Tennessee Persecution Revived by C. S. Longacre

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Nov 20, 1913

Tennessee Persecution Revived

By C. S. Longacre

I TRUST that our brethren everywhere will remember in prayer the brethren in Tennessee who have been arrested, indicted, and cited to appear before the court for trial on the third Tuesday in December. We who have the management and defense of their cases in charge, especially desire your prayers that the Lord may guide us in wisdom and sound judgment, so that mercy and justice may prevail and the cause of truth be vindicated.

Elder J. W. Norwood, president of the Tennessee River Conference, who is investigating the cause of the arrests, writes that Brother J. S. Rooker, on the eighteenth of May, went to his bottom farm, which is located one and one-half miles from any house and three miles from the public road. On his way to the farm, Brother Rooker met one of his neighbors, who was driving his cows out of the woods to the pasture. The neighbor inquired what he was going to do, and Brother Rooker answered that some of his corn needed attention, and he was going to see to it. The neighbor then asked him if he did not think he was doing wrong in breaking the law of the land. After a short talk over religious liberty principles, the two parted. This neighbor was foreman of the grand jury which indicted him. Brother Rooker's son was brought before the jury,

and the indictment followed. His daughter is to be a witness at the trial.

We are planning to scatter religious liberty literature like the leaves of autumn, and to carry on lecture and newspaper campaigns, so that the public mind may be informed and the people see the principles involved in these issues. We need your cooperation as well as your prayers. We ought to put the book "American State Papers" and the Liberty magazine into the hands of every judge and lawyer in Tennessee, but we have no funds with which to do it. The Tennessee River Conference can do something along this line, but not all that needs to be done. In view of the shortage of our funds, we trust that you will give a liberal offering when our next annual collection is taken up for the Religious Liberty Department work on the fourth Sabbath in February, 1914.

The enemy is becoming very active in all sections of the country. Last week a judge in Trenton, N. J., exempted orthodox Jews and Seventh-day Adventists from fines for Sunday-law violations, whereupon the judge was so severely censured for his action by the churches and the people through the newspapers and otherwise that he felt obliged to reverse his decision. This shows what public sentiment can and will do.

Now is our opportunity to mold public sentiment in favor of religious liberty principles, and make friends for our cause. Let us be up and doing while we have opportunity, putting forth every possible effort to enlighten our friends and neighbors in regard to the principles at stake in these matters.

C. S. LONGACRE.