IN CHATHAM JAIL FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE.
John Mathews, the Farm Laborer of Mr. Robt. Watt, of Selton, Ont., Incarcerated for CUTTING AND MAKING HAY ON SUNDAY.
Under the above heading the Toronto World, of September 16, gives the following account of Sunday-law prosecution in Canada. It is a graphic but correct picture:— Amid the smiling fields of Selton dwell a peaceful and prosperous community. All the men may not be as brave, nor all the women as beautiful, as in the Elysian days of chivalry and romance, but the majority are honest, pure, and true, which is much better. Most of them have sought to live peaceable and godly lives, and to observe the golden rule and do unto others “as I would they should do unto me.” Dame Nature has blessed the people of Selton with as fair and fruitful lands as are to be found almost anywhere in the dominion. Golden grain and ruddy orchard form a rich mantle to the kindly earth which wears them. Flocks and herds graze quietly in sunny meadows and rest beneath leafy shade. Situate at a sufficient distance from the large cities, these children of the hamlet have grown to man and womanhood untainted by the baneful influences more or less incident to town life. But the influences of the advance civilization of the cities they have felt, and they have been ennobled thereby. To the sojournings of these sons and daughters of the plow may well be applied the beautiful lines of Longfellow concerning the Arcadians:— “Their lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven.”
About ten months ago a number of these people, from the study of the word of God and the preaching of evangelists, became convinced that the coming of the Lord was near, and that Saturday, the seventh day of the week, was the Sabbath—the day blessed of Jehovah to holy rest—instead of Sunday, the first day of the week, as they had formerly been wont to believe. The promptings of conscience are sacred with these people. In their minds eternity is a bright vision stretching before, and worth more than all on earth beside. When they read from the sacred page that “the seventh day (Saturday) is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” they said among themselves, “Then we have made a mistake in keeping Sunday, which is the first day of the week.” And when they read further, “In it (Saturday) thou shalt not do any work,” their hearts responded, “God must be obeyed.” And so they changed their day of worship. Otherwise their deeds were much as before. They are now kinder if anything to their friends, their neighbors, and their enemies than in days of yore. Believing that their Lord and Master is soon to return to earth, they study to make their hearts and lives ready for his appearing and kingdom. To them earnest prayer to their Father above is the key of the morning and the bolt of the night. By humble and godly lives they daily seek to make their calling and election sure. Their pious supplications ascend for all men—for the queen and all her councilors. Stealing and lying, adultery and murder, are unknown among them. They are not of that foolish kind who prepare ascension robes and set a time—a day or an hour—for the world to come to an end. Peculiar they are in some of their religious views. But in their lives they are quiet, respectable, inoffensive, hard-working men and women. One of these is the incarcerated man, John Mathews, the subject of this sketch. He is about 28 years of age, and earns a livelihood by working as a day laborer on the farm of Mr. Robert Watt, also a Seventh-day Adventist and ex-postmaster of Selton. On Sunday, July 7, John Mathews was cutting9and raking hay. He had conscientiously rested upon the preceding day, which he believed to be the Sabbath. He was injuring no one, wronging no one, molesting no one. And now the sad part of the story commences. Now, indeed, it was that his life was to be “Darkened by shadows of earth.”
Some one was watching him. Some one was seeking to enforce a bad law which ought to have been long ago repealed, and which would better have never been passed. Suddenly, as like a bolt of thunder out of a clear sky, he found papers served upon him, bidding him appear before a justice and answer for his deeds. “Shadows of earth had darkened” his life. Shades, methinks, from the ill-omened Middle Ages, when Bloody Mary murdered Protestants because they were not Catholics, when Protestants butchered Puritans, when kingly hands of France were imbued in the blood of Huguenots, when men were burned at the stake and women whipped at the cart’s tail. Shades, yes, weird shades from the days of the first Christians, when staunch men and noble matrons and even tender girls suffered for their faith. Men and fashionable ladies were yachting on that July 7; trains bearing her majesty’s mails were running; engineers worked at the throttle and firemen at the tender, but they were not arrested. The screeching of the whistles, the clanging of the bells, though heard for miles around, disturbed no one’s peace of mind or religious rest. Strange, indeed, that the clicking of the mower should have this effect. John Mathews was summoned to appear before Justice George A. Watson, at Ridgetown, Saturday, August 10. He refused to appear on that day, on the plea that Saturday was the day which he observed as the Sabbath, but left word for Justice Watson, who was not in, that he would appear on any other day at any hour he should name, and, moreover, that no further notification than a postal card would be necessary. On Tuesday, August 13, he had his trial. Only one of the witnesses examined testified that his religious feelings were disturbed; and he was some 50 rods away from the place where the work was being done, and could only see it by looking through a grove of trees. The accused was indicted for violating c. 189, sec. 1 of the Revised Statutes of Ontario. The law is entitled, “An act to prevent the profanation of the Lord’s day.” Sec. 1 reads as follows:— “It is not lawful for any merchant, tradesman, artificer, mechanic, workman, laborer, or other person whatsoever, on the Lord’s day, to sell . . . or to do or exercise any worldly labor, business, or work of his ordinary calling.”
The accused admitted that he had worked on Sunday, but denied that Sunday was the Lord’s day. He argued that God himself alone had the right to say which was his day, and that he had distinctly declared in the fourth commandment that his day was the seventh day of the week, not the first. Justice Watson was kind and considerate to the prisoner, but fined him $5.00 and costs, amounting in all to $20.65, or thirty days in the county jail. Mr. Mathews refused to pay the fine, as to do so would be to acknowledge the justice of a religious law. He submitted quietly to the constable, who led him off to jail. On the way the officer left Mr. Mathews at the home of some of his (Mathews) friends, whilst he went down town on business. He was asked if he was not afraid to leave his criminal—if he did not think there was danger of his running away? “Why, no,” was the reply, “I would trust that man anywhere; he is so honest that if he were told to go down to the jail alone, he would go and deliver himself up.” Strange criminal, forsooth, but stranger by far the age that will call so good a man a criminal! What else but woe can await a government which puts behind its prison bars its noblest subjects? While the constable was down town attending to his business, this criminal was seeking his God in prayer—not planning an escape, not cursing his fate, not berating the government which allowed such iniquity to be practiced in the name of justice, but pleading for divine grace and for the blessing of God upon his persecutors. What a travesty of justice is this whole thing! In his narrow cell sits this prisoner. The Bible, his companion of all his trials, is in his hand. His face brightens; his eye lights up with a holy joy as he sees those words penciled by the Holy Ghost, “All they that live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecutions.” As the writer looked at the barred windows and high stone walls, as he gazed on the grated gates, he thought how little need there would be of these if all prisoners were like John Mathews. The good people at Selton mourn his absence, and pray for his deliverance. And to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth daily ascend their prayers in behalf of their brother as being bound with him. Angels bear these prayers above and write them in the golden books. Some day those books will be opened, some day the Supreme Court of heaven will sit, and we know that “the Judge of all the earth will do right.” To that great Judge all men must give an account. By him each will be held responsible for his own deeds. These Adventists are not criminal characters. They are not malicious men and women. But when a law of the land conflicts with the law of God, they say with one of old, “We must obey God rather than man.”