A *Tyranny by W. A. C.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 22, 1909

A Tyranny

By W. A. C.

[Under the above heading the following editorial appeared in the Washington Post of May 27, 1909, during the time of the late General Conference. The writing of it, it seems, was provoked by the announcement in the daily papers of a recent case of one of our brethren in Tennessee being prosecuted for chopping on Sunday a little wood, with which to cook a meal.—W. A. C.]

“It is a fact that nobody who knows them will attempt to controvert that the members of the religious sect that is designated as Seventh-day Adventists make up a good citizenship. Their cardinal idea is to harm no man; and as a class, they are honest, sober, diligent, and frugal.

“It requires a skilful polemic to confound their faith, a religion that savors more of the pastoral than any other. As their teachers preach it, we find that their doctrine is that good is immortal, and bad is doomed to perish; and where will one find a better faith? When Cain slew his brother, the war between truth and evil began; and in the end, truth must survive, and evil die.

“The persecution of the Adventist people in one of the Southern States, Tennessee, is a reminder of barbaric ages, when fanaticism ruled in councils of state and set up the gibbet and the stake at every cross-road to vindicate the gospel of Jesus Christ, through tyranny, pain, malice, and murder; and all approved with a text.

“It is the law of Tennessee that the day known as Sunday is the Sabbath, and that only Sunday shall be observed as the Sabbath by any citizen of that State. Even Sir John Falstaff would not give a reason on compulsion, though reasons were as plenty as blackberries. And does the best thought of Tennessee suppose men can be made virtuous and religious by law? And this is the twentieth century, too!

“The worst man you can have in the community is the zealot, who would regulate your morals and religion by his narrow standard of right and wrong.

“Orthodoxy is well enough till it goes on the war-path.”