A TENNESSEE COUNTY COURT.
According to the Dayton Leader of Rhea County, Tenn., the grand jury of that county, which lately closed its sittings, found 116 indictments, 20 of which were against Seventh-day Adventists for working on Sunday. Upon this the Leader, with much clearer insight than is manifest by many journals, remarks:— "These indictments which persecute people on account of their religion are the outcome of personal malice and not of any honest desire to see the sabbath day kept holy. Why, one of the leading spirits in these persecutions would not, of his own practical knowledge, recognize a religiously observed Sunday if he met it on the road. "Of course they burned witches at the stake in Massachusetts 100 years ago, and if the blue laws of our ancestors are to be revived in Rhea County, let us have no partiality in the malicious jamboree. If the Seventh-day Adventists are desolating the county because they do a few chores on Sunday, what about the 500 men who work for the Dayton Coal and Iron Company on the same sacred day? It is as much of a crime for one class of citizens to work on Sunday as it is for the other, but with this difference in favor of the Adventists—their religion does not recognize the sanctity of our sabbath. "Prosecuting Attorney Fletcher has instructed the clerk to issue no fee certificates to the man who is prosecuting the Adventists, and he has relinquished all his own fees on the indictments, which shows a commendable spirit. But the proper caper for Judge Parks and Attorney General Fletcher to do is to kick those indictments out of court, and put an end to the personal malice persecutions of some of the best citizens of Rhea County. Our courts ought not to be vehicles for gratifying private spite." It is stated that among those indicted are Professor Colcord and other teachers of Graysville Academy.