THE first two articles in this paper treat of the case of J. Q. Allison, convicted on the 15th inst. in the Superior Court of Douglas County, Ga., of “violating the Sabbath.” These articles are interesting and will repay a careful perusal. The judge’s testimony as to the irreproachable character of the defendant is worthy of note, as is also the simple but earnest manner in which Mr. Allison gave the reasons for his refusal to obey the Sunday law of Georgia. The cause of the Bible Sabbath lost nothing in this trial. The humble farmer with truth on his side is more than a match for a whole State; and even though he had gone into the chain-gang he would have gone a victor.
THREE Seventh-day Adventists in Bienne, Switzerland, have just been imprisoned for refusing to send their children to school on the Sabbath. When Elder Holser was imprisoned for keeping the Seventh-day Adventist Basel publishing house open on Sunday, it was said that the law did not interfere with his right to keep the Sabbath if he wanted to, but only forbade him to operate a factory on Sunday; but how about the law requiring observers of the seventh day to send their children to school on the Sabbath? Does that law “leave Seventh-day Adventists perfectly free to keep Saturday if they choose to do so”?
“KOREA,” says the Independent, “is not yet a Christian country, even if the Ministers of Justice and the Interior are Christians: and it is surprising to learn from The Korean Repository, published at Seoul, that since the appointment of the new ministry, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the government offices are closed from Saturday afternoon till Monday morning.” But we fail to see anything strange about this fact. Sunday was originally a heathen festival, and why should it not be still honored by heathen nations? It is a prediction of Holy Writ that all the world shall worship the beast, the papacy, and this will be done by exalting the Sunday, adopted by the papacy from paganism, and made the badge of papal authority.
AN exchange announces that a bill has been introduced in the Illinois Senate aimed at Schweinfurth, the so-called prophet, of Rockford, Illinois. It provides that whoever assumes or pretends to be a deity or to possess the attributes of a deity, or pretends to be a son of God, or Jesus Christ, or claims to be the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for from one to two years.
This measure exhibits a lamentable ignorance of the principles of religious liberty, and the sentiment behind the bill is more dangerous than the pretender, Schweinfurth. Let Illinois keep a level head and proceed against her bogus Christ in a statesman-like manner. It is none of the State’s business whether Schweinfurth claims to be the incarnation of Christ, the Holy Ghost, Confucius, Mohammed, or Beelzebub. It is only when his claims lead him to violate the rights of his fellow-creatures that the law can properly interfere, and then only with his acts and not his claims. Illinois already has ample law to cover the case. If the element behind the proposed law had lived in the time of our Saviour, it would doubtless have joined in the cry, “Crucify him.”
THE National Reformers would have us suppose that the political doctrine that governments derive “their just power from the consent of the governed,” had its origin in the infidelity of the eighteenth century. But more than two hundred and fifty years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and more than two hundred years before the utter rottenness of the Papal Church in France had filled that country with the infidelity which we are told gave rise to the doctrine that the people are the source of civil authority, Luther, Linck, Melancthon, Bugenhagen, and Amsdorff, “the fathers of the Reformation,” announced the same doctrine. In a letter to the Elector Frederick, they said: “No prince can undertake a war without the consent of the people, from whose hands he has received his authority.” This was good Protestantism and good Christianity then, and it is just as good Protestantism and just as good Christianity now.