A Report from Australia by W. A. C.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Nov 7, 1907

A Report from Australia

By W. A. C.

From a letter just received from Elder W. A. Hennig, secretary of the Religious Liberty Department of the Australasian Union Conference, we quote:—

“Dr. Crafts has been here, but he found the people who have been a thorn in his flesh. When he was in Adelaide, he said that he could go nowhere but that he ran across the Adventists. After his meeting we distributed some literature. One of our workers, a sister, did not know him, so she offered him one of our leaflets. This was after his evening meeting. She said to him, ‘Do you really think that Sunday is the Sabbath?’ He said he did not. Then he told her who he was, and that he wished all the people had as much zeal as the Adventists had.

“In Melbourne he had a similar experience. He was somewhat worried, and made the statement that the ‘Adventists teach that the second beast of Revelation is the United States,’ and that he (Mr. Crafts) is ‘one of its claws.’

“We were with him in Sydney. His congregations were very small except on one occasion. I attended his meetings with the ministers; but there was not so much enthusiasm among them as there was among some other classes.

“He perfected branches of the Reform Bureau in the five leading cities of this country.

“We are doing a great deal in the religious liberty work, but not half what we should do.

“The people in Queensland and in Victoria, that is, the church folk, are clamoring for a referendum on religion in the schools. I have done a great deal of personal work with the members of Parliament, and find many of them pleased to get our clear, logical views on the subject.”

The fact that the International Reform Bureau is extending its operations and its organized work into foreign countries is significant. It shows that the movement for Sunday enforcement is not only becoming world-wide, but that it is becoming one the world over, and that the United States is taking the lead in this movement. W. A. C.