That Religious Sabbath
By Editor
It is officially announced that “Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, field secretary of the American Sabbath Union, is planning to visit every State and Territory (except some of those recently visited) before the end of the year, to promote the observance of both the religious and the civil Sabbath, by sermons, lectures, and especially by organizing State and county and city Sabbath associations, or preparing the way for such organizations.” This should put an end to the oft-repeated declaration of the Reformers that all they want is a civil Sabbath. Here is the open official announcement that the field secretary will visit all parts of the country to “promote the observance” of the religious Sabbath also. It also appears that they have not given up the idea of promoting their ideal Sabbath. When the Sunday-Rest bill was first introduced, it was a bill to “promote” the observance of the first day of the week as a day of religious worship; but the promoters had that word changed to “protect,” for the purpose of blinding those who might think that to promote would imply aggressive action. The official announcement proves what we said at the time, that the intent of the measure, and its effect if passed, would not be mitigated in the least by that verbal change.