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Review and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 21.

Have You Done Your Part?

Review and Herald

May 21, 1908

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1908

Have You Done Your Part?

By Editor

Last summer we issued a little souvenir booklet of our work in the West Indies, entitled, “Our Message in the Sunny Caribbean.” Elder George F. Enoch, who prepared the subject-matter, was a missionary to this field for a number of years, and very graphically portrays the struggles of those who devoted their lives to the work.
The story forms one of the most interesting missionary biographies we have ever read. The illustrations are superb. Eleven of them are full-page (5 x 7 inches), tropical scenes, street-scenes in the islands, palm-thatched houses, and quaint looking natives. Besides these there are many more smaller illustrations showing our small churches and schools already established.
You may have a part in building up this work by simply sending twenty-five cents for a copy of this booklet. The entire proceeds from the sale of this book go for the establishing of a mission printing-office in this needy field. Possibly you could use more than one copy.

The Year Book for 1908

We still have a good supply of the new “Year Book for 1908” on hand. Those who have not secured a copy should order at once. You could not invest twenty-five cents to better advantage.
The new maps, which have been added this year, make it doubly valuable; for they show the boundary-lines of each local and union conference and mission field. The headquarters of the conferences and the location of each institution, whether sanitarium, school, or publishing house, are also marked.
The tables of statistics concerning our institutional work are full and complete.
The directories are another feature that should not be overlooked.
To those who are studying the progress of the third angel’s message the “Year Book” is a real inspiration. Compare it with last year’s issue, and see the rapid strides the work has made.
Price, post-paid, only ............ $.25

Just Saw the Proofs

The electrotyping on the new edition of “Steps to Christ” was done by a firm in Baltimore. One of the workmen became so interested in the book from the proofs which passed through his hands that he wrote to this office to find out where he could purchase the complete book.
“Steps to Christ” is just the book to help you in presenting the truth to your friends and neighbors. It brings the simple gospel story “close home” to every one who reads it. One is taken step by step through the whole Christian experience from the need of a Saviour to rejoicing in the Lord. It meets the needs of all classes.
Sixty-one beautiful illustrations help to impress upon the mind the lessons of the text.
The Scriptural Index and General Index, which have been added to the new edition, will make it a valuable text-book.
Full cloth, stamped in two colors....$.50 Paper .................................. .25

Conference Laborers’ Record

Washington, the nation’s statesman, was enabled to perform a great amount of business because he was thorough in preserving order and regularity.”
It is necessary for every conference laborer to have, in some convenient form, a record of his work. To meet this demand we have just prepared the “Conference Laborers’ Record.” Every worker will want a copy of this book in which to keep a permanent record of his work. It will make the task of preparing a monthly, quarterly, or annual report a very simple matter.
The book is intended to last one year. The first part is devoted to the monthly record, one space for each day. This is followed by two pages for the annual summary. A section is then left for a cash account, and the balance of the book is ruled with spaces for appointments, addresses, and committees.
Substantially bound. Size 4¼ x 6¾ inches.
Price, post-paid .................... $.50
Address any tract society or publishing house, or
REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSN. Battle Creek, Mich.             Washington, D. C.             New York City

Moral Cleanliness in the Closing Message

WHILE strength of conviction, of faith, and of purpose are indispensable in the successful proclamation of the closing message, there is another characteristic also that must be possessed—“Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” Without moral cleanliness, the messenger dishonors the Author of the message, and brings the message itself into disrepute. Of that triumphant band on whose forehead is to be written the Father's name, it is declared that they are free from defilement; that “in their mouth was found no lie: they are without blemish.” Because of this characteristic they are permitted to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” The Prince of peace can not fellowship discord. The King of righteousness can not fellowship iniquity, nor use the purveyor of iniquity in promulgating the true gospel of salvation. The whole law of God must be written in the heart by the finger of its Author, and its principles must shine out undimmed in the life. The peace of heaven is for those alone who are in harmony with heaven’s rule of conduct. It will be true in the experience of every saved soul that “righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

An Interpretation of the Sabbath-School Lessons

THE general purpose of the present series of Sabbath-school lessons is to show that the vital principle of the gospel is righteousness by faith, and that this phase of truth has been emphasized in every great movement in the historical development of the gospel. In the light of this fact, it will be evident that this great second advent movement is not isolated from past movements in defense of gospel truth, but on the contrary is closely allied with them.
In the first lesson of this series, the fundamental truth of the gospel was shown to be righteousness by faith. In the very definition of the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation,” it is made clear that this vital principle is the righteousness of God, and that this righteousness is bestowed upon every one who believes. The gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. . . . For therein is revealed a righteousness of God.” Through the provisions of the gospel the gift of righteousness is offered to every one, and is received by believing. To proclaim this is to proclaim the gospel.
As men have lost sight of this truth, and have thus apostatized from God, there have been at different times great reformatory movements for the purpose of restoring it to the people. Only ten generations from the time of the creation, evil had so increased that “Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6: 5); but a message of salvation was sent through Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” who sought to lead men to the acceptance of the proffered gift of righteousness in view of the overwhelming disaster which was to be visited upon all the earth. The only way of salvation from the impending destruction was to be found in that faith in God which would be revealed in obedience. But the gospel truth as then taught was diametrically opposed to the theories of the science of that day as well as to the conclusions of a human philosophy. That the earth should be overwhelmed by a flood of water was just as incredible in those days as that it will be consumed by fire in these days; but the faith which takes God at his word, regardless of appearances, was manifested in building the ark, through which Noah “condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
The call of Abraham was another step in the development of the gospel truth of righteousness by faith. Abraham “believed in Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness;” “to Abraham his faith was reckoned for righteousness;” “they that are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham;” and “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law: . . . that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Abraham’s implicit obedience to the commands of God, growing out of an unwavering faith that what God had promised he was able also to perform, was shown in forsaking all earthly possessions and all earthly connections for that which rested solely upon the promise of God. This was the obedience of that faith which was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
There is the very closest connection between the promise to Abraham and the faith of Abraham and the experience of our own time. The time of the promise now draws near, and the faith which is reckoned for righteousness is that which will insure the promised inheritance, the new earth. The present gospel invitation to forsake all for Christ, and to yield obedience to all the commandments of God through that faith which lays hold upon the righteousness of Christ, is the call of Abraham renewed to this generation, in view of the factthat “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.”
The deliverance from Egypt is a great object-lesson of the experience of salvation from sin through faith in the saving power of God,—the power of righteousness. In the historical record there is no mention of faith, but in the interpretation of this experience, as given in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we learn that it was all of faith. In the rigorous bondage of the children of Israel was set forth the bondage of sin. In the failure of Moses to accomplish their deliverance by smiting the Egyptian, was taught the lesson that human power is not able to deliver man from the power of sin. In the miracles wrought by the hand of Moses and Aaron, the fact was set forth that salvation is only by the mighty power of God. In the faith manifested by Moses and his people, the great truth of salvation by faith was made known, and thus the gospel of righteousness by faith, of deliverance only through the power of God, was taught; and the same vital truth is the very essence of the threefold gospel message which is to be proclaimed in this generation as the only sufficient means of deliverance from the bondage of sin.
The call out of ancient Babylon was typical of the final call out of modern Babylon. The whole history of ancient Babylon, from its foundation to its final overthrow, is an unbroken record of self-exaltation, of that pride in one’s own resources which leads to the refusal of all help from without, and trusts to the power within, and to the substitution of righteousness by works for righteousness by faith. In modern Babylon the same principles are exemplified, and the final call is, “Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues: for her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” The third angel’s message announces the fall of Babylon, and proclaims the gospel of righteousness by faith as the only way of salvation from her ruin. As in the olden time, the people were called upon to forsake the outward glory of Babylon, her luxury and her religion, so gratifying to that pride which rejoices in its own attainments, to unite in a movement which outwardly promised little but self-denial and hardship, but which under the blessing of God meant the restoration of the true service of God in the hearts of the people, so the same experience is to be repeated to-day. Not only from the world, with all its allurements, but also from an apostate church, which has become so conformed to the world that under the cloak of religion it permits the gratification of worldly desires and ambitions, this threefold message calls upon a people to separate themselves, and to give themselves wholly to the true worship and service of God. So closely is the experience of the restoration from ancient Babylon and the rebuilding of Jerusalem connected with the gospel experience in this last generation when Babylon is soon to fall to rise no more.
At the time of the first advent of Christ the people had lapsed from the essential truths of the gospel, and were trusting in the merits of their own works, and in those outward ceremonies which were intended to be the expression of an inward faith. The temple and its services had been prostituted into an excuse for sin, and a genuine heart service was the experience of only the few. Again it was necessary to present to the people the true principles of the gospel of righteousness by faith, and this was the work of John the Baptist. In this time, just before the second advent of Christ, the same experience is repeated, and the same message of preparation must again be given. The work of John the Baptist was a direct type of the work to be accomplished in this generation, and this threefold message is an application to the special circumstances of this day of the very same gospel truth which was the burden of the message of John the Baptist, “All flesh is grass. . . . Behold your God.” Such a message, proclaimed “in demonstration of the spirit and of power,” will lead men to have no confidence in the flesh, and to trust for salvation only in the righteousness of him who is both Son of man and Son of God, our great High Priest.
In the Reformation of the sixteenth century the great truth of righteousness by faith, as opposed to righteousness by works, was again restored to the people. The full light of the gospel was not permitted to shine at that time, and not all errors were discarded; but principles were enunciated which, when followed to their logical conclusion, would lead into the very truths which constitute the heart and soul of this threefold message. Luther and his associates were the forerunners of those who are to proclaim with a loud cry the truths of the gospel in all their fulness as the final work in preparation for the coming of the Lord. Their work emphasized the one great vital principle. This message applies that principle to all phases of the gospel, revealing all the perversions of past centuries and restoring original truths. The Reformation of the sixteenth century is repeated in the great second advent movement, with added light and power, and the work is thus accomplished which will bring the great controversy to its final crisis.
From this brief outline of the great reformatory movements in the development of the gospel, it is clear that the one vital principle, reiterated under varying circumstances and applied to the peculiar needs of each time, is the great truth that deliverance from sin is wrought through faith in God, and that the righteousness of God is imparted as a free gift to those who believe. In this closing work of the gospel, all the lessons of the past are gathered up and applied; all the light of the past is focused; and the great truth of righteousness by faith is to be taught with a clearness and with a power hitherto unparalleled. Only such a presentation of the gospel can prepare the way for the second advent of Christ, and leave the unsaved world without excuse. The study of the present series of Sabbath-school lessons ought to make this clear to all.

Editorial

By Editor

God calls for the strong to-day—strong in “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.” These must constitute God’s working force in the culmination of his great undertaking. It is not strength of personality or strength of self-assertiveness that is needed, but strength of conviction and of faith in God and his last great message. Such messengers will speak as from God; and, speaking thus, will command the attention of men and compel decisions. His messengers, bearing his last message, have a right to speak as from the very throne of God; and still they must speak as brother to brother, with a sympathy that will lay hold of human hearts, and draw as with the very power of God. The half-hearted, the weakling, the questioner, can not do this; but there is ability in God to make the humblest a power. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Away Beyond

By W. A. S.

With progress in Turkestan, north of Afghanistan, news of Sabbath-keepers near Semipalatinsk and Omsk, Siberia, and of others scattered along the Chinese frontier of Siberia eastward, it is not presumption to look hopefully toward even Chinese Turkestan and Mongolia.
In fact, we hear of some Kirghiz Tartars, in south Siberia, who are interested in this advent message. That the Lord is preparing the way for the speedy evangelization of the very innermost recesses of the vast Asiatic continent, is evident from the manner in which these lands, so long unentered by the missionary, are now being opened up.
The agents of the Bible Society, those advance couriers of light in every dark region, are now pushing across Mongolia toward the northern borders of Tibet. A Mr. Larson, with six camels, two horses, and native men to accompany him, is in the hitherto unentered regions of Mongolia, with eight thousand volumes of the Scriptures in the Mongolian and Tibetan tongues. He is to be out two years, selling the Scriptures. This is the way fields are prepared for the evangelist. In the first part of his trip in Mongolia, he sold so many books that a fresh supply had to be sent on for his further journey beyond all reach of supplies.
Another Bible Society agent, a Mr. Döring, last year penetrated the Gobi desert, and made his way to the capital of Chinese Turkestan. He found there a copy of the book of Acts in the Mandarin Chinese:— The little book hung by a string from a nail in the one room of the humble home. The original cover had been replaced by a new one, on which the title had been rewritten. The smoke of the small mud hearth near the K’ang had toned the outside of the book to a gray-black like the color of the wall on which it hung. The inside of it gave evidenceof having been much read; here and there pages that had been rent were patched carefully. For seven years it had been a well from which Wang had drawn the water of life.
Unless we stop to think of it, and to dwell upon the meaning of all these activities in our time, we shall fail to understand one way in which the Lord is cutting the work short. Out in the regions beyond, away beyond our knowledge and keenest sight, his providence is opening ways, and agencies of his creating are casting in the seeds of truth to prepare for a sudden harvest as the latter rain falls in its fulness.
The Seventh-day Adventist to-day who is not devoting every resource, and bending every energy, and managing all his business, for the hastening on of this third angel’s message, is in peril of his soul; for if the Master to-day called him to account for his talents, given of God, he would be without excuse. The light is breaking over all the earth, and we must be children of the light.
W. A. S.

Contrasts and Counterfeits

By C. M. S.

— No. 7

We have seen from step to step in these studies the deliberate unfoldment of a systematic attack upon God’s purpose and God’s law, the ten commandments. That law furnished the pivotal point in the controversy, and we can follow the attack down through the law from the first command to the last.
Satan’s first move in this world was against the veracity of the Lawgiver, a positive contradiction of the Creator’s plain declaration. The archenemy sought, by discrediting the truthfulness of the Lawgiver, to bring the law itself into disrepute, and so encourage the breaking of its several precepts. “Ye shall not surely die,” was designed to stimulate distrust of the Lawgiver. “Ye shall be as God,” was a deliberate attack upon the first precept of the decalogue, which said: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” But it did not stop here. As men listened to the words of Satan, and refused to heed the prohibition of the Lawgiver in that precept, the inevitable result was the breaking of the second and third precepts. With that first commandment discredited and broken, there would be nothing to prevent the making of graven images, or the bowing down to them, or the taking in vain of the name of the Creator.
All that has been accomplished in all portions of the earth. Men have been taught and are now being taught that they are “essentially divine,” “the highest expression of divinity,” and worthy of their own worship. Whenever men so educated and so believing take the name of God upon their lips, they necessarily take that name in vain; for, denying to God the sole possession of the attributes which are his alone, they have made it impossible for him to do anything for them in carrying out his purpose concerning them; and claiming to have within themselves the attributes which he alone possesses, they are unable to sense their great need of divine assistance in the perfection of a righteous character. If we had no other proof of the existence of the law of God in Eden, the logic of Satan’s systematic attack upon God’s purpose in this earth would establish the fact of the existence of God’s law from creation down. But “death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Death is the fruitage of sin; and “sin is not imputed where there is no law.” So both the law and the attempt to subvert it are at least as old as Adam.
We may take all the remaining precepts of the decalogue, and we find on the part of the kingdom of darkness the same opposition directed against them. There is no one of those precepts but finds something in the unconverted human heart fighting against it. For instance, the law commands the keeping holy of the Sabbath day and designates the day. The kingdom of darkness seeks to eradicate the command entirely from the minds and hearts of men, or, where that is impracticable, to put in its place a counterfeit institution, thus drawing the minds of men away from what the Sabbath stands for, and so robbing men of the blessings attendant upon true Sabbath-keeping.
“Honor thy father and thy mother,” says the law. Satan, who honored not his Father, is out of harmony with this; and so wherever his kingdom rules in the hearts of men, parents are dishonored, and sad hearts are burdened with the grief of this terrible wrong.
“Thou shalt not kill,” says the law; and wherever that command is broken, it is broken because of Satan’s warfare against God. He who caused war in heaven has introduced it into the earth also. “Thou shalt not kill,” says the law. “Thou shalt kill — thou must kill,” says war; and though it may not be literally true that “war is hell,” it is true that it is the invention of him who made necessary whatever hell there ever will be.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” says the law; but there is probably no precept of the decalogue whose disregard is sweeping so large a number over the brink of ruin. That precept has been systematically assailed from the beginning. Where the carnality of the human heart was not enough to satisfy the enemy of souls, that counterfeit of God’s marriage institution — polygamy — was invented. Then followed polyandry and the other travesties on marriage heretofore mentioned, reaching down into lower and still lower depths, till the crowning product of God’s creative acts was brought lower than the creatures over which God set him.
And so has it been to the end of the list. Did God forbid false witness? Satan has filled the world with falsehood — against neighbor, against friend and foe, against God and against his purpose for man. Did God forbid stealing and coveting? Satan has set himself against that precept until the world looks upon coveting as no sin, and stealing has been made a system and a science, through which massive fortunes have been built up to weigh down the souls of men and smother conscience.
The inheritance of disobedience has put within the human breast a law of enmity with the law of God, and made necessary the reconciliation which the Redeemer came into the world to effect. That law which disobedience had established in our nature alienated us “from the commonwealth of Israel,” made us “strangers from the covenants of the promise,” leaving us with “no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ.” Eph. 2:12, 13. “In due season Christ died for the ungodly.” Rom. 5:6. Knowing with whom we have to deal, is it surprising that our Creator’s purpose thus to heal the breach between man and his Maker should be bitterly attacked by the one who caused that breach? Man’s yielding to Satan’s suggestions put him outside the purpose of God, and the law set up in man’s nature was designed to keep him there. The reconciliation planned by the Creator would bring him back. Therefore there has been invented a system of doctrine teaching that man has not fallen, and is, therefore, in no need of a Redeemer. Thus with masterful subtlety the enemy of all righteousness carries on his campaign against God’s law and his purpose concerning man.
C. M. S.

“National Sanctification”

At the opening of the new Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Loretto, Brooklyn, on a recent Sunday, Mgr. P. F. O’Hare, of the Church of St. Anthony, Brooklyn, preached the sermon, which was reported in the Catholic Mirror. There are some utterances in this sermon which are worthy of attention, as setting forth in a somewhat authoritative manner the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church upon the proper relation between the church and the state.
After declaring that “the primary object of the church is undoubtedly to save each individual in the human family from the wrath to come,” but that when God unfolds the plan of divine redemption, “he deals not with individuals, but with the nations of the earth,” Mgr. O’Hare proceeds to define, from the Roman Catholic standpoint, the position which the church occupies in this divine plan, and says:—
It was ever the design of God to teach the nations of the earth, through the church, what the prophet emphasizes in my text,—the lesson, “I am the Lord,”—and the nations which submitted to the church, and the governments which did not dispute her greater sovereignty, became the powerful empires and kingdoms of the world. . . . Those docile nations received their strength and power and support from the church, whose protector in turn they were.
For a thousand years and more the church carried out most successfully and maintained the sovereignty of God as supreme above all earthly power. But in the sixteenth century, when a new calamity swept over Christendom, it was again the governments’ envy of God’s sovereignty; and by their aid and manipulation, that a fearful and blighting heresy was able to maintain itself, and a large portion of Christendom was led into apostasy. Up to that time the nations disputed God’s sovereignty as expressed in Catholic Christianity in practise only, for the principle was too firmly established. The governments that made war upon the church had to invent some excuse to hide their real motive, and ostensibly they alleged the principle against which they were fighting. Since that time, however, the very principle was openly spurned and denied. Rebellion against the church became a dogma of civil authority, and the aim of subjugating her to civil power was openly and shamelessly proclaimed. The new goddess of liberty, “the sovereignty of the people,” with an extinguished light in her hand, was proclaimed “the queen of the world;” and while the people were enticed by her coquettish ways to worship at her shrines, the rulers forged the chains for the victims which they were to lead away captives. The children of this new goddess have settled in every land under assumed names. It is the name of “liberalism” in one country and “social democracy” in another; the “rights of man” in one land and so-called “natural laws” in another; but always working for the same end; namely, the sovereignty of the people as against the sovereignty of God and his laws. . . .
Unfortunately most of the nations today are in open rebellion against God and his church, and as a consequence we behold on all sides the sad spectacle of the fountains of legislation corrupted, the judiciary debauched, and government made an instrument to register the fatal doctrine of the old Greek sophists, that “might makes right.” Needless to say that the immoral and destructive theories of twentieth-century outlaws,—theories that attack church and state, religion and social order,—must not prevail in America if she is to continue to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; nor shall they prevail if the Catholic body in this fair land unite in proclaiming on all sides, and manifesting in their daily life, the saving and energizing principle of God’s sovereignty and God’s rights over mankind. . . .
The modern catch-words, “separation of church and state,” and “no mixing of religion in politics,” have seduced us; and we have forgotten the lesson of history, that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that it is our mission to teach it. . . . Our duty as citizens, and love of country, make it incumbent upon us to participate in public affairs, to help carry out the administration of government, and while thus engaged, to teach the nation the lesson of national sanctification.
The positions here taken are in harmony with the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, and indicate with the utmost plainness that the history of the Middle Ages would be the history of every nation, America not excepted, if the Roman Catholic Church were in the position to apply her doctrine of the relation of the church to civil governments. And with these facts constantly forced upon their attention, it is astonishing that professed Protestants who claim to believe in the separation of church and state should be willing to join hands with Roman Catholics to secure the enactment of such religious legislation as is a long step toward the adoption of the Roman Catholic program.
The views and expectations of Roman Catholics as to the place which their church is to occupy in the future history of America, may be learned from the following paragraph, taken from the same sermon:—
The Catholic Church has certainly gained a firm hold in this country. But how much does the nation know in her organized capacity of the hidden treasures which this “sanctuary of the Lord,” this great invisible Church of ours, contains for her? How far has the nation learned that the Catholic Church is indispensable to her future maintenance and greatness? Has the nation at large learned that the great problems which agitate her from time to time can find their solution in the Catholic Church? Has the jurisprudence in the United States ever felt the directing power of her in whose sanctuary the laws of antiquity were carefully preserved, and who permeated with her spirit the laws of the most civilized peoples of the world? Can we not find courage enough to undertake the task of impressing ourselves on this nation, and tell her what is clearly indicated in the words of my text [Eze. 37:28]; namely, the true source of authority, the sovereignty of Almighty God?
The Reformation of the sixteenth century was “a new calamity,” “a fearful and blighting heresy,” through which “a large portion of Christendom was led into apostasy;” but the principles then taught concerning both religion and civil government have been more fully adopted in America than in any other country. What, then, will become of “the sovereignty of the people,” and of the “rights of man,” and of the “separation of church and state,” if the Roman Catholic Church is successful in its effort to impress itself on this nation, and “to teach the nation the lesson of national sanctification,” or of the subserviency of the state to the behests of that church? The history of every priest-ridden country is the answer to this question.
We grant the right of Mgr. O’Hare to preach these doctrines, but we shall do all we can to prevent the people from accepting them.

The Exemption Clause Fallacy

In the Sunday Observance Act of the Quebec Legislature, there is an exemption clause which provides that any one “who habitually and conscientiously observes the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath day, and actually abstains from work on that day, shall not be punished for having worked on the first day of the week, if such work do not disturb other persons in the observance of the first day of the week as a holy day.” An observer of the seventh day was recently arrested at South Stukely, P. Q., charged with having performed work on Sunday contrary to law, and the case was tried at Waterloo, P. Q., before Judge Mulvena. During the trial one of the witnesses, a Roman Catholic, testified that he was “spiritually disturbed” by the defendant in the performance of his work, and another testified that the work caused him “mental annoyance.” In the decision Judge Mulvena said:—
The whole question, to my mind, turns on the meaning to be given to the word “disturb.” One of the witnesses for the prosecution swears that the work carried on by the defendant on Sundays disturbed him “spiritually.” Another swears that it caused him “mental annoyance.” Others that it did not bother them at all. I can not see that the context of clause six allows any other meaning to be put upon the word “disturb” than is the obvious every-day meaning. It must necessarily mean material disturbance,—the hindering of or interfering with other people in the discharge of their religious duties, by noise, or some other tangible interference, and in the present case there is no proof whatever of anything of that kind.
This case emphasizes two things: first, that even a clear and comprehensive exemption clause does not prevent any person from being arrested and subjected to the expense of trial for an alleged violation of the Sunday law. Second, that those who prosecute alleged violators of the Sunday law are often afflicted with mental dishonesty, and do not hesitate to give to ordinary words a new and unusual meaning in order, if possible, to secure conviction. In this particular case, the presiding judge would not permit the law to be interpreted contrary to its obvious meaning, and the complaint was dismissed.
The exemption clause which has beeninserted in one of the proposed Sunday laws for the District of Columbia is the same in effect as the one in the Sunday Observance Act of the Quebec Legislature; and if the bill should become a law, even those who are expressly exempted from the provisions of this act, are still liable to arrest and trial.
This experience in Canada shows the use which religious bigotry can make of legislation designed to enforce a religious observance in persecuting even those who are plainly exempt from the penalties of the law. A Sunday law is always an infringement upon religious liberty.

Note and Comment

The Open Door

A WORLD-EVANGELIZATION movement has been started in Australia on the basis of co-operative association rather than organic unity. This movement “for the more effective evangelization of the world” grows out of the declared fact “that an open door lies waiting throughout the whole world for the entrance of the church with the gospel.” This is one more call for the advent message to all the world in this generation.
Continue reading: The Ten-Cent-a-Week Plan for Missions