THE following editorial article, under the above head, from the Woodland (Cal.) Daily Democrat, the editor of which we understand is a Roman Catholic, speaks for itself. Its principles have a genuine American (old-time) ring:—
A day or so ago we made reference to the coming to this country of Dr. Ahlwardt, the Jew baiter, at the same time deprecating the attempts he will make to arouse race prejudices and stir up religious intolerances.
In a country like ours, and a day and age so enlightened, it is inexplicable that an attempt to interfere with religious freedom should make any headway.
Our forefathers came to this country to escape from the hate, tyranny, and persecution of religious bigotry. It is astounding that their descendants will permit persecution for no other offense than that people claim the right to worship God in their own way.
The Jews are not the only victims of the spirit of intolerance and bigotry that seems to be gaining ground all over the United States. There are states in the Union where Seventh-day Adventists are thrown into prison and subjected to all manner of insults, humiliations, and inconveniences because they choose to observe the Mosaic Sabbath as a day of rest and to work on the first day of the week.
Even in localities where such puritanical laws are enforced, it is not pretended that the Adventists are not quiet, unostentatious, orderly, sober, and industrious. It is not even denied that they refrain from all kinds of unnecessary secular labor on the seventh day, and keep it sacred to religious duties and divine worship.
To imprison them under such circumstances is nothing short of punishment for conscience’s sake, and that is abhorrent to the principles of religious freedom upon which our form of government is founded.
There are many well-meaning people who hold that the Adventists have nobody to blame but themselves. They contend that it is the law of the land and should be enforced, and if Adventists do not like it, they have the privilege of going where such laws do not prevail. It may be the law of states, but it is law without constitutional authority, for our organic law guarantees to every man, woman, and child the right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience.
Let us suppose that the Adventists were numerically strong enough to enact laws forbidding secular9labor on Saturday. There is not a Christian in the United States who would not protest that such laws would be tyrannical, intolerant, unjust, fit only for criminals, and degrading to citizens of a free country.
It is absurd to present the alternative of observing such puritanical laws or removing to a country where there is more respect for civil and religious liberty. These people settle here, raise families, and build homes for themselves under a constitutional guarantee that they will have the liberty of worshiping God in whatever manner they choose. That they are in a minority is no reason why they should be denied that right.
If they were vicious, disorderly, malicious, or defiant in their violation of state laws that try to control their conscience, there might be some show of reason for such intolerance. In all other respects they are law-abiding, peaceable, industrious, moral, and order-loving people, and any law which will throw them into prison for an honest difference of opinion concerning which is the proper day to observe as a day of rest, is but little less than a relic of medieval barbarism.
These strictures apply with equal force to all other forms of bigotry and religious persecution and intolerance.
IS HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF?
By W. N. G.
Since a prominent National Reform lecturer has seen fit to eulogize the church and state legislation of Constantine’s time, and a prominent National Reform organ deems such eulogy worthy of publication, it seems opportune to note a few points pertaining to the formal union of the church with this noted emperor’s government. Constantine, altho professing Christianity, delayed the ceremony of baptism until he realized that he was on his death-bed. Gibbons says of this action of the emperor:—
The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism. Future tyrants were encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue.—History of Christianity, p. 320.
Some of the effects of such a union are thus graphically portrayed:—
The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding the title of “equal to the apostles.” . . . By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity, and its active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation by every argument which could affect the reason or piety of mankind. The exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and the piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered that the profession of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the present as well as of a future life. The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities, which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular donations; and the new capital of the east gloried in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols. As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that in one year twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children; and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert.—Ib., pp. 320–322.
Eusebius, the emperor’s friend and apologist, gives this item in his praise:—
A statute was also passed enjoining the due observance of the Lord’s day, and transmitted to the governors of every province, who undertook, at his command, to respect the days commemorative of martyrs, and duly to honor the festivals of the church; and all these intentions were fulfilled to the emperor’s entire satisfaction.—Life of Constantine, p. 198.
The same authority also tells of the emperor’s claim as a bishop:—
It was not without reason that once, on the occasion of his entertaining a company of bishops, he let fall the expression that he himself too was a bishop, addressing them in my hearing in the following words: “You are bishops whose jurisdiction is within the church: I also am a bishop, ordained by God to overlook whatever is external to the church.” And truly his measures corresponded with his words; for he watched over his subjects with an episcopal care, and exhorted them as far as in him lay to follow a godly life.
A specimen of his “episcopal care” is given by Rev. Robert Taylor, as quoted in a marginal note, Gibbon’s “History of Christianity,” p. 317:—
1. Constantine the puissant, the mighty and noble emperor, unto the bishops, pastors, and people wheresoever. Moreover, we thought good that if there can be found extant any work or book compiled by Arius, the same should be burned to ashes, so that not only his damnable doctrine may thereby be wholly rooted out, but also that no relic thereof may remain unto posterity. This also we straitly command and charge, that if any man be found to hide or conceal any book made by Arius, and not immediately bring forth the said book, and deliver it up to be burned, that the said offender for so doing shall die the death. For as soon as he is taken, our pleasure is that his head be stricken off from his shoulders. God keep you in his tuition.
In giving the foregoing edict of Constantine, Mr. Taylor says it is a “specimen of that conjunction of holiness and blood-thirstiness, religion and murder, which portrays his character with a precision and fidelity that needs no further illustration.” Arius had contended against the doctrine of the Trinity, and he also denied the right of the emperor, or other civil authority, to interfere in the affairs of the church. He was opposed to a union of church and state. One more extract from Gibbon’s “History of Christianity” must suffice for the present purpose:—
The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was soon violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the Catholic Church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions, or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy, and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.—Pp. 341, 342.
When the leading forces now urging upon Congress the adoption of a religious amendment to the Constitution, and who are declaring that Christians should have “high offices in the state,” boldly hold up for public indorsement the “blessings of Christian legislation in the Roman Empire under Constantine,” it is time for the people and for Congress to revert to the history of church and state union in those early days. It is time for serious consideration of the question, Is not history repeating itself? W. N. G.
THE LOGIC OF RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION.
By A. T. Jones
BY A. T. JONES.
If the principle be admitted that the state has the right to legislate in regard to religion, and to enforce religious observances, then no blame can ever be attached to the Roman Empire for putting the Christians to death. Nor can it be admitted that such dealings with the Christians was persecution.
The enforcement of right laws can never be persecution, however severely the law may deal with the offender. To hang a murderer is not persecution. To hunt him down, even with bloodhounds, to bring him to justice, is not persecution. We repeat, therefore, that the enforcement of right laws never can be persecution.
If, therefore, religion or religious observances be a proper subject of legislation by civil government, then there never has been and there never can be any such thing as religious persecution. Because civil governments are ruled by majorities, the religion of the majority must of necessity be the adopted religion; and if civil legislation in civil things be right, the majority may legislate in regard to their own religion. Such laws made in such a case must be right laws, and the enforcement of them therefore can never be persecution.
WHY SUNDAY LAWS ARE WRONG.
SUNDAY legislation is wrong. It can only work injustice to the citizens of the state. It is therefore to be condemned. And all organizations and movements seeking such legislation are to be condemned likewise. The following are some of the evils of Sunday legislation:—
It is religious legislation.
It favors a class of citizens in matters of religion.
It invades the sacred precincts of the conscience.
It deprives men of their individual rights.
It leads to religious persecution.
This, we know, is a severe indictment against Sunday legislation, but we believe that each count can be sustained by plain, undeniable facts. —Bible Echo.
THE CRISIS.
By Whittier
The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us it
stands,
With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in
Egypt’s sands!
This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we
spin;
This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin;
Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal’s cloudy
crown,
We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing
down!
By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and
shame;
By all the warning words of truth with which the
prophet came;
By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes
which cast
Their faint and trembling beams across the blackness of the past;
And by the blessed thought of Him who for earth’s
freedom died,
O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the
righteous side.
—Whittier.
WEBSTER AND THE WOODCHUCK.
Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel, was a farmer. The vegetables in his garden had suffered considerably from the depredations of a woodchuck, which had his hole or habitation near the premises. Daniel, some ten or twelve years old, and his older brother, Ezekiel, had set a trap, and finally succeeded in capturing the trespasser.
Ezekiel proposed to kill the animal, and end at once all further trouble from him; but Daniel looked with compassion upon his meek, dumb captive, and offered to let him again go free. The boys could not agree, and they appealed to their father to decide the case.
“Well, my boys,” said the old gentleman, “I will be the judge. There is the prisoner, [pointing to the woodchuck], and you shall be the counsel, and plead the case for and against his life and liberty.”
Ezekiel opened the case with a strong argument, urging the mischievous nature of the criminal, the great harm he had already done; said that much time and labor had been spent in his capture, and now, if he were suffered to live and go again at large, he would renew his depredations, and be cunning enough not to suffer himself to be caught again.
He urged, further, that his skin was of some value, and that, to make the most of him they could, it would not repay half the damage he had already done. His argument was ready, practical, to the point, and of much greater length than our limits will allow us to occupy in relating the story.
The father looked with pride upon his son who became a distinguished jurist in his manhood. “Now, Daniel, it is your turn; I’ll hear what you have to say.”
It was his first case. Daniel saw that the plea of his brother had sensibly affected his father, the judge; and as his large, brilliant, black eyes looked upon the soft, timid expression11of the animal, and he saw it tremble with fear in its narrow prison-house, his heart swelled with pity, and he urged, with eloquent words, that the captive might again go free.
“God,” he said, “had made the woodchuck; he made him to live, to enjoy the bright sunlight, the pure air, the free fields and woods. God had not made him, or anything, in vain; the woodchuck had as much right to life as any other living thing.”
“He was not a destructive animal, as the wolf and the fox were; he simply ate a few common vegetables, of which they had plenty, and could well spare a part; he destroyed nothing except the little food he needed to sustain his humble life; and that little food was as sweet to him, and as necessary to his existence, as was to them the food upon their mother’s table.
“God furnished to them food; he gave them all they possessed; and would they not spare a little for the dumb creature, that really had as much right to his small share of God’s bounty as they themselves had to their portion?”
“Yea, more, the animal had never violated the laws of his nature or the laws of God, as man often did, but strictly followed the simple, harmless instincts he had received from the hand of the Creator of all things. Created by God’s hand, he had a right—a right from God—to life, to food, to liberty; and they had no right to deprive him of either.”
He alluded to the mute but earnest pleadings of the animal for that life, as sweet, as dear to him as their own was to them, and the just judgment they might expect if, in selfish cruelty and cold heartlessness, they took the life they could not restore—the life that God alone had given.
During this appeal, the tears had started to the old man’s eyes, and were fast running down his sunburnt cheeks; every feeling of a father’s heart was stirred within him; he saw the future greatness of his son before his eyes; he felt that God had blessed him in his children, beyond the lot of most men.
His pity and sympathy were awakened by the eloquent words of compassion, and the strong appeal for mercy; and, forgetting the judge in the man and father, he sprang from his chair (while Daniel was in the midst of his argument, without thinking he had already won his case), and, turning to his older son, dashing the tears from his eyes, exclaimed, “Ezekiel, Ezekiel, you let that woodchuck go!”—Boston Traveler.
MISAPPLIED PRAYER.
By W. E. Cornell
BY W. E. CORNELL.
When our forefathers laid the foundation of this government, they builded wisely and well—even “better than they knew.” However, just as there were carried over from the Church of Rome into the Reformation of the sixteenth century certain usages and accepted doctrines not sanctioned by the word, so, in spite of the efforts of the framers of our national Constitution to create a government where the ecclesiastical and civil should be absolutely divorced, there have been allowed to creep in certain practices which are the legitimate fruits of a union of church and state. One of these is the maintenance of chaplaincies, not only in legislative bodies but in the army and navy as well. The idea seemed to prevail that “without some sort of alliance or coalition between government and religion, neither could be duly supported,” when the truth is that “religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” True it is that both have a common origin—were ordained of God, but designed to occupy entirely different spheres, and this is in direct harmony with the teachings of Christ himself, as can be abundantly demonstrated. Separated, they are to man a blessing that only infinite wisdom could have devised; united, they become an engine of persecution and tyranny that only demons could invent.
It is not the design here to enter into an argument as to the evils of this coalition, but to remark that the fears expressed by such men as Madison, Jefferson, etc., who protested against the practice in their day, are in a large measure realized right before our very eyes. The offering of prayer at the opening of legislative and other political bodies has in many instances degenerated into a mere harangue in favor of this or that measure, wholly at variance with the office and spirit of prayer, as witness the recent newspaper accounts of the chaplain at our national Legislature, who prayed so fervently for the Cubans that the assembly broke out in a storm of applause. Not long since a minister who had been called upon to open a session of the state Legislature by prayer, remarked to the writer that, “aside from the honor conferred, I never earned five dollars easier.”
However, it is refreshing to know that once in a while there is a man with enough backbone to stand up and condemn the evil. A short time since the Virginia lawmakers called upon a Rev. C. J. Oelschlaeger, an English Lutheran minister, to act as chaplain the following week to open the proceedings of the body by prayer, to which he promptly replied by note, and which was read in open session by the clerk, as follows:—
“I do not believe in opening a promiscuous political body with prayer. The promiscuous character of the body makes it an abuse of prayer, and the political character of the body makes it an unnatural union of church and state. I, as a Christian, and any member of the body as a Christian, can privately pray for the session, but the state which that body represents has nothing to do with prayer.”
The above contains some very pointed and wholesome truths, and shows that the gentleman in question has pretty straight ideas on the subject of a union of church and state. We suppose he might have couched his refusal in words a trifle more tempered, and scored his point with a more diplomatic manner, but the incident, remarks one paper, “contains an obvious moral for other state assemblies who have drifted into the practice of treating this solemn invocation in their behalf as a perfunctory routine.” We are glad to note this tart and earnest protest against a manifest evil, for it shows there is still in the hearts of the people a jealousy for the principles which have made us as a nation great.
Des Moines, Iowa.
OUR POSITION STATED.
By W. A. Colcord
BY W. A. COLCORD.
We believe in true civil and religious liberty.
We believe that all should be protected in the exercise and enjoyment of their natural rights, both civil and religious, but that none should be constrained by force in matters of religion.
We are opposed, therefore, a union of church and state. By this we mean not simply the union of some particular church with some particular state, but a union of any religion, or church, or any combination of churches, with any state or form of civil government whatever.
Why we are opposed to this sort of union is not because we are opposed to either religion or civil government. We believe in religion, the religion of Jesus Christ. We believe in civil government, the powers which be, as ordained of God. Our reasons for opposing the union of church and state are:—
Because such union is detrimental to both.
Because the realm of each is entirely distinct from the realm of the other. Religion pertains to our relation to God and to another world; civil government pertains to civil matters only, and is confined strictly to this world.
Because Jesus Christ has forever separated them, in the words, “Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Religion does not belong to Cæsar, and therefore is not to be rendered to Cæsar. Religion pertains to God.
Because the religion recognized by law must of necessity be the religion of the majority, or those in power; but the religious convictions of the minority are as sacred as those of the majority.
Because to establish or give preference to a certain religion by law is to make those professing that religion the favored ones, and all others, of necessity, dissenters, heretics, and schismatics; whereas, there should be no tests or preferments by the state in religious matters, but all should stand upon an equality before the law.
Because each individual is accountable alone to God for his religious faith and practice, and therefore it is not within the province of the state to prescribe a faith to its citizens, or enforce upon them any religious custom or rite.
Because the state can govern only by force, but force is not a proper means for the propagation of religion. God desires willing worshipers and none others. Acceptable service to him must be voluntary.
Because the use of force in matters of religion can result only in persecution and the increase of hypocrisy.
Man Is More Than Constitutions: A Poem by Lowell
By James Russell Lowell
Tho we break our father's promise, we have nobler duties first;
The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed;
Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod
Than be true to church and state while we are doubly false to God!
We owe allegiance to the state; but deeper, truer, more,
To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's core;
Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then
Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.
He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is done,
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun,
That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. —James Russell Lowell.
TRUE LENT.
By Herrick
Is this a fast, to keep
The larder lean
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg'd to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour?
No! 'tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate,
To circumcise thy life,
To show a heart grief rent,
To starve thy sin,
Not bin,
And that's to keep thy Lent.
—Herrick.
THE OCEAN'S DEEP SPOT.
The deepest spot in the ocean has been found. More than five miles of wire ran out without the bottom being reached. Then the wire broke. This spot was recently discovered by the surveying ship Penguin, near the Friendly Islands, in the South Pacific. Commander Balfour, of that ship, reports that this remarkable discovery was made in latitude 23° 40′ south, longitude 175° 10′ west. When he first discovered this extraordinary hole, which, so far as we know now, is bottomless, Captain Balfour attempted to take the depth, and the sounding line was run out.
After 4,300 fathoms had run out over the side of the ship, the wire broke, and a rising sea and wind prevented any further attempt of the kind being made. Upon the second attempt he managed to pass 4,900 fathoms, or 29,400 feet of the wire, over the ship's side before the wire broke and put an end to the experiment.
The deepest spot in the ocean previously known was close to the coast of Japan, where a sounding had been made of 4,655 fathoms. This is 245 fathoms, or more than 1,400 feet, shallower than the deep hole which has now been discovered.
How much deeper it goes than 4,900 fathoms no man can know. It is a piece of water more than five miles deep. What the pressure must be at the bottom no scientist has yet been bold enough to conjecture.
There is no glass instrument that could resist this pressure. It would be impossible with the most improved scientific appliances to take the temperature of this enormous depth.
No living thing that is known to science could exist at a depth so great as this, where the pressure must be equal to many hundred or thousand foot tons, sufficient to squeeze the life out of any fish. Even brass and iron instruments lowered to this enormous depth would be twisted and distorted.
The most painstaking work in lowering a piano wire to sound a depth such as this will not suffice to keep it from breaking. This is because of the friction of the water against the wire.
In spite of every appliance of balance and spring in the machinery on deck, designed to counteract the motion of the vessel, the increase and decrease of pressure caused by rising and falling on a wave will snap the strongest wire when it has been lowered to so great a distance.
All of the water at the bottom must support the weight of the water on top of it. The consequence is that the water in the lowest depths is compressed under enormous pressure.
The theory has been advanced that some strange, unknown creatures may live in this highly compressed water. There may be fish of a kind so peculiar that they can not exist closer to the surface, where the water is thinner and the pressure less.
Through countless ages of living in the darkest, deepest depths of ocean, these fish may have evolved forms and natures unknown to men of science, because hitherto such vast depths have been unexplored. What the bottom of such a place may be like is only a matter of conjecture.
It may support a fauna and flora of its own. It may have its own plant and animal life, which some daring scientist will bring to light, to astonish and amaze the scientific world.
Here, where there can be no light, the fish, if fish there be, must be eyeless, like that queer breed of fish which Darwin cited existing in the rivers of the Mammoth Cave, but still, under the scalpel of the scientist, disclosing what is known in biology as a “rudimentary eye.” The fishes of these deepest depths may have rudimentary eyes and rudimentary lungs.
They may have been pressed hard and flat like a pancake by the enormous weight of the water above them, and may indeed move about by a method as strange and curious as was that of the kangaroo when first brought to the attention of Europe. These are questions for the scientific world to solve. They have been brought to the front by the discovery by the Penguin of a spot in the ocean deeper than any that has been known hitherto.
—N. Y. Monthly World.
WHY IIII, NOT IV?
HAVE you ever wondered why the hour four is always represented on the dials of clocks and watches as IIII, and not IV? This is said to be due to a mistake of Charles V., of France, somewhat inappropriately surnamed “The Wise.” This is the story:—
When the first clock to keep accurate time was made, it was carried to Charles V., of France, by its maker, Henery Vick. The king looked at it and said:— “Yes, it works well, but you have got the figures on the dial wrong.” “I think not, your majesty,” said Vick. “Yes, that four should be four ones.” “Surely not, your majesty,” protested the clock-maker. “Yes, it should be four ones,” persisted the king. “You are wrong, your majesty.” “I am never wrong!” answered the king in anger. “Take it away and correct the mistake.” The clock-maker did as he was commanded, and so we have IIII, instead of IV, on the dials of our clocks.—Selected.
LYING
“A LYING tongue is but for a moment.” Prov. 12:19. Who was the first person of whom we know that ever told a lie?—Satan. He will be known forever as the first liar. This is the reason why the Bible calls him “the father of lies.” Now, dear children, to lie is to do Satan’s work. It is one of the meanest of all things. Nothing will offend a respectable person so much as to call him a liar.
A newsboy, to sell his papers, told a lie. The matter came up in Sunday school. “Would you tell a lie for three cents?” asked a teacher of one of her boys. “No, ma’am.” “For a thousand dollars?” Dick was staggered. A thousand dollars looked large. “O,” thought he, “would it not buy lots of things?” While thus he was meditating, another boy said, “No, ma’am.” “Why not?” asked the teacher. “Because, when the thousand dollars is all gone, and all the things I got with them are gone too, the lie is there all the same,” answered the boy.
It is so. Everything else may be gone, but a lie stays by you. Then see what God says of liars: “There shall in nowise enter therein anything that maketh a lie.” No admittance for liars in heaven. Bear this in mind when tempted to tell a lie.—Selected.
Keep the State and Church Forever Separate
By U. S. Grant
KEEP the state and church forever separate. —U. S. Grant.
Our Work and Workers.
From the Review we learn that Elder W. N. Hyatt, who but a short time ago went to Keene, Texas, from Nebraska, at the request of the General Conference, died on the 28th ult., of typhoid fever.
Elder John Fulton, formerly of California, who had for some time been sojourning in Colorado, suffering from consumption, has at last been compelled to yield to the dread disease. He died at Boulder, on the 1st inst.
Elder W. H. Saxby reports the baptism of eight persons at Cleveland, Ohio, in addition to a number of interested readers.
The Seventh-day Adventist Educational Society, at the recent annual meeting held at Battle Creek, Mich., elected the following officers: President, W. C. Sisley; Secretary, G. C. Tenney; Treasurer, A. R. Henry; Auditor, I. H. Evans.
Elder Alonzo T. Jones recently returned to his home in Battle Creek, Mich., after a tour of some ten months in Europe. He visited and held institutes at all the principal points where our people have organized representation.
Holding meetings in the mountains of Montana in winter time would usually be deemed an arduous and rather discouraging undertaking, but Elder J. R. Palmer reports that people come from six to nine miles to meetings held on the Cottonwood River.
Elder Allen Moon reports to the Review that at the request of the friends of the District of Columbia Sunday Bill, now before Congress, the committee to whom it was referred granted a hearing on the subject. Strange as it may seem, none of those who had requested the hearing were present, and the opponents of the measure occupied the time; Elder G. E. Fifield made the principal argument.
A new idea has struck some of the enforced-Sunday-rest advocates in Alabama. Brother W. G. Hasty, of Pleasant Plains, has been indicted on a charge of forcing his children to work on Sunday. The children are all members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and have come to years of understanding where they are capable of choosing for themselves in matters of religious conviction. What next? The prophet saw “that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Rev. 13:15. The time for such a decree seems to be near at hand. Brother Hasty’s trial is set for April.
