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A Matter of Conscience

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 9, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 36.

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A Matter of Conscience

By Editor

A few days ago a thoroughly orthodox Christian in one of the Southern States found five members of the Adventist faith working in the field a Sunday. Deeply imbued with the gloomy faith of a John Balfour of Burley, this excellent and exemplary man, just from the sanctuary, where he worshiped in the name of Him who sat at meat with publicans and sinners and plucked green corn a Sunday—this child of orthodoxy and cruelty swore out a warrant, and had the five arrested for breaking the Sabbath.
The jury was composed of enlightened men, and the accused were acquitted on the plea that they kept one day of the week holy, a Saturday. And such is the orthodoxy, that argues by the stake, the fagot, and the torch. This paper is not a sectarian, though it is a Christian, and as an observer of men, things, and events, it is ready to say that as few criminals, male and female, are recruited from the Adventists as from any other sect, numbers computed.
They work Sundays, but they keep Saturdays, and that fulfils the law of God, as it should of man. These folk are earnest, sincere Christian men, women, and children. They may be wrong in faith, desperately wrong. That is a matter of conscience; but their consciences are about as likely to be right as yours or ours.
“Leave thought unfettered every creed to scan,” and take care of your own conscience. That will keep you busy without meddling with the consciences of other people.—Editorial in the Washington Post of Aug. 19, 1909.