MORE SUNDAY PERSECUTIONS IN MISSISSIPPI by R. S. Owen

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1900

MORE SUNDAY PERSECUTIONS IN MISSISSIPPI.

By R. S. Owen

BROTHER JOSIAH NASH and I are to be again brought into court for not keeping Sunday. From all that we can learn, the call appears to be for a retrial of the same case for which we were tried and acquitted last July in the justice’s court. The cases are to be brought before the circuit court, which will begin March 12. It seems that their zeal has not yet reached its limit.

The leading citizens of our community have placed their signatures to the following statement as an expression of their sentiments. The willingness with which this was done by nearly all to whom this paper has been presented, indicates that they do not favor such persecution:—

“TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

“Whereas, An effort is being made by certain persons to bring hardship upon a certain class of conscientious Christians in our community, known as Seventh-day Adventists, by arraigning them before the courts for the most trivial acts in the way of work which they may have done on Sunday, after resting on the seventh day, which they regard as the Sabbath, therefore—

“We, the undersigned, citizens of Monroe County, Miss., do hereby express our disapproval of any such proceedings as would lower the dignity of our State, by thus using it as an instrument of persecution. Adopting the language of George Washington, we believe that ‘every man who conducts himself as a good citizen, is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.’”

We hope the brethren and sisters will all remember us daily in their prayers. R. S. OWEN.