The Spirit of It by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

The Spirit of It.

By Editor

A BROTHER in Indiana gives us a little chapter of his experience which shows the real animus of the movement which has for its apparent object a reverence for Sunday. If it is not simply opposition to the Sabbath, then indications are not what they seem. This brother has a neighbor who neither fears God nor regards man, but profanes every day by obscenity and infidelity. During the past eighteen months, there have been but few Sundays in which he has not worked at his regular business, and no fault is found with him and no move made about it. But this brother, one who had religiously observed the seventh day, one bright, warm Sunday took his wagon into the back yard to give it a coat of paint—a work which would neither attract attention nor cause disturbance, but he was instantly threatened with arrest for breaking Sunday.

From this, two inferences are easily drawn :—

1. Had this brother been a profane, godless man, he could have broken Sunday with impunity.

2. His keeping of the Sabbath was his real offense.

A case exactly parallel to this happened not long since in Michigan ; and the lesson such circumstances affords is not to be mistaken.—Review and Herald.