Crafts Campaigns for Sunday Laws
The California Christian Advocate of April 17 has the following, which will be of interest to all the readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. We have before alluded to this proposed visit and to its object, but this presents it more fully and shows that so far from being dead the demand for religious legislation is not even sleeping on this coast. The Advocate says:— “Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, field secretary of the American Sabbath Union, is planning to spend August and September in the Pacific States and Territories, in the interest of Sabbath observance, and especially in the interest of the proposed National Sunday-Rest day, for which ten millions have petitioned Congress. He has spoken on this subject twice before the Senate’s Committee on Education and Labor, also at the International Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and at the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor, both of which bodies indorsed the petition unanimously. He has presented this subject in the halls and churches of the chief cities of twenty-two States. The remaining States and Territories he expects to visit before the next Congress. Of course, his visit on our coast will greatly help in securing Sunday laws in California and Nevada, the only States that have none, and in securing better enforcement of the existing laws in the other States and Territories, and better observance of the Sabbath by church people.” “Mr. Crafts is to debate with Professor Jones, of the Seventh-day Adventists, in Michigan, and will probably arrange to meet some of their leaders in California also.” Of course our readers are aware that Mr. Crafts is not to debate with Professor Jones, of the Seventh-day Adventists. But the reason has not yet been stated; it is this: He simply don’t want to. The facts are that Mr. Crafts challenged Mr. Jones for a debate; the challenge was promptly accepted, and the time, place, etc., etc., all agreed upon, when for some not very clearly defined reason the valiant champion of National Reform backed out, and now says that he will not debate. Possibly he has concluded that “Professor Jones, of the Seventh-day Adventists,” has arguments which he does not care to encounter at short range. We are not authorized to speak on the subject, but we doubt not that if Mr. Crafts will make his wishes known in time, and give a sufficient guarantee that he will not run before the battle begins, he can be accommodated if he desires “to meet some of their leaders in California.”