p. 4 | A Religious Boycott by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 24, 1906

A Religious Boycott

By L. A. S.

A RELIGIOUS boycott is threatened in Chicago. A Methodist “rally” was recently inaugurated there, with meetings in the Auditorium led by a number of bishops, and plans have been laid for a great revival. But the Methodist Book Concern having broken with the labor unions, the latter now come forward and declare that they will not permit any revival to be conducted in Chicago by the Methodist Church.

The Chicago Tribune states editorially that because the Methodist Publishing House does not pay the union scale of wages, “the Methodist bishops have been notified that if they persist in their announced intention to hold revival meetings on a large scale, the meetings will be boycotted, picket lines will be established to prevent, so far as possible, attendance upon them, and it will be brought to the attention of all the unions that the Methodist Church is unfair.”

This is probably the first time that trades-unionism has come into conflict with a church. We know it will not be the last time. A religious boycott, as this incident shows, is not at all impossible; and the spirit which will attempt to break up a religious revival will not stop at anything. It will be no long step from this to the boycott prophetically described in Revelation 13, when those who refuse homage to the “beast” power of which the prophecy speaks will be forbidden to buy or sell. We are living almost in sight of the end.

L. A. S.