p. 18 | The Impending Conflict by C. S. L.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Feb 12, 1914

“The Impending Conflict”

By C. S. L.

“A GREAT crisis awaits the people of God. A crisis awaits the world. The most momentous struggle of all the ages is just before us. Events which for more than forty years we have, upon the authority of the prophetic word, declared to be impending, are now taking place before our eyes. Already the question of an amendment to the Constitution restricting liberty of conscience, has been urged upon the legislators of the nation. The question of enforcing Sunday observance has become one of national interest and importance. We well know what the result of this movement will be. But are we ready for the issue? Have we faithfully discharged the duty which God has committed to us, of giving the people warning of the danger before them?”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, page 711.

This instruction was written more than thirty years ago, just at the time the National Reform Association was putting forth its first efforts to change the national Constitution, so that the door would be opened for further religious legislation. There was a great crisis before our people and this nation at that time. That crisis has not yet passed. The danger that then threatened our liberties has simply been extended to our own time, and we are now facing the crisis with intensified proportions and significance. This nation ought to be grateful to God that this terrible crisis has been delayed and peace has reigned. But the storm cloud has in the interval been gathering power for the tempest.

“There are many, even of those engaged in this movement for Sunday enforcement, who are blinded to the results which will follow this action. They do not see that they are striking directly against religious liberty. There are many who have never understood the claims of the Bible Sabbath and the false foundation upon which the Sunday institution rests. Any movement in favor of religious legislation is really an act of concession to the Papacy, which for so many ages has steadily warred against liberty of conscience. Sunday observance owes its existence as a so-called Christian institution to the ‘mystery of iniquity;’ and its enforcement will be a virtual recognition of the principles which are the very corner stone of Romanism. When our nation shall so abjure the principles of its government as to enact a Sunday law, Protestantism will in this act join hands with popery; it will be nothing else than giving life to the tyranny which has long been eagerly watching its opportunity to spring again into active despotism.”—Id., pages 711, 712.

That many of our leading and influential men are blind concerning the results of Sunday legislation is very apparent from some recent experiences we have had in presenting these principles to such men. The religious editor of a very prominent daily newspaper, whose influence is nation-wide, visited one of our sanitariums recently. On various occasions this editor, through his newspaper, had expressed himself very decidedly in favor of Sunday legislation. But while he was at our sanitarium as a patient, he picked up a recent number of the Liberty magazine, and read it through. There was an article in that issue which contained a speech by Hon. Richard Bartholdt against Sunday legislation. After the editor had read it, he was thoroughly convinced that Sunday legislation and Sunday laws are entirely wrong, and he promised to use his influence in the future against compulsory Sunday legislation.

Some nine years ago a mayor of Pittsburgh issued an edict to the police commissioner to enforce the Sunday laws rigidly upon every one, irrespective of belief. A committee of seventy ministers had called upon the mayor and presented a memorial to him in which they made this demand. In his blindness, he obeyed their order as the only proper thing to do. The writer immediately organized another large committee and likewise called upon the mayor. We presented No. 1, Vol. I, of the Liberty magazine, which had just come from the press, to the mayor, as our memorial to him, and exacted a promise from him that he would read it and give us his answer in one week, at which time we intended to call again to discuss the question.

The third day after our visit to the mayor’s office, we were surprised one morning to notice in bold headlines in the daily newspapers that the mayor had rescinded his order to the police commissioner to enforce the Sunday ordinances. It was with much interest that we waited for the time to come when our week should have expired so we could call on the mayor again and learn the reason for the repeal of his former edict to the chief of police.

The first thing he said upon our return was: “Gentlemen, I kept my promise. I started to read your memorial in the form of a magazine just before I got ready to retire in the evening of that day you called upon me. I had thought I should read it by installments, but I got so intensely interested that I could not stop until I had read it through. I did not retire until two o’clock the next morning. I have read it through twice since to get the full import of its principles. If I had known and understood those principles as I now do, I should never have been guilty of issuing my Sunday edict to the police commissioner of the city, and that is the reason I have revoked the edict notwithstanding the fact that the law is on the statute books, together with many other laws which ought not to be there, and are virtually obsolete from nonuse. Gentlemen, the public needs to be educated upon this subject, and I wish it were possible for you to put that magazine into every family in the city of Pittsburgh.”

If space would permit me, I could present many interesting letters from men in high public positions who confess that whereas they were once blind, now they see. Will not the blood of men be required at our hands if we neglect to warn them, and give them the message for this time? C. S. L.