Tried and Convicted on Sunday, on the Public Highway, for Violating a Sunday Law
By Cyrus Simmons
ABOUT twelve miles from Knoxville, Tenn., on Copper Ridge, stands a Seventh-day Adventist church that has recently been constructed. Twenty-five or more new Sabbath-keepers attend this church. Threats have been made that any who worked on Sunday would immediately be arrested. Near the county line dividing Knox County from Anderson County lives Brother John E. Grubbs. On Sunday, March 3, Brother Grubbs was cutting some wood for the church, which is not very far from his home. He also spent some time grubbing on his farm at a place sufficiently removed so as not to be a disturbance to any one. We are informed that an officer lurked near by for the purpose of getting a case against Brother Grubbs. When the afternoon service of the church was dismissed, and Brother Grubbs was leaving, the officer, in company with the magistrate, arrested him, and took him a few feet from the building, where they tried and convicted him in the public highway, and sentenced him to jail for non-payment of fine. The nearest jail was at Clinton, nine miles distant. They immediately started with their victim to that place. Brother Grubbs at first refused to pay the fine, and went with them, intending to remain in jail. After he had gone some miles, however, he remembered that his mother, who is very old, was in delicate health, and the news of his incarceration might hasten her death. He thereupon resolved to return home and pay the fine. There was considerable sympathy manifested in the neighborhood in favor of Brother Grubbs by those who are not Seventh-day Adventists. Many expressed themselves freely, saying that Brother Grubbs has been an exemplary citizen and a good neighbor, and that his arrest and summary trial and conviction was the result of the bad feeling against him on account of his religion. When the magistrate and officers were later informed that their trial and conviction on Sunday was a violation of the very law they sought to enforce, and the conviction and the imposition of a fine on Sunday was absolutely void in law, and that Brother Grubbs, if he had the same spirit that they manifested, could proceed against them for false imprisonment, and against their bond for collecting an illegal fine, they were disposed to be more lenient and civil. When the State becomes the arbiter of one's conscience, persecution is inevitable. The neighborhood in which Brother Grubbs lives is mountainous and thinly settled, and the work he did could disturb no one. In the same place neighbors who do not keep the Sabbath haul wood, and attend to business generally on Sunday without the least molestation. The one who prosecuted Brother Grubbs has recently transacted business with him on Sunday, and one who encouraged this prosecution, we are informed, has frequently brought plows to Brother Grubbs on Sunday to be sharpened.