Persecutors not in reality Christians. King pursued with relentless ferocity. of Christ. No, a thousand times, no! They are essentially pagan. Apollo-loving Poor Mr. King, of whom I have written before, was pursued with the relentless ferocity supposed to be characteristic of demons, until death came to his relief. He, and these new victims of religious intolerance belong to the chosen band of royal souls who in all ages have been persecuted for conscience' sake. Of that band Jesus was a conPersecution spicuous member. He broke the Sabbath as the Pharisees held it, and was pursued by the Sabbath Union in his day, even to the cross. The early Christians in the early days of Nero followed the dictates of their consciences, and for this were burned and torn to pieces. The noble spirits, yea, the chosen souls, of the Dark Ages, likewise followed the dictates of conscience, and for their splendid and sublime loyalty to what they conceived to be the truth, were burned, racked, and destroyed in a thousand different ways. Roger Williams followed the same guiding star of conscience in matters of religion, and as a result was banished from the Massachusetts colony. All of these persons are now popularly regarded as martyrs for truth, liberty, and right. The spirit manifested by their persecutors is abhorrent to all broad-minded and intellectually developed men and women. These last victims to the age-long spirit of intolerance hold the same position as was formerly occupied by the martyrs and heroes for conscience' sake, whose privations and heroic deaths form luminious examples of high thinking and noble acting amid the gloom of the past. Persecution of Roger Williams. Unnoticed by the press. A decision unworthy the age. The secular press of the land, with many notable exceptions,1 has paid little heed to these persecutions. 1 We here give some protests made editorially by leading papers. Few, however, of these papers have made the cause of the oppressed their own cause; while, on the other hand, the persecutors have relentlessly pursued their evil way.' "There can be but one opinion upon this decision among all liberal minded men. It is odious sophistry! unworthy of the age in which we live, and under it an Ameri Indeed, a general lethargy seems to have overtaken our people and this is the most disheartening symptom present in the body politic at the present time. The day seems to have gone by when the cry of the oppressed or the weak arouses the sense of justice in the hearts of our people. Especially is it sad to see the religious press, supposed to represent the spirit of the Reformation (which struggled against such fearful persecutions of other days), now so silent when fellowmen are being ground between the millstones for conscience' sake. It is true that one of the greatest religious papers, the New York "Independent," has spoken grandly for freedom, as will be seen by the following extract: "We have again and again, during the last few years, had occasion to express our profound indignation at the administration of Tennessee law as applied to some country farmers belonging to the Seventh-day Adventist body, who, after having carefully kept the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, worked in their fields on the first day of the can citizen has been condemned to spend the rest of his days in a dungeon, unless he shall stoop to deny the dictates of his own conscience, and dishonor his own manhood." - New York Commercial Advertiser. "The keeper of Saturday has an undoubted moral right to his convictions. More than this, his legal right to observe Saturday as a holy day and Sunday as a secular day, ought not to be called into question in free America by any civil authority. It would not be in doubt for a moment were it not for the existence of legal anachronisms that should have gone out with the witchcraft laws or, at the latest, with George the Third."- Boston Daily Globe. "It seems absolutely incredible that in this age of enlightenment, in these free United States, men should suffer and families be plunged into sorrow because they have exercised a right of conscience guaranteed to them by the Constitution of their country. The sooner a test is appealed to the highest tribunal in the land for adjudication, the better for the honor of Tennessee and every State ridden by bad laws, passed in violation of individual liberty."— Chicago Daily Globe. "Not being able to leave his crops unworked for two days in the week, Mr. King plowed them on Sunday after having kept the Sabbath the day before. He was arrested under the Sunday law: and in order to make it effective against him, it was alleged that his work on his farm on Sunday created a public nuisance. On this entirely untenable ground he has been harassed from court to court. He was a poor man, but has been supported by the friends of religious liberty. Mr. King has been greatly wronged, but his only remedy at law is under the law and Constitution of Tennessee. It appears that for the present his remedy is denied him, and, this being the case, he has no better course than to submit to the oppression and go to prison to the convict camp, if it suits the convenience of his persecutors to send him there."- St. Louis Republic. "The principle involved is simple, and its application plain. The State has nothing to do with religion, except to protect every citizen in his religious liberty. It has no more right to prescribe the religious observance of sabbaths and holy days than to order sacraments and to ordain creeds."- New York World. "So long as the labor of Adventists on Sunday does not interfere with the rights of the Mosaic and Puritanic people on the same day, the prosecution of them seems neither more nor less than persecution."— Chicago Tribune. Prevalent lethargy. Position of of the "Independent." Christians have a legal right to work Sundays. Such per secution absolutely incredible. Made the offense a public nuisance. Principle involved. Persecution. Are we go "People are asking if we are returning to the days of Cotton Mather or the Spanish Inquisition, that faithful, law-abiding citizens must be fined or driven from the ing backward? country when their only offense consists in quietly carrying out the convictions of conscience."- Louisville Courier-Journal. renewed. Prosecution week. This prosecution has been renewed, and three men of families, one fifty-five and another sixty-two years of age, were convicted, and have, during the summer and autumn, been working out their fine, being set to work with criminals at shoveling on the common highway. They refused to pay their fine, declaring that it was unjust, and that they were liable to be arrested again as soon as they were released. We have said before, and we say again, that this is bad law, bad morals, and bad religion." Position of some Baptists. Poor policy. Another religious organ, the Baptist Church Bulletin," gives these suggestive words of warning: "Let us be careful how we let in the camel's nose of religious legislation, lest the brute crowd his bulky form in, and occupy the whole shop. If the law by which these men were legally imprisoned be a righteous law, then may any State, nation, or country set up a religious creed and enforce it; then France treated properly the Huguenots; Russia, the Jews; and early New England and Virginia, the Baptists and Quakers. Protestant America had better be careful how she lays foundations for other men to build upon. Rome has as good a right to build in her way as we have to build in our way." As a rule, however, the religious press has been strangely silent. A nation can sometimes afford to err on the side of mercy, but no nation can afford to be unjust to her lowliest citizen. I am one of those who believe most profoundly that every sin, whether committed by an individual, a State, or a nation, brings its own consequence as inevitably as the violation of a physical law brings its evil results. I believe that nations commit suicide no less than individuals, and that wrong done by nations will result in evil consequences: and believing this, while loving the great republic, I cannot remain silent when she is unjust or when she wrongs, in the name of law, upright citizens because they do not believe as the majority believe. No State or nation can Vicious laws afford to allow a law not based on justice to remain upon the statute should be repealed. books. And when our republic so far forgets the high ideals of justice, liberty, and human rights, which made her the flower of the ages, as to permit unjust laws to be passed, or cruel, obsolete statutes to be resuscitated in the interests of any class, any sect, or any religion, she makes law-breaking citizens, and plants in her own breast the seeds of disintegration.1 Present tactics. Children compelled to testify. 1 After the occurrence of the shameful proceedings which called forth this justly merited condemnation, the grand jury of the same county (Henry county, Tennessee) summoned a score of witnesses, most of them members of the Seventh-day Adventist church at Springville, to testify against their brethren; and as a result ten or more were indicted for performing farm labor on their own premises on Sunday after observ ing the previous day as Sabbath. Among the witnesses summoned were a number of children; so that children were compelled to testify against their parents and parents against their children. Inquiries were also made as to whether the women worked on Sunday, and what they did. Among those reported to be indicted was a feeble old man nearly eighty years of age. Nor do these cases appear to be spasmodic, as some would have us think. Cases are multiplying instead of diminishing. On June 26, 1894, W. B. Capps was locked up in the county jail at Dresden, Weakley County, Tennessee, for performing common labor on his farm on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday. The first time he was seen at work, he was cutting corn-stalks in his own field. The witness's farm is adjoining, and he could see Mr. Capps at work from his house a few hundred yards away. This was on a Sunday, in May, 1892. Prosecution frequent. The case of In the fall of the same year the same witness went to Mr. Capps's house on Sunday to see him about a note on which he was surety, and found him plowing a piece Capps. of uncultivated land in the middle of a field of grown corn, in which he designed to sow turnips. The witness informed Mr. Capps that his father, the payee, expected him to send the money, though in his testimony the witness denied that he went to see the defendant about the note. This secluded spot in which Mr. Capps was quietly following the leadings of his conscience by tilling the soil on the first day of the week, was not only shut in by full-grown corn, but was three quarters of a mile from any public road. At another time Mr. Capps was seen on Sunday splitting rails. Before the day was over, two of his neighbors came along, took up the maul and ax, and assisted him for a time. The neighbors were not interfered with in their liberty. Mr. Capps was arrested June 8, 1893, and at his trial before the Circuit Court of Weakley County, June 27, 1893, he was fined ten dollars and costs, amounting in all to fifty-one dollars and eighty cents. His case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, which affirmed the judgment of the lower court, May 24, 1894, at Jackson, fixing the cost at fifty-eight dollars and sixty-five cents; making as a grand total the outrageous sum of one hundred and ten dollars and forty-five cents, to be served out by the convicted at the paltry rate of twenty-five cents per day. This will necessitate the confinement of the prisoner four hundred and forty-two days, or one year and nearly three months. The Supreme Court did not write any opinion, but simply said: "There is no controversy as to the facts in this case [as of course there was not], and we find no error in the record; therefore the judgment of the court below will be affirmed.” It gave no reasons, and did not attempt to meet the arguments raised by the defense. Mr. Capps had a wife twenty-four years of age, and four children, the eldest being only six years old, and one of them sick at the time of its father's imprisonment. His family was left all alone in the woods a quarter of a mile from any house. He was a poor man and unable to support his family during his confinement. He did not deny working on Sunday, but worked because he had rested the day before according to the Bible; because he recognized his God-given right to labor six days in the week, beginning on the first, as did his Creator; and because in acceding to the demands of the State to observe Sunday, he believed he would be denying his Lord. Hence he refused to pay the fine and costs, regarding them as unjust, since the State was attempting to enforce upon him a dogma of religion, with which it could of right have nothing whatever to do. Therefore he went to jail. VIEWS OF THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS. The Seventh-day Baptists believe that the Sabbath is purely a religious question, upon which legislatures should make no laws. They believe in absolute freedom of conscience as to what day should be kept, and would oppose legislation in favor of the seventh day as strongly as they do in the matter of the first. Religious liberty was the foundation principle upon which our government was built, and our brethren of other Protestant denominations are quick enough to see and recognize this whenever, for instance, the Roman Catholic Church tries to secure laws in its favor. Why can they not see the injustice of resorting to law to compel weaker denominations to keep Sunday?" Sabbath Recorder," February 13, 1911. Decision of the court. Should be no Sabbath laws. The law and Constitution in conflict. GEORGIA. The Georgia Sunday law makes the pursuit of one's business or ordinary calling on Sunday a misdemeanor, which is punishable by fine, imprisonment, and work in the chain-gang (see ante page 572); while the Constitution of the State declares that "no inhabitant of this State shall be molested in person or property count of his religious opinions." See ante page 529. Enforcement of the law, and disregard for the Constitution, have led to a number of prosecutions in the State, which, in reality, have been simply persecutions. on ac First case of its kind. Taken sick in jail. A martyr to Sunday enforcement. A good man. Prompt and cheerful obedience to God's law. SAMUEL MITCHEL. One of the earliest cases, if not the earliest, in the United States of a Seventh-day Adventist being arrested and imprisoned for laboring on Sunday, was that of Mr. Samuel Mitchel. But it smacks as strongly of the persecuting spirit as do the more recent cases. Mr. Mitchel was arrested in July, 1878, for plowing in his own field on Sunday, at Quitman, Brooks county, Georgia. For this he was sentenced to be confined in a loathsome prison cell for thirty days. Being in poor health, the confinement in a damp place taxed his physical powers beyond endurance, and after he had been in jail fifteen days, he was taken worse. A doctor was summoned, who told him to pay his fine and come out, to save his life. He replied that he owed the county nothing, as he had committed no offense against his fellow-citizens, and would not pay the fine. A gentleman who later became a member of Congress, offered to pay his fine if he would promise not to work any more on Sunday. This Mr. Mitchel would not do, but served out his time. As a result, his physical powers were broken, and he died February 4, 1879, a martyr to Sunday enforcement. Mr. Mitchel was regarded in the community in which he lived as a man of spotless integrity. Not the slightest charge was brought against his character except his allegiance to his convictions concerning the Sabbath. Even his persecutors admitted that he was "a good but they said, This Saturday-keeping must be stopped." man; 66 As an illustration of Mr. Mitchel's prompt and faithful obedience to convictions of right and duty, the following incident in his life may be related: One Saturday, as he had often done before, he took a grist to mill, going a distance of about ten miles. As he entered the village, he learned that a Seventh-day Adventist minister was holding a meeting in the place. While waiting for his grist to be ground, he thought he would go over and hear what the stranger had to say. The subject of the discourse that day chanced to be the Sabbath, and as the claims of the fourth commandment and the teachings of Christ and his apostles were opened before his mind, he was convinced that the seventh day of the week is the true Sabbath, and at once decided |