p. 45 | THE SPIRIT OF IT by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 2, 1877

THE SPIRIT OF IT.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

A FRIEND was on the cars circulating some tracts. He handed a Sabbath tract to an aged man, of intelligent appearance, who read it and then addressed the tract distributor in very strong language, declaring that if he had his way he would have every one imprisoned who tried to stir up the minds of the people by circulating such works. Learning his name I recognized the man as an ex-governor of a State, a vice-president of the Religious Amendment Association, and a zealous friend of that cause.

Another worker in that cause, a prominent man and a D. D., ranked all opposers of the Religious Amendment, including those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath, under the head of the atheists, whom he would treat as he would treat lunatics: let them alone as long as they kept out of the way, but confine them, if they became troublesome, where they could not disturb the peace of their neighbors!

The Christian Statesman has always insisted that there is no possibility of persecution in this amendment movement, and even blamed Seventh-day Adventists for not working in its favor, counting it a great religious reform. If the Statesman is honest in these assertions, and we do not say it is not, it is because it is altogether blinded to the spirit of the work they are advocating. Every religious persecution was professedly for religious reform; every “auto-da-fé” was for the glory of God; and the pope of Rome gave public thanks for the triumph of Christianity on that memorable St. Bartholomew’s day! All the lessons of history teach us to beware of this movement; prophecies of the future show us how men will yet be deceived in their professions. “Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified; but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.” Isa. 66:5.

J. H. WAGGONER.