p. 13 | OUR WORK AND WORKERS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 22, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 8.

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OUR WORK AND WORKERS.

By Editor

A CONTRACT has been let for building a church for the colored people at Cleburne, Texas.

FOUR converts to the truth at St. Charles, Mich., are reported in the Banner by Brother A. R. Sandborn.

WILL the party who sends our literature to Soldiers' Home, Cal., please send name and address to this office?

TWO NEW Sabbath-keepers are reported at Saginaw, Mich., as a result of Bible work by Sister F. G. Lane.

THE New York Conference has purchased a 200-acre tract of land in Cattaraugus County, on which to erect an industrial school.

A SERIES of meetings is now being conducted in a Presbyterian Church, by Brother H. Rorholm, in Denmark Township, Emmet County, Iowa.

TWELVE churches have been organized in the British field the past year—in North and South England, four each; in Scotland and Wales, two each.

THE newspapers of Sioux Falls, S. D., have recently been devoting an average of nearly two columns a day to reports of meetings held by Brother F. L. Perry.

AT the recent session of West Michigan Conference three new churches were added, as follows: Rothbury church, with nineteen members; Bangor, with twenty-three members; and Holton, with sixteen members.

A REPORT in the Southwestern Union Recorder, by Brother James Butka, notes the addition of eighteen converts to the church at Enid, O. T., under the labors of Sister Minnie Syp, beginning with the week of prayer.

IN the West Michigan Herald we note a list of fifty-four churches in that conference in which every family enjoys the weekly visits of our church paper, the Review. This is as it should be in every church. From such churches we naturally expect fruit in the line of missionary work with our other literature.

SPECIAL work among the Poles is to be inaugurated in Chicago, where there are said to be 100,000 of that nationality. The work will be under the auspices of Northern Illinois Conference. The work heretofore done for these people has been done by German laborers, but many of them understand only the Polish. The truth must go, not only to “every nation,” but to “every tongue and people.”

WE acknowledge receipt of a very handsome little catalog of excellent books, issued by the Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, D. C. It is good missionary work to circulate such documents. Have one sent to some person who you think would be interested. “A low class of literature begets a low class of humanity. Good literature will elevate the morale of any community.” The catalog is free.

UNDER the heading, “Rev. R. C. Porter Makes Some Startling Statements in Pulpit,” the Joplin (Mo.), Globe, of December 14, reported as follows:

That a state has no right to interfere with a person's religious rights or choosing was the basis upon which Rev. R. C. Porter, president of the Missouri Adventist Conference, addressed a congregation last night at the Adventist church. Rev. Porter held to the opinion that a man's duties in regard to religion were intended to be optional from the time of the command, “Whosoever will, may come.” The minister quoted these words, adding that Christ did not say, Whosoever won't come, make him; and dwelt at length upon the Sunday-closing law, holding that such law was in direct violation of the Constitution established by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, who left England because they could not worship God as they chose, but were hampered by religious legislation. Rev. Porter took the stand that if a man chose to run his business on the Sabbath, if it was a civil business, the civil law had no right to interfere, inasmuch as no crime had been committed. “If the merchant who transacts business on the Sabbath has committed a sin,” he said, “it is a sin against God, and it should be he and God for it. A government that tries to control a man's religious acts is no better than the government of Turkey, Russia, or any other country wherein the faith of the state is imposed, under penalty, on its subjects. When a state or individual seeks to compel a man to do any so-called religious act, it becomes tyrannical oppression, and results, not in good, but in much evil.”

And has it come to this, that such statements as these are “startling”? Such “startling statements” should be made and heard wherever agitation for Sunday enforcement appears. The following day the above report was published in the Carthage (Mo.) Press, under the heading, “Adventist Minister Says a State Has No Right to Meddle with Religion.”