"Keeping the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus"
"YAH is Our Righteousness"

Background Review and Herald Articles (part 1)

Quite a sensation has been created the past week by the reports of a bill introduced in the Senate of the United States by Senator Blair, providing that no mail shall be carried on Sunday, nor any mail matter be delivered on that day, nor any military drills or parades be allowed, nor any work or recreation be permitted in any line of business or any territory over which the United States has exclusive jurisdiction, on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. The religious character of the bill is indicated by the fact that it speaks of the day thus: "The first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord's day." Hence the papers call the bill, "a bill for the observance of the Lord's day."

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Mr. Blair is a prominent man in the temperance work, and in this matter of the Sunday bill which he has introduced, is undoubtedly only a tool in the hands of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. It is easy to foresee how rapidly a state of things would follow in which freedom of conscience and liberty of worship in this country would be gone, if such a bill as that should be adopted by Congress.

It may be said in reply that there is no danger that such a bill will pass. It probably will not pass just now. The Watchman, a Baptist paper of Boston, thinks the bill will not prevail during the present Congress, but at the same time gives its voice that such a bill is greatly needed!

But suppose it does not pass now, how does it come about that even an attempt is made, with certainly no insignificant force behind it, to secure the passage of such a bill? We have no doubt that even S. D. Adventists, who have long known from the sure word of prophecy what is eventually to take place in this boasted land of liberty, if they could have unveiled before their eyes the strength and activity of undercurrents everywhere working to bring about the predicted overthrow of religious liberty in our country, would be greatly startled. The sudden introduction of such a bill is only an indication of what is going on in secret beneath the surface. Who knew that any such movement was in progress, till like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, an attempt is sprung upon Congress to pass such a bill?

Skeptical friends, you who have stoutly maintained that there never would be any attempt in this Government to unite church and state, and that no oppressive Sunday laws would ever be here enacted, what have you to say to these things? The inability to read the signs of the times which some people apparently labor under, reminds us of a cartoon which appeared last year in Harper's Weekly. A Western prairie farmer was represented as sitting just outside his cabin door, calmly whittling, while his wife was attending to domestic duties inside. In the distance, borne on the whirling proboscis of a cyclone, a barn and other debris were flying before the storm. Viewing the scene with a professional eye, and leisurely continuing his whittling, the farmer at length exclaims, "Mirandy! I shouldn't wonder if we had a cyclone round her afore night." "What makes you think so?" she asks. "Why," he replies, "I see Deacon Jones's barn already sailing off to the suthard!"

It used to be a true adage that "straws tell which way the wind blows;" but nowadays people don't seem to be able to tell which way the wind is blowing, unless they see a whole barn sailing off on the gale.

The Blair Sunday bill ought to be about as good an indication of what is soon coming upon us, as Deacon Jones's barn was to the prairie farmer.

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