The Religious Liberty Cause
By W. A. Colcord
Although the Sentinel of Christian Liberty has been suspended, the cause of religious liberty is not dead. Through the Sentinel and other religious liberty literature, many important battles have been fought, and not a few victories won. Few, perhaps, fully realize the tremendous influence which this literature has exerted, both among our own people and among those not of our faith, in keeping alive the love and spirit of liberty, and in repressing the spirit of bigotry and intolerance, which, on every hand, has eagerly been seeking to spring into action. And there are battles yet to be fought. The campaign is not over. Just recently we have again been reminded that “we may have to plead most earnestly before legislative councils for the right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience.” The most interesting and intense part of the controversy is before us. The issue has not changed. The advocates of religious legislation have not ceased working. We are simply coming face to face with the great issue for which we have been looking many years. The religious element and the labor unions, with their required marks and badges, are already beginning to unite. Soon the great religious boycott will be declared, stipulating that only those who have the Sunday-sabbath mark can buy or sell. If there was ever a time when a warning voice should be sounded throughout the land against false worship, and the bigotry, intolerance, and oppression which naturally go with it, it is now. Now is the time to work. Literature is needed. Small, timely documents, rightly prepared, will tell. They have done effective work in the past; they will do it again. There is no need of carping, or of dealing with indirect issues; but there is need of setting forth the great fundamental principles of religious liberty, of calling attention to the great battles which have been fought over this question in the past, and of meeting directly the issue before us. Therefore, in harmony with the call that has been made by Elder Allen Moon, chairman of the Religious Liberty Department of the General Conference, for a collection for this work, Sabbath, March 12, we hope all will give liberally. W. A. COLCORD.