Wanted-Persecution by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1872

“Wanted—Persecution.”

By Editor

UNDER this heading we find the following in the Advent Christian Times, Eld. Himes’ paper, of Feb. 27, 1872. We place it on record to show the animus of the conductors of that sheet, and also for future reference. They anticipate, it would seem, sailing calmly into Heaven, unmolested, if not honored, by all men, during the times of iniquity and peril with which earth’s history is to close. They think to escape the “war” which John assures us the dragon will make upon the “remnant of the woman’s seed,” that is, the last generation of the church. Perhaps they will, but if so, it will only be because they do not belong to the remnant church, “which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Or don’t they believe there is to be any such closing period of trouble and peril as the Scriptures foretell? Or have they been willing to sacrifice consistency for the sake of indulging in a little ad captandum talk against those who are such heinous sinners as to keep the seventh day?

“Our seventh-day-keeping friends are exceedingly anxious to become martyrs. They have prophesied that they should be persecuted for keeping Saturday—be taken to prison, and perhaps killed by those who have ‘the mark of the beast,’ that is, people who observe Sunday as a day of rest and worship. Anxiously as Elijah watched for the coming rain, they await the appearance of the ‘little cloud’ which is to be the precursor of their tribulation. If a movement is made against German ‘Sabbath-breaking,’ so-called, it is hoped that now the glad day has arrived when ‘the two-horned beast’—that is the United States—will make a law that all who will not ‘worship the beast’—that is, keep Sunday, ‘the pope’s Sabbath’—shall be slain. The fact is persistently overlooked, that none of these moves are directed against Jews, or other Saturday-keepers, but against men who not only keep no Sabbath at all themselves, but disturb other people in keeping theirs. The notion of forcing all men to ‘keep Sunday’ has never been entertained in this land, and never will be. The tendency is precisely in the opposite direction.

“But the would-be persecuted hope they have found, if not the ‘little cloud,’ at least the straw, which shows the blowing of the wind that will eventually bring the cloud. A convention has been held in Cincinnati to organize measures for a religious amendment to the Federal Constitution. The character of the men engineering the movement is indicated in the fact that already two governors of States—Connecticut and Massachusetts—whose names were attached to the call for this convention as sanctioning it, have repudiated the entire movement, and declared that their names were used without their consent. This indicates the need of a religious amendment among the would-be amenders of the Constitution, whatever the Constitution itself may need. But the whole movement is absurd, and uncalled for, and will amount to nothing. Our seventh-day friends fondly hope it is the beginning of a movement which is to culminate in a Protestant ecclesiastical despotism. But we assure them there is no rain in this cloud. However, they will do well to make the most of it. Something must be done soon, or there will be a new application of an old saying—‘Every vision faileth.’”