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.16
It is true that thus far the administration of the Sunday laws of the various States has been very mild compared with the acts of the Inquisition to which reference has been made. But this does not alter the fact that these men have been taken from their homes for no offense against their fellowmen; they have been unjustly deprived of their liberty and been branded as criminals and worked as convicts for a purely religious offense, for acts done in accordance with the dictates of conscience and not trenching upon the rights of others. Thus the authorities have undertaken, by persecution, to coerce men in matters of religion; and “it is incumbent on the authors of persecution,” says Gibbon, “previously to reflect, whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme.... The fine which he [the persecuted] is unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law, and his contempt suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment.” 8 AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.17
This is well illustrated in the cases of the Tennessee Adventists. Men can never fall into the hands of more merciful officers than those into whose hands the Rhea County Adventists have fallen. Four months ago Judge Parks imposed a fine of only $2.50 in each case, and remitted even that. He also recommended the pardon of the convicted men. At the recent term of court he fined those previously convicted three times as much as he had previously done; and in one instance where the defendant had been twice convicted previously, once before a justice of the peace, and once in the Circuit Court, Judge Parks imposed a fine of $12.50, five times the amount of the fine imposed four months before. Thus the State of Tennessee, as represented in this thing by its courts, has entered upon a course that must end in the infliction of the death penalty; for it is not a supposable case that these men will violate their consciences even to save their lives; and certainly the temper of Tennessee’s law-makers must change very materially before the State will recede from the positon it has taken. AMS August 15, 1895, page 250.18
Expressions of sympathy and kindly regard are no new thing in cases of persecution for conscience’ sake. The ecclesiastical courts of the Dark Ages frequently expressed abundant sympathy for their victims and bespoke mercy for them at the hands of the civil authorities to whom they committed them to be dealt with “ACCORING TO LAW;” mercy which they well knew their victims would not receive; for the condemned men were then, as the tennessee Adventists are now, self-confessed “law” breakers, and it was a maxim then as it is now: “The law must be enforced.” The result then was imprisonment, confiscation, torture and death by the rope, the ax, the fagot. AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.1
The ultimate end cannot be different now. True, the extreme penalty may not be so speedily reached as in the Middle Ages, but it is none the less inevitable. The death penalty is not only in the first attempt to coerce men in matters of conscience, but it is in the assumption of the right to coerce them; and the easy stages by which it is to be reached in Tennessee only make it the more certain. Had heavy penalties been imposed upon the Rhea County Adventists for the first offense, public sympathy would have been aroused in their behalf, and the so-called law might have been swept from the statute books; but the sympathy of the judge, the kindness of the sheriff and his deputies, the pardon by the governor, all serve to create a feeling that having been treated with such marked consideration, the Adventists ought to be willing to compromise, to surrender their consciences; and the fact that they will not compromise in the least, that they remain loyal to God and to conscience, is taken by many as an evidence on contumacy, and their further punishment is regarded as well-merited. AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.2
We have little hopes of influencing the State of Tennessee in this matter, or of even lightening the persecution of the Adventists there. Forewarned by the Word of God, we have long looked for such things in this country, and we expect them to increase rather than diminish. The return to the maxims and methods of the Dark Ages has begun, and the goal is certain. We expect to save from the ruinous course upon which they have entered neither the State of Tennessee nor yet the United States, which has, in many ways approved the wicked principle which Tennessee has adopted; but we do expect to save honest-hearted individuals from participation in the wrong. AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.3
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.”
AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.4
“Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.5
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? 9
God has ordained civil government, but he has not thereby abdicated the throne of moral dominion. Every man must give account of himself to God. As Lowell has oddly but forcibly expressed it:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.6
If you take a sword and dror it, and go stick a feller thru, AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.7
Gov’ment aint to answer for it; God’ll send the bill to you. AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.8
It is no less a moral wrong to rob a man of his natural rights than to rob him of his money or other property; and it is no less a moral wrong to do it under the forms of law than it would be to do it without law. AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.9
Government cannot make right wrong nor wrong right, and the man who does a moral wrong in obedience to what he may understand to be law, or in obedience to that which is in fact human “law,” will in the end find that he is not thereby freed from responsibility to God. Judge Parks, Attorney-General Fletcher, the grand and petit jurors, and the sheriff and his deputies, must each answer to God for the wrongs done the Adventists, and that at a bar where the plea of supreme court decisions and official oaths will not avail. The law of God will be the rule of that Judgment. As Elder Colcord so impressively said last March: “There is a time coming when there will be a change, and God, and not man, will be the Judge—and in that court questions will be decided not by the statute books of Tennessee, but by the law of God.” And in that Judgment the authorities of Tennessee will be on trial, not as belonging to a system in which their identity is lost, merged into that moral nonentity, the State, but as individuals, each responsible for himself to God, and each to give account for himself of the deeds done in the body. AMS August 15, 1895, page 251.10
“Careless seems the great Avenger, history’s pages but record
One death grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown.
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch Above his own.” 10
AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.1
“Fundamental Principle of Government 1” American Sentinel 10, 32, pp. 252, 253.
THE fundamental principle of American jurisprudence is that stated in the Declaration of Independence: that government is instituted to secure the rights of man. These rights are simply artificial divisions of the law of nature. 2 Now that which is to be secured—man’s rights—precedes that which secures them—civil government. They are also superior to the provisions of government. Blackstone says, “The law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.” 3 AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.1
In the universal recognition (whether acknowledge or not) of this principle—that there is a superior standard of justice—lies the force of charges that certain legislative acts are unjust. For injustice is nonconformity to the law of justice—which is the natural law. If the legislature were omnipotent, if there were no superior law, if it could make right wrong and wrong right, then any law it might make could not be said to be unjust. Its own acts would be the standard of justice. Right would then be conformity to human law, and wrong, violation of human law. The absurdity of such a position is evident—the claim would be preposterous; as long as the maxim, Humanum est errare, is true, there must be some invariable standard by which all human acts, public as well as private, are to be judged. This standard is variously termed the law of justice, the law of nature, natural rights, etc., and has reference to those abstract principles of justice and right imprinted more or less clearly on the sense of every man. AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.2
It is this law that receives formal recognition in our declarations of rights—declarations simply of certain parts of this superior law;—not that these rights are any more sacred when thus “declared” than they were before, but they are thus rendered more susceptible of enforcement. That they are simply a part of this higher law, and are so recognized, is proved by the provision so generally inserted in declarations of rights, that “the enumeration herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”—a direct acknowledgment that these rights inhere in the people, and that such declaration is simply an express acknowledgment of the most important principles of this law. Theoretically, it adds no force whatever to the rights. Such declaration is not dissimilar to the frequent instances where the State Constitutions reenact certain provisions of the National Constitution. Such reenactment does not make the provision any more binding; nor would a provision to the contrary annul the superior law. The State Constitution, in so far as it contravened the provisions of the National Constitution, would simply be void. Blackstone states this principle in his commentaries: “Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has the power to abridge or destroy them.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.3
It is true that when recognized in our constitutions, our rights are more easily enforced, and hence this recognition was insisted on by Jefferson and other early American statesmen. But because this recognition may not exist, one’s rights cannot therefore be legitimately trampled upon. Even if the Constitution did not prohibit the taking of private property for public use without just compensation, the legislature could not therefore legitimately do it. Nor can the legislature rightfully take the property of A and give it to B. There is no court in the land that would enforce such a decree. It would violate this superior law, and therefore be absolutely void. Hence, as government is instituted to secure the natural rights of man, and as our constitutions, in their declarations of rights, recognize this law and limit the powers of government accordingly, any law which deprives an individual of his rights is unconstitutional. AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.4
In accordance with this principle, Jefferson declared: “Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their power, that their true office is to declares and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.... The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural right.” This doctrine is coeval with courts of justice, and was unequivocally asserted and re-asserted centuries ago by England’s most eminent chief justices. Said the distinguished Lord Hobart: “Even an act of Parliament, made against natural equity, as to make a man judge in his own case, is void in itself; for jura natur? sunt immutabilia, and they are leges legume.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.5
Thus this American principle is simply that which has been declared again and again by the greatest jurists which have ever adorned the English bench. In “Elements of Right and of the Law” (Section 520), Mr. Smith says: “It is a well-established principle of the American law, that an act of Congress in excess of the constitutional powers of the Federal Government is absolutely void; and so far as the direct infringement of private rights is concerned, this principle is in fact enforced by the courts; but in questions merely political, there is in general no practical means of restraining the execution of the law. Nevertheless such a law is void, and not only affords no legal justification to any one seeking to enforce it, but every subordinate officer, and indeed every private individual, has the right to disobey it, and will be vindicated in doing so by the courts.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.6
The individual retains his natural rights, and government is limited accordingly. And as every individual equally has the natural right to worship whom he pleases and on what day he pleases (as long as he interferes not with this same liberty in others), or to refrain from worshiping altogether, any human law interfering with this right, is, under our constitutions, void; it matters not whether it be a Sunday law, a law to compel him to attend church, or a law requiring any other religious observance, if it interferes with the right of a single individual, it is unconstitutional and absolutely void. AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.7
It is true that our judiciary have not always had a clear conception of this principle, and numerous decisions are flatly contradictory. But this is because in some cases precedents have been followed, not principles. Law, by some, has been regarded as a bundle of previous decisions, rather than as a science founded, like other sciences, on the immutable law of nature. The erroneousness of such a view must be obvious to all who have given it reflection. “The law of England,” Lord Mansfield observed, “would be an absurd science were if founded upon precedent only.” And Lord Coke repeatedly declared that the law “is the perfection of reason.” “Reason,” said he, “is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself it nothing else but reason.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.8
In the onward march of civilization and in the advancement of science in general, progress has also been made in our system of jurisprudence;—not that principles have changed, for the law of nature is both unchangeable and immutable, but in this advancement clearer views of the principles of justice been obtained. Progress is especially seen in connection with religious legislation and religious decisions. In America the dogma that Christianity is a part of the common law has been repudiated. Sunday laws have been declared to be unconstitutional. Religious proclamations, too, were so held by Jefferson and Madison; and the latter also states that public chaplaincies are an illegitimate departure from American principles. And as our judges and legislators incline more to justice and reason and less to the precedents dictated by bigotry, our Government will become still more liberal, and our Sunday laws, and all other religious laws, will go the way that similar laws have gone before them. In order to fulfill the objects of government, every man must be insured “the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the exercise of like liberty by every other man.” This is the principle asserted in the Declaration of Independence, when it says, “All men are created equal;” and the repeated departures from it in our religious laws which discriminate against the sabbatarian 4 and infidel are a standing reproach to our Government, and a constant travesty on justice. AMS August 15, 1895, page 252.9
“The Intolerant ‘Blade’” American Sentinel 10, 32, p. 253.
IN its issue of July 11, the Toledo Blade closes an editorial comment on the conviction of the Tennessee Adventists, for doing common labor on Sunday, with the following:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.1
There is no constraint upon the Adventists to devote the day to religious duties, or to hold it sacred. The law does not compel them to observe the Christian Sunday any more than it does the Jewish Sabbath. It merely declares that no one shall perform labor on Sunday; and there is no good reason why the Adventists should not obey that law. Their claim that it is a matter of conscience not to obey it, is absurd. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.2
We are tempted to deal sharply with this utterance, but instead, will make the following brief comments:— AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.3
1. The commonwealth of Ohio recognizes that a statute compelling seventh-day observers to rest on Sunday, is tyrannical, and consequently exempts from its penalties “those who conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath.” True, this is but toleration, but it is better than the oppression of Tennessee. Therefore, when the Blade asks that seventh-day “observers abstain from their usual avocations on Sunday, through respect for the Sunday laws,” it asks a sacrifice that its own State regards as an injustice. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.4
.2. The Sunday statute of Tennessee does bring constraint to bear on the Adventists to compel them to observe Sunday in the same manner enforced by the creeds of the Sunday-observing Protestant churches. All that the creeds require is cessation from labor. They do not attempt to invade the mind to ascertain whether it employs the Sunday in holy contemplation. Outward rest is all the creeds enforce, and this outward rest is just what the Sunday statute of Tennessee attempts to enforce. And just as the three Hebrew worthies refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s image and appear to worship, so Seventh-day Adventists refuse to bow down to the pago-papal Sunday and appear to observe the statute-intrenched dogma of Sunday sacredness. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.5
.3. Seventh-day Adventists know that Sunday observance is not commanded in Scripture. They know that Sabbath observance is commanded. They know that Sunday observance is a church ordinance only, and it put forth as the sign of an opposing system,—the mark of that system which declares that “the church has power to ordain feasts and holy days and to command them under sin.” Seventh-day Adventists hold to a system of doctrine diametrically opposed to this system, and while thus believing they conscientiously refuse to wear the badge of the opposing system. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.6
.4. Sunday statutes attempt to abridge the inalienable right to teach what one believes. “Action speaks louder than words.” The Sunday observer works on Saturday, and by that work proclaims to all beholders that he does not believe that the seventh day is the Sabbath. Likewise, the seventh-day observer labors on the first day of the week, and thereby proclaims to the beholder that he does not believe that Sunday is the Sabbath. In Tennessee, the Sunday-keeper says, “No, you don’t,” and hastens to invoke the law to prohibit seventh-day observers from exercising a right which he loudly demands for himself. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.7
If there is no conscience involved in being compelled to wear the badge of a false theological system,—if there is no conscience involved in the matter of teaching one’s faith, then it is absurd for seventh-day observers to assert that they cannot conscientiously obey the Sunday statute. But it is a matter of conscience for Seventh-day Adventists to rest on Saturday and work on Sunday. Nevertheless they do not thereby disturb either the public or private devotion of their neighbors. Only two of the hundreds of witnesses which have testified against them in the scores of cases that have been brought against them in the last few years have testified that they were disturbed. One of these was engaged at the same time in driving a cow home which he had gone to a neighbor, on Sunday, to procure. The other claimed to be disturbed, though he testified under oath, that he neither saw nor heard the Sunday work of his Sabbath-keeping neighbor, but was mentally disturbed by the mere knowledge that the work was being done. No; Seventh-day Adventists believe in practising the Golden Rule, and if their persecutors would act upon this Christian precept, all this persecution would cease. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.8
“Missionaries Disregard Civil ‘Law’” American Sentinel 10, 32, p. 253.
SOME weeks since, we referred in these columns to the passage of a statute in Florida, prohibiting the co-education of the races. Referring to this “law,” the Independent, of July 18, says, that “it affects not only teachers, but patrons of such schools—that is, parents may be imprisoned from three to six months in the county jail.” The Independent further says: “The American Missionary Association will receive and teach pupils, white or black, who apply for instruction at Orange Park; and there will be teachers to run the risk of imprisonment. Scholars will be fitted to teach Florida schools, white or black.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.1
We are glad the American Missionary Association has determined to disregard this so-called law. It is clearly violative of the constitution of Florida, because it is an infringement of religious liberty, and undertakes to interfere with missionary operations in that State. The gospel commission is,—“Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Missionaries, everywhere, find it necessary, not only to preach the gospel in the common acceptation of the term, but to establish schools wherein a Christian education may be given. This the American Missionary Association has done at Orange Park, Florida; and it is this which the statute referred to proposes to prohibit. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.2
When American missionaries go to foreign lands and there establish schools for the instruction of the natives, and these schools are interfered with by the authorities, our Government protests against such interference, as an invasion of natural right and of the law of civilized nations. Here, an American State is proposing to do precisely the same thing. By this statute, Florida tells the American Missionary Association how it shall not preach the gospel in Florida; that it shall not educate colored pupils in a school conducted by white people. This attempt is as great an outrage upon religious liberty, and the excuses made for it, are as disingenuous as the Sunday laws of the various States, and the so-called reasons for maintaining them. Both are alike in open violation of natural, God-given rights, and both should be alike disregarded; and we are glad that, as the Independent says, “there will be teachers ready to run the risk of imprisonment,” for violation of this Florida statute. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.3
We honor the Independent for the stand which it has taken in this matter; and we honor the American Missionary Association for its determination to disregard this iniquitous measure, just as missionary associations have always disregarded similar so-called laws, designed to hinder their work in heathen lands; and just as Christians always have and always must everywhere disregard human enactments which trench upon the sacred rights of conscience. AMS August 15, 1895, page 253.4
“Back Page” American Sentinel 10, 32, p. 256.
THE New York Recorder, of August 12, in an illustrated article of considerable length, adds its testimony to what the press of the country have so generally spoken in condemnation of the persecution of the Adventists in Tennessee. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.1
ONE of the eight Seventh-day Adventists in the chain-gang in Rhea County, Tenn., has been released by the county court, because on account of poor health he was unable to work. Our illustration on another page shows some of the Adventists at work on the approach to the county bridge, near Spring City. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.2
“ENFORCING the ‘law’” against Adventists by imprisoning them or driving them in the chain-gang differs from “enforcing the ‘law’” against the heretics of the Middle Ages by means of red-hot pinchers, the gallows and the fagot, only in degree. Exactly the same principle is involved in both. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.3
SUNDAY enforcement seems to be in the very air, and from every quarter comes intelligence concerning efforts to rigidly enforce Sunday statutes. There is scarcely a State in which the question is not being agitated, and both city ordinances and State “laws” are being invoked to compel the observance of Sunday. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.4
SEVERAL Seventh-day Adventists have been arrested recently in Chicago under circumstances which indicate very clearly that the motive is very largely religious bigotry and intolerance. The Adventists have several churches in Chicago, and if the persecution becomes general throughout the city, we may look for interesting developments there. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.5
MR. FAUST, a Seventh-day Adventist shoemaker of Baltimore, whose arrest some time since, we noticed in these columns, was again arrested for working on Sunday, July 21st. The policeman who had previously arrested him, had been watching him, and going into his house the back way, found him at work. The circumstances of the case all indicate clearly that it is a case of religious persecution pure and simple. Mr. Faust’s work is not of a nature to disturb people, except as they are annoyed by knowing that he is at work. He is a poor man and badly crippled up by rheumatism, and this persecution works a great hardship upon both him and his family. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.6
OUR second illustration, “Enforcing the ‘law’ in Tennessee,” shows Seventh-day Adventists working in the chain-gang for no offense against their fellowmen, but for practical dissent from a religious dogma which has been intrenched in the statutes of Tennessee. That their punishment is not death does not change the principle. The “laws” which in other ages and in other lands tortured, hanged, or burned heretics differed only in degree from the “laws” which to-day imprison Adventists. Read our illustrated article on this subject. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.7
THERE is a conflict of authority between Oregon and Washington, concerning Sunday fishing on the Columbia River. The laws of Oregon prohibit fishing on Sunday: while the laws of Washington permit fishing on that day. Under the plea of concurrent jurisdiction over the river, the Oregon authorities have undertaken to compel Washington fishermen to cease fishing on Sunday. What the result will be we are not able to say at this writing. The effort of the Oregon authorities shows, however, the disposition which seems inherent in Sunday enforcement. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.8
THE Jewish Messenger professes “much sympathy for the eight Seventh-day Baptists [Adventists] of Rhea County, Tenn., who were imprisoned for working on Sunday,” but says it is idle for their friends to talk of religious persecution: that it is the first duty of citizens of all religions to obey the laws of the State, etc. Persecuted Christians have never lacked for sympathy of this kind. Pontius Pilate felt much sympathy for Christ, but nevertheless delivered him to be crucified, as the Messenger would deliver his followers now to the penalties of the law. Pilate’s sympathy benefited neither himself nor any one else. It is as worthless in this day as it was in his. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.9
THE manager of the Present Truth publishing office, London, Eng., in a recent interview with the officials having charge of the inspection factories, was given the alternative of complying with the demands of the Sunday law until an act of Parliament could be passed exempting the Adventists as the Jews are now exempted in that country, which exemption they must secure by their own petition, or of suffering the penalty of the law, which would henceforth be rigorously applied. Of course no Christian will seek temporal ease at the expense of sacrificing principle, hence the prospect is that the property of the office there will be seized to satisfy fines imposed for Sunday labor. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.10
THE authorities of Rhea County, Tenn., have decided not to require the Adventists now in the chain-gang in that county to serve an additional length of time because they will not work on the Sabbath. This conclusion was reached just a few days subsequent to the publication of our last-page note of the 1st inst., in which we showed clearly that any such attempt would be a flagrant violation of the plain letter and spirit of the constitution of the State, which provides that “no person shall, in time of peace, be required to perform any service for the public on any day set apart by his religion as a day of rest.” The Rhea County authorities are to be congratulated that they have decided not to thus further outrage justice. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.11
AMONG the few papers that have approved of the persecution of Seventh-day Adventists in Tennessee, is the Central Methodist, of Cattlesburg, Kentucky, which, in its issue of July 20, said: “The Tennessee Adventists, who persist in performing manual labor on the sabbath, to the annoyance of their neighbors, have again been fined and sent to jail, as they should have been.” AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.12
The animus of this note is paper is apparent, in view of the fact that none of the work complained of was done to the annoyance of anybody, and no witness testified that he was disturbed by the work done; the only annoyance felt was of the same character as that felt by the Central Methodist, namely, the annoyance which is always begotten by bigotry and intolerance in the bosoms of those who are not willing that others should enjoy equal rights with themselves. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.13
TO appreciate justly the nature of the times in which we live, we must look not at the men, but at the principles, which the times are bringing to the front. By these principles, the lives of other men touch our own. The fast-spreading principle of the union of Church and State brings our life in touch with that of each of the persecuted Christians now imprisoned for keeping the fourth commandment. We are not in the position of idle spectators of a play. There is something for each of us to consider and decide, and something to be done. There is a stand to be taken for or against divine truth. When Paul was brought before Felix, it was not, as it seemed, that the apostle might have a chance of regaining his liberty, but that Felix might be told of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. The martyrs were persecuted in order that, by their sufferings, they might sow the seeds of truth. And God’s hand is shaping now the unfolding of events, to present his truth to all people, that they may choose whether they will be loyal to him or not. While a few men are suffering for their faith, the voice of truth is sounding in the ears of millions, among whom are we, calling us and them to stand now on the side of righteousness, and against the flood of evil that is rising to engulf the world. God is speaking to us, and the thing of most importance for us is to hear and heed. AMS August 15, 1895, page 256.14