THE "INDEPENDENT" HAS SPOKEN.
By Editor
Last week we laid before our readers just what the New York Observer had to say of the prosecution and persecution of Sabbath keepers. The Independent has also spoken. In its issue of January 4 it has the following note:— "The Signs of the Times, a Seventh-day Adventist paper, wants to know what we think of the fact that three men should now be lying in jail in the commonwealth of Maryland for 'doing bodily labor on Sunday' in obedience to the dictates of their own conscience and their religious faith—one of them having been discovered plowing in his own field, a second setting out tomato plants in his own garden, and the third chopping wood at his own door. We answer that if it be true, as our contemporary tells us, that these were men who conscientiously observed the seventh day as their Sabbath, and who, in doing this work, disturbed nobody else, and were discovered at it only by persons spying out for the purpose of inquisition, then it is an outrageous injustice, an offense against freedom of worship, and ought not to be allowed by the laws of a reputable State." The Independent has been noted in the past for its love of fairness and justice. But those who read the signs of the times aright, and have carefully observed its course for some years, can readily perceive that its utterances have not been so outspoken against the rapidly increasing evidences of the union of Church and State as formerly. But from the influence it wields the above little note is worthy of consideration. "If," says our esteemed contemporary, "it be true . . . that these were men who conscientiously observed the seventh-day as their Sabbath, and who in doing this work disturbed nobody else, and [if they] were discovered at it only by persons spying out for the purpose of inquisition,"—if all these things were so,—"then it is an outrageous injustice, an offense against freedom of worship, and ought not to be allowed by the laws of any reputable State." But if the Independent had only taken the pains to ascertain the truth of these things, involving such important and far-reaching principles, as it has to find out certain rumors concerning Roman Catholicism, it would have known that the above statements were true. For proof apart from our statements, which the Independent seems to think are unworthy of credence, we refer to the organ of Cardinal Gibbons and the Roman Catholic Church, the Catholic Mirror, of January 13, from which we have liberally quoted elsewhere, testimony which our contemporary has shown itself willing to accept in the past. These things being true they are indeed "outrageous," and so far so good. We are glad that this great "Protestant" journal can say thus much. But even though these men had not "conscientiously observed the seventh day," is it not still "outrageous injustice"? What earthly tribunal has the RIGHT to make inquisition as to their conscience? What RIGHT have Sunday keepers religiously, morally, or civilly to compel those who observe the seventh day to refrain from labor on the first day? What RIGHT has any civil authority to arrest men who are performing any work on Sunday which is legitimate on any other day? Civil government may make of Sunday a legal holiday, but it has no right to go one iota beyond that. The only reason why labor is forbidden on that day is in deference to the religious ideas of those who may happen to be in a majority; but what more RIGHT have Sunday keepers to demand that all shall observe Sunday than Sabbath keepers have to demand that all shall observe the seventh day? What more RIGHT have Sunday keepers to sit in judgment on the "conscientiousness" of seventh-day observers than have seventh-day or no-day observers to sit in judgment on the "conscientiousness" of Sunday keepers? True, seventh-day observers may be in the minority, but how do, or how can, preponderance of numbers affect the right or wrong of the question? Are these Sunday-law prosecutions just? Are they generous? Are they Christian?