Uniting Against a Common Foe

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1908

Uniting Against a Common Foe

At all the various churches in Washington, D. C. (except the Seventh-day Adventist churches), there was given out on Sunday, January 12, a four-page tract entitled, “A Christian Appeal in Behalf of Sunday Observance.” This appeal was signed by the pastors of those churches, and officially indorsed by the “Interdenominational Committee on Sunday Observance in the Capital.” The churches represented are: Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist Episcopal, Friend, United Brethren, Zion Baptist, Methodist Episcopal South, Roman Catholic, Disciples, Protestant Episcopal, Reformed, Universalist, Swedenborgian, Baptist, and Congregationalist. It was not a striking document. The most striking thing about it was the fact that it stood for a great movement, a confederacy for the exaltation of Sunday. The appeal opens with the declaration that though “belonging to different religious bodies,” they address the people “upon a subject in which there is no difference among us.” In its second paragraph occurs this sentence:—

Believers in Christ, of almost every name, among many other points of agreement, unite in these two things: First, in holding that the Bible is God’s Word, and second in observing Sunday as the Lord’s day.

For a long time we have known, through the spirit of prophecy, that Sunday would be the great standard to which would flock, in the last days, all who would not heed the warning contained in the third angel’s message. The above list of denominations shows how faithfully that prediction is being fulfilled. The agitation for Sunday laws is fast bringing into the various denominations a spirit of combining forces. As the pastor of the Catholic church puts it: “Differing from them in many things, in this we can all agree, and must make common cause against the common foe.” Those who know this truth know who that “common foe” will be against whom all Christendom will soon unite. It is that little company who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” This is no mere fancy or “figment of the imagination;” God’s Word is fulfilling, and the hour of the final struggle in the long controversy is fast approaching.