Arkansas Again by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 17.

Arkansas Again.

By Editor

The following press despatch tells a sad and significant story:—

“Little Rock, April 11.—Chester Gordon and his wife, two intelligent and respectable citizens of Eagle township, in this county, were convicted this week in the court presided over by Albert Desha, a justice of the peace, of Sabbath-breaking, and were fined $5.00 each.

“It was proved (and no attempt was made to deny the charge) that they are Adventists, and in accordance with the tenets of their faith are accustomed to rest on Saturday, which they consider their Sabbath, and to labor on Sunday.

“They refused to pay the fines, altho able to do so, and by order of the court were remanded to the county jail, where they now are. Husband and wife were handcuffed together when brought into town by a deputy constable.”

The Arkansas Sunday law contains a provision exempting persons who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, but this case is another witness in support of the position which we have for years maintained, that the day would come when all such exemption provisions would cease to exempt. Sunday laws are born of the spirit of tyranny, whose exemptions are only temporary expedients in order to gain a footing for further aggression. All civil laws, even constitutional laws, are subject to the whims of the judiciary, from justice of the peace up, no matter how ignorant or prejudiced or bigoted the court may be. And laws for the enforcement of religion, more than any others, afford a most propitious field for the exercise of individual bias on the part of officials as well as laymen.

We are informed that the work done on Sunday by Brother Gordon and his wife was planting corn, and that it was done more than a mile from any other residence. A church committee was sent directly from the church to inform the laborers that they would be arrested immediately, but the officer could not be found that day, and the arrest was postponed till the day following.