SUNDAY-LAW PERSECUTION.
By J. B. Greenwood
A LETTER dated July 4, a day which suggests historic scenes that have caused much admiration for a country which has stood as the exponent of great and true principles of liberty, furnishes the following:— "My brother, George Vaughan, has been up before the mayor of Hickory for selling eatables on Sunday, and fined $25 and costs, and in the second case he was fined $5 and costs. He runs a restaurant there. He has taken appeal to a higher court. They put him in the lockup after he took the appeal, but he only remained about five minutes, for eight of the most prominent men of the town came in and went his bond, and told him they would see him through." Later the following information was received from the writer of the above:— "Brother's case came off yesterday, August 15, in the Catawba County Court. He was found guilty by the jury, and to-day the judge gave his decision. He suspended judgment. The cost of the case was 13 dollars, which was promptly paid by outsiders,—prominent men of Hickory." This circumstance occurred in North Carolina. Think of it! Here is a man whose vocation is to supply food to the public on demand; another man is in need of that food; but, because the day happens to be Sunday, it is felony to satisfy the hungry man! If one had said, fifty years ago, that the time would come when honest men would languish in prison cells and work in chain-gangs in this land by reason of the invocation of the civil power to coerce the conscience, he would have been considered an alarmist; but so far have the fundamental principles of this government been departed from, that this very thing has come to pass.9 The persecution of Mr. Vaughan is an effort to compel him to keep Sunday as a holy day. It is not an isolated case; there have been numerous others in various parts of the United States during the last decade. These events are significant in that they reveal to us that Revelation 13: 16, 17, will soon reach a complete fulfilment. Are you ready for the issue? Do you know the teaching of God's Word concerning these things?