Religious Persecution by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 3, 1901

Religious Persecution.

By L. A. S.

THERE is religious persecution in Manitoba. November 2, at Morden, Brother F. J. Goertzen and a neighbor, whose name we do not have, were fined fifteen dollars each for having desecrated Sunday by doing secular work. Brother Goertzen’s offense consisted in drawing wheat from the field to his house; his neighbor’s Sunday work was done in his stable. The man who served the papers said he was appointed to prosecute “all breakers of the Sunday, or American sabbath.”

At the same time, three children, the youngest four years of age and the oldest ten, were prosecuted for a like offense. They were playing in the garden, and a neighbor spied them carrying some potatoes. Immediately the machinery of the criminal law was set in motion to deal with this heinous offense, and the mother was told that unless she paid the fine imposed, her little ones would be put in jail. She paid the fine. All parties were threatened with severer punishment if they continued to disregard Sunday.

This happened in Manitoba, but the same kind of people live there that are to be found in all parts of this country. The carnal heart does not act differently in Manitoba from what it does in Michigan. The “dragon” is as wroth against commandment-keepers in one part of the country as in another.

“Brethren and sisters, would that I might say something to awaken you to the importance of this time, the significance of the events that are now taking place. I point you to the aggressive movements now being made for the restriction of religious liberty.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 18. We ought to see these things without being pointed to them; let us certainly not fail to see them now, and to act as we are admonished by them. L. A. S.