A New Experience for Seventh-Day Adventists
By A. O. Tait
For more than half a century we have been teaching from the thirteenth chapter of Revelation that the time would come when this nation would take the lead in making an image to the papal beast. We have quoted the text many times which states that this power will say “to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” We have perhaps not realized how literally this scripture might be fulfilled. Several of the States have already adopted laws which provide for what are known as the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. Through the initiative, a law may be placed upon the ballot, either at a regular or a special election, and the people themselves allowed to vote for or against the passage of this law. And when the people through the initiative enact a law, the governor may not veto it, and no legislature can either repeal or amend it. It becomes a fixture on the statute books unless the people themselves, through a subsequent election, either repeal or change the law. California is one of the States that has adopted this initiative plan, and a bill has been prepared and the requisite number of signatures has been secured to place it on the ballot to be voted upon at the election the coming November. California is one of the two or three States that have no regular Sunday law, but she is going to have the distinction of being the first one that will fulfill in such a literal way this prophecy in Revelation, by actually saying to all the people that they should vote upon a religious measure, which will be one of the great steps in establishing the image to that persecuting power that has such a conspicuous part to act in the closing days of time. Our brethren have planned a very vigorous educational campaign in the way of lectures and the circulation of literature. This will be a great opportunity to get the truth before the people, and our workers in California need the prayers of all that everything possible may be done to show the distinction between the true Sabbath of Jehovah and the rival sabbath of human manufacture.