Untitled article

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

MAY 25, the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church, in session at Nashville, declined to sustain the appeal of the Charleston Presbytery against the synod of South Carolina in the celebrated Means case. Miss Sadie M. Means, an employée of the Telephone Exchange in Columbia, S. C., was dismissed by the session of the Second Presbyterian Church of that city for violation of the Sabbath, in that she performed her duties at the exchange on Sunday from 9 o’clock A. M., until 1 o’clock P. M. A. M. Monteith and Emma M. Monteith, brother-in-law and sister of Miss Means, appealed the case to Charleston Presbytery, and the presbytery indorsed the action of the session. The appeal was then carried to the synod of South Carolina, and this body reversed the action of the presbytery of the session and ordered Miss Means restored to the church.

This the session failed to do, and Charleston Presbytery appealed to the general assembly. The vote to sustain was 48; to partially sustain, 8; not to sustain, 77. The effect of this action of the assembly will be that Miss Means will be restored to communion in the Second Presbyterian Church.

This action is fitting. Sunday being only an institution of the church, resting only upon human authority, it is eminently proper that churches should define the relation of their members to it. The Southern Presbyterian Church evidently recognizes the fact that there is no divine command for Sunday observance, else the highest court of that church would scarcely dare to excuse people from keeping it holy.