Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 7, 1894

REFERRING to the Capps case the Jackson Daily Whig says:—

The supreme court, Judge McAlister delivering the opinion of the court, yesterday morning affirmed the case of W. B. Capps vs. the State, a case appealed from Weakley County.

Capps is a Seventh-day Adventist, and believes that Saturday is the Sabbath of the Bible, and that there is no divine warrant for changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. He acted upon his conviction and kept Saturday as his Sabbath and true day of rest. On Sunday he went forth to his work, plowing, cutting stalks, etc. This shocked the sensibilities of his neighbors whose attention was attracted by the unusual spectacle. Capps was indicted in the circuit court of Weakley County, and there being no dispute as to facts, he was convicted, and Judge Swiggart fined him $10. The defendant claimed, of course, that he had committed no offense, and that his arrest and fine were illegal and unconstitutional and violative of that religious liberty guaranteed to all citizens of the United States by the Constitution thereof.

Judge McAlister said that the settled law of this State was against the defendant, and referred especially to the recent case of King vs. the State. The judgment of the lower court was affirmed.

The sentence of the court may seem light, but it is sufficient to keep Mr. Capps in jail for not less than sixty days. The fine alone, at twenty-five cents per day, the credit allowed by the State, is equivalent to forty days in jail, while the costs will make it considerably more.

The probate court at Buffalo has been asked to decide a question which may prove to be as far-reaching in its consequences as any ever decided by any court. Notwithstanding constitutional guarantees of religious liberty, the courts of the United States, and of various States, have from time to time assumed to say that this is a Christian nation, and that Christianity is a part of the law of the land, etc. But aside from Sunday observance it has not been very clearly defined what constituted the official Christianity which is a part of our common law, or that in the case of the country at large constitutes this a “Christian nation.” The Buffalo decision may aid materially in elucidating this question and in adding another article to the national creed.

The question to be decided by the Buffalo court has been stated thus:—

Is the soul immortal? Do masses celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church benefit the dead?

The facts which raised this question, or these questions, rather, have been given thus: Mrs Catherine Backus, who died in Buffalo last January, bequeathed her estate, consisting of $1,000 in cash, to Nicholas Bashman as trustee, to be expended by him for masses “for the benefit of my poor soul and that of my deceased husband.” Mrs Backus’ children contested the will on the grounds that the trustee was invested with too much discretionary power and that the soul is at best an intangible legatee, and that there is no competent evidence before the court that Mrs. Backus or her husband was possessed of a soul for which a trust might be held.

Great possibilities are bound up in this question. We have for a long time known that sooner or later the dogma of the immortality of the soul would be officially indorsed by our Government, but just how this was to be brought about was not easy to see. But the Buffalo case points out the probable course the matter will take. Once in the courts the dogma of natural immortality, or life without Christ, can easily become an article of governmental religion.