THE UNITED STATES—THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
By W. N. G.
Two OF our brethren in Maryland, who reside at Ford’s Store, Queen Anne County, are now undergoing a thirty-days sentence in the county jail for working on Sunday, after keeping the Sabbath “according to the commandment.” We are informed by Mr. D. W. Reavis, secretary of the International Religious Liberty Association, that it was proposed to have the grand jury indict more of our people, but it was decided that such cases must come before a justice of the peace. The justice of that place, however, purposes to prosecute to the limit of his power. In all cases in the past it has been claimed that the enforcement of the Sunday law was merely a civil regulation, but in these cases the issue was boldly declared to be religious, and they were prosecuted as offenses against the religious sentiment of the country. The prosecuting attorney emphasized the fact that the defendants were not prosecuted merely as individuals, but as representatives of the religious organization to which they belong. Thus the denomination was practically tried and condemned as a whole under the Sunday law of the State. The action in these cases is practically a precedent for future prosecutions in that locality of people belonging to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That John Rhodes and John Curlett are in jail in Queen Anne County, Md., for being Seventh-day Adventists is further shown in the testimony of the prosecuting witness. This informant testified in court that he had just returned from a sail on the bay when he saw the work being done; that he himself often worked on Sunday; yet he deemed it his duty to take a team, hunt up the constable, and take him to the place where these men were working, in order that they might be punished by law. And this is the year 1898; and this prosecution was within one of the original thirteen States that fought for religious liberty in the closing portion of the preceding century! And this is the year in which the United States has been fighting Spain, and taking away her provinces, because of her tyranny over her subjects,—because she would not grant to them the American idea of religious liberty! W. N. G.