For thirty years or more our people have expected that the Sunday laws would be enforced in an oppressive manner against those who observe the seventh-day Sabbath.  We have expected that this heathen Catholic institution of Sunday sacredness would figure largely in the closing work of probation.  We have been sure the final issue between God’s true people and an apostate Church would be the word of God and its doctrines as distinguished from man-made traditions. We now see evidences of the rapid approach of the final struggle. The increasing interest in Sunday sacredness, world wide in extend, gives plain proof of the truthfulness of our positions.

  The announcement in last week’s Review of the decisions of the Supreme Courts of Tennessee and Arkansas, sustaining the prosecutions of our people in those states, adds one more link to the strong chain of evidence supporting our conclusions. In a letter recently received from Elder J. G. Wood, who is laboring in Arkansas, we are informed that the crisis is upon our people there. A little over one year ago, Sabbath-keepers had as liberal a law in that state as in any other in the Union.  They dreamed of no trouble. Without any agitation to speak of, the clause giving conscientious observers of the seventh-day the right to work six days if they rested the seventh, was repealed.  None dreamed of such a thing. Now perhaps a dozen of our brethren are under the condemnation of the law of the land for simply obeying the law of God.  They must pay fines and costs. They are liable to have their property confiscated, and to go to jail.

   Here are two states already starting in their course of persecution.  This is nothing short of naked persecution for conscience’ sake; for thousands all around the places where these humble believers live, work, hunt, fish, play cards and otherwise show no regard for Sunday or any other day of the week. The blare of steam whistles, the racket of railroad traffic, the lugging of baggage and freight, the soliciting of hotel runners for patronage and various other kinds of business go on, and the sanctity of the popish Sunday is not desecrated.  But let a humble, God fearing, devoted Christian, who has conscientiously observed the Sabbath of the Lord according to the literal reading of the commandment, go out quietly on his farm or to his place of business, making no noise, disturbing no one, and, forsooth, the Sunday people are stirred. They can not endure such desecration of the “venerable day of the Sun,” as Constantine truly calls it.  Here we have a fine commentary on the stale “seventh-part-of-time doctrine.”  Venerable Protestant divines arise with great gravity and tell us that one day of rest, after six of labor, is all that God requires or men should ask. Our people have done that exactly. We venture the assertion that none in the State of Tennessee or Arkansas have kept one day in seven more sacredly than have these very persons whom they have arrested and fined; yet they are mulcted of their scanty, hard-earned means, while thousands all around them go scot-free, and keep no day whatever.  And many of these grave doctors themselves are strong in their efforts to bring persecution upon us. Was there ever more barefaced hypocrisy and wicked cant seen than this open face of seventh-part-of-time-Sunday-Sabbath-sacredness?

   Yes this is religious persecution, nothing more or less.  There is not a shadow of excuse for it, save the desire to silence the advocates of God’s holy Sabbath by the strong hand of the law.  But this base effort will fail.  It will help forward the work instead of retarding it.  Our God will not forsake his children who fear Him and bear the heavy cross of keeping holy the only true Sabbath.  He is the God of Moses, of Joshua, of Sampson, of Elijah, of Daniel, and of the three who dared to go into the fiery furnace. We have been singing, “Dare to be a Daniel” we may now have a chance to show how much Daniel’s spirit we possess.

   We have heard of persons who thought that when we are threatened with fines and penalties for working Sundays, we could keep very quiet, and while nor working openly, we could avoid the penalty of the law, keep the Sabbath, and in heart not keep the Sunday.  Daniel had never learned this process of serving God, potent in these last days of formality and hypocrisy.  He could have gone into some secret place of retirement, or prayed to God mentally, and they would never have discovered him.   He could have thus avoided that night’s lodging with the beasts of prey.  But Daniel never learned to serve God in that way.  He prayed as he wont to do, with his windows open towards Jerusalem.  He never changed his course one particle because of this effort to destroy him. We all know the result. Brethren, we now want to practice, as well as sing, “Dare to be a Daniel.”

   We hope our brethren in these States where persecution is commencing, will stand firm and true to their profession.  Act with no spirit of bravado. Go quietly about your business, just as you would if the law protected you and there was no danger.  Do right in the fear of God.  If you are arrested, and can possibly avoid paying the fine by going to jail, do so.  If there is anything in this world which would give an impetus to the truth, it would be the spectacle of about one hundred of our people lying in jail for conscience’ sake.  Our enemies may find this means to frighten us a boomerang which will return upon their own heads to plague its inventors.  There will be some noise, if we mistake not, made about these cases in the public prints while these men lie in jail for conscience’s sake.  People will be apt to hear about it.  If God will give us ability, the people shall know about it from one end of the land to the other.  We have not so poor an opinion of our American  people yet as to believe that all are in favor of persecuting those who conscientiously obey God by keeping the ten commandments.  If our people will stand firm, and dare to do right, they can advance the cause as fast by lying in jail as by the most eloquent preaching.  Indeed, we know of no sermon so eloquent as suffering for the truth’s sake.  But if our people weaken in this critical time, their enemies will then have accomplished their objective, and frightened them into obedience.  Be not anxious about your families; God will see that they will not starve.  If anything under heaven would make our people liberal, it would be the knowledge that the families of those lying in jail for the truth’s sake were suffering for the necessaries of life.

   May God prepare us for the great crisis which is just before us.  May we realize how near upon us is the great day for which we have been looking. Let us prepare for it; for it is near, and hasteth greatly.

George Butler

July 1886