THE SUNDAY LAW COMING! by W. A. Blakely

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 10, 1887

THE SUNDAY LAW COMING!

By W. A. Blakely

(Concluded.)

WHAT ITS FRIENDS ARE ALREADY DOING.

SABBATARIANS have been indicted and arrested during the past year in Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Arkansas, for working on Sunday after having conscientiously observed the seventh day. In Tennessee a test case was carried to the Supreme Court, of the State, and the decision of the lower courts, fining the offenders, was sustained. The Nashville (Tenn.) Daily American of Oct. 19, 1886, says:—

"The readers of the American are aware that three of the members of the Seventh-day Adventists are lying in jail at Paris [Tenn.] for carrying out the principles of their faith concerning the Sabbath of the decalogue."

Another account says:—

"The trial of the cases was a mere farce. Fines and costs are imposed upon the defendants, which it will take them nearly six months to serve out in jail. Three of them go to jail under this sentence, two of them between sixty and sixty-five years of age. The place of their imprisonment is in Paris, Henry County."

The report from Worcester, Massachusetts, gives us the following:—

"The arrest of Albert Ware and G. W. Bailey for working last Sunday, is a matter of intense interest, and has caused the right to labor on the 'Lord's day' (Sunday) to be quite freely discussed here. They were arrested while quietly pursuing their usual vocations, following the example of the great apostle in laboring on the first day of the week. "At the same time the officers came to arrest these persons, a score or more of men were celebrating the Sunday by laying tracks for our street-cars on one of the principal thoroughfares of Worcester, and, furthermore, it was estimated that between four and five thousand of our good citizens were enjoying a gala day at Lake Quinsigamond. Why not arrest these railroad contractors and the pleasure seekers who make no pretense of keeping God's Sabbath? "The law on the statute-book of the commonwealth of Massachusetts reads thus: 'That all persons who conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week as a day of rest, shall be exempt from a fine imposed on those who violate the Sunday law or ordinance, providing they do not disturb or annoy their neighbors.' Yet the only witnesses brought against these persons were the officers who made the arrest."

In the Christian Cynosure of August 12, 1886, a writer says:—

"Two years ago a church of Seventh-day Adventists was raised up in this place (Springdale, Ark.). Last fall they erected a house of worship, and for painting, one Sunday, on the rear of the house, unseen from the road, Elder J. W. Scoles was indicted by the Grand Jury at Fayetteville, Washington County, Ark., tried, convicted, and fined by the Circuit Court. An appeal was taken, and the case is now pending the action of the Supreme Court of the State. [The Supreme Court has since sustained the decision of the Circuit Court.] James Poole, of the same county, a conscientious Sabbath-keeper, for pulling weeds in his garden on Sunday morning, was indicted by the Grand Jury and fined by the same court, though he had attended public worship in the forenoon and afternoon, four miles from his home. William Martin was indicted by the same jury for sowing oats, and tried before the Circuit Court, but the jury disagreed. J. M. Davis was indicted by the Grand Jury for 'harrowing oats on the Christian Sabbath, or Sunday,' and tried before the Circuit Court, but failing to sustain the charge, the court picked up a man who swore that he saw Mr. Davis hauling wood on Sunday, and without even an indictment for said offense, the court fined him and taxed him the costs. F. M. Elmore, for three minutes' labor on Sunday, was indicted, convicted, and fined in the Circuit Court of this county. The second arrest of J. A. Armstrong, of Springdale, was effected July 9, for digging potatoes on Sunday for the table. In four hours after his arrest he was on his way to jail at Fayetteville, where he was kept five days to commute the fine imposed upon him, which he refused to pay and thus honor an unjust law and a partial administration which oppressed the conscientious observers of the fourth commandment, while others who observed neither day were permitted to go unmolested. The railroad cars could rumble, and carry their heavy burdens, and the loud voice of the locomotive could be heard more than once every Sunday, and yet go unrebuked; the factory could ply its vocation and keep its servants at work every Sunday; the hotels could send their runners to each train soliciting patronage and collect their fees for labor performed on Sunday without a word of censure from the authorities; our citizens could drive their hogs to market; livery teams could be hired to pleasure-seekers and money exchanged for such service, and no one was disturbed enough to take cognizance of the matter, and report it to the Grand Jury; and when the jury was told of these breaches of the law, by a Sabbath-keeper who was summoned to testify against a brother, no notice was taken of them, while the brother was arrested and fined for wielding, quietly, a paint-brush, after he had conscientiously observed the day before as the Sabbath, according to the commandment of God. "Allen Meek, of Star of the West, Pike County, was indicted by the Grand Jury for planting potatoes on Sunday morning, on the testimony forced from a friend who was visiting him. While the case was pending in the

court he was cited to appear on Monday morning twenty-five miles distant. The road being rough, he was compelled to repair the break in his wagon on Sunday. He was again indicted and fined for that offense, on the testimony of a man who came to see him on business. The man who came on business could go home free after causing the arrest of the Sabbath-keeper. Others with whom I am personally acquainted in this same county, and whose names I could give, have also been arrested and fined in this same manner. "Anyone can see that it is not because the Sunday law is broken, or that these good and conscientious Sabbath-keepers make more noise or disturbance than others; but the strong arm of the law is the best argument that can be wielded against their faith and practice. However 'abhorrent to our Constitution such persecution' may appear to the editor of the Cynosure, we are now realizing its effects."

If such work is not persecution, and does not savor strongly of the Inquisition and the “Star Chamber,” then what does? When, under the penalty of the law, brother must testify against brother, and that, too, when he knows that his brother will be imprisoned for his faith, it is but a repetition of the “legal Christianity” of Rome for several hundred years, and worthy only of those to-day who, like the Catholics, must have the aid of human laws to uphold their human institutions. But this is only an introduction to the work. It is rapidly spreading in every part of the country. Yet history has proved, over and over again, that whenever the civil power legislates on religion, oppression and persecution are sure to follow.

The following extract from an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, on the trials of the Seventh-day Adventists in Arkansas, is to the point. After introducing the article by alluding to the success of the missionaries in the State, it says (italics mine):—

“They have been from the first apparently an industrious and God-fearing people, the chief difference between them and other Christian bodies being that they observe the seventh day as the Sabbath, according to the commandment. But it seems that sectionalism cannot lay down its arms even when the sacred precincts of religion are entered, so among the first things performed by the Legislature at its session last winter, less than a year after these people had come into the State, was the repeal of the clause which gave them the liberty to keep the day of their choice. This may be a part of the ‘reform’ connected with the new machine; but if so, it seems to be directed by a very bigoted spirit. “As the law now stands, all parties, irrespective of their religious belief, are compelled to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, and under this law three indictments were found against members of the above denomination, one of the cases being against Elder Scoles, one of their ministers, whose case is to be made the test in the Supreme Court as to the constitutionality of the recent act of the Legislature. It is a little singular that no one else has been troubled on account of the law, with perhaps one minor exception, while members of the above denomination are being arrested over the whole State. It savors just a trifle of the religious persecution which characterized the Dark Ages. A minister of the gospel pleading in a court of justice, with the open Bible in his hand, for the liberty to keep God’s commands is a strange sight in this country; but, according to the rulings of the court in this case, a man has no rights of conscience outside of the dictation of the law. If this be the case, and if our law-makers are to control the religious opinions of their constituents, there is no telling what we may yet see in the way of enforcing their peculiar creeds and dogmas. Much interest is manifested here over this matter, and a decision from the higher courts is anxiously looked for.”

Yet every individual, even their opponents, cannot but admit that these persons have at least the letter of the commandment of God; and because they take the plain word of God in Ex. 20:8–11, they are brought before the court of man, as Christ, Paul, and other martyrs were, and condemned. Can anyone in the face of all this believe that there is no danger of persecution; that the Sunday law is all nonsense—as has been said over and over again? With all of this evidence those who cannot see must be in the same condition as were the Jews:— “For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” Acts 28:27. W. A. BLAKELY.