The record-union., 1891-05-04
TYRANNY OF LAW.


vicious as the passion of despot. When
it becomes the instrument of bias, super
stition or persecution, it matters very
little whether it is the voice of mass of
people or of one man. Even under the
instrumentality of religion it has been
the means Of cruelty and oppression, and
has burned witches, pilloried honest men
for opinions sake, and martyred the pro-
gressive spirit.
The Arena for May, in commenting
upon the exhibitions of State tyranny,
cites the case in Tennessee of the man
King, who is Second Adventist. That
he and his fellows are sincere is beyond
question; that they are good citizens in
all morals is undenied that their religion
has broad warrant for its doctrines is con-
ceded. AS do the Jews and some other
religionists, he observes Saturday as a
day OF religious sacrifice and rest. Wor-
Shipping on the seventh day, according
to the dictates of his conscience, and not
being able to be idle another day in the
week, he labored on the first day. For
this he was arrested, convicted as a
criminal, and as a criminal cast into
prison, where he still is suffering de-
privation of liberty because the law
makes him a criminal by the decree of
the majority. 1t would be interesting to
know what would be the attitude of the
people who prosecuted King to convic-
ton, ifthey resided in a State in which
Second Adventists, and Jews and
Seventh-Day Baptists dominated and
made law Furnishing by Imprisonment
all who labored on Saturday, or the Sab
bath. We apprehend, with the ATena
that in such a case indignation would
blaze forth throughout Christendom
against the great injustice to the liberty of
the rights of the citizen"
So, too, in Iowa the regular doctors had
given up two patients, declared the cases
hopeless, and pronounced them doomed.
Therenpon Mrs. Lottie Post laid on hands
and pronounced the Christian science in
cantation and the patients recovered.
Possibly they might have done so
after the doctors abandoned them
anyhow. Be that as it may, Mrs.
Post was arrested, tried and fined, with
the alternative of Imprisonment. Rev.
J. B. Caldwell published a paper entitled
Christian Life, the organ of the National
Purity Association, and devoted to mari
tai cleanliness. In November, 1889, Rev.
@. E. Walker, Congregational clergy
man Of good standing, sent Life contri-
button on marital purity, which was pub
Eshed and went through the mails. We
have not seen the article; we have the
word of the Arena that it is unexception-
able in phraseolOgy, an earnest plea for
charity, and could not ruf1ie the most fas-
tidious, though it would disturb the
slaves of lust. Caldwell has been arrested
in Chicago, and is now put to trial. At
the same time the most disgusting, de-
brazen. impure and lascivious pictures.
appear in the flash sheets of the day, and
even in some of the regular newspaper
press, and no one thinks of pursuing the
publishers with the lash Of the law.
All which is cited to show that there is
In a government by the people the possi-
bility of tyranny equal to that of the most
heartless despot. Intolerance is by no
means eliminated by republicanism.
Authority may become tyrannous when
it is all powerful and dominated by preju-
dice and short-sighted ideas of federation.
1t is not to-day as radical in such mani
festations as when it justified the burn
ing of witches, and the placing in the
stocks of men and women who thought
Independently.
While it is true, as the arena asserts,
that the tyranny of authority over hos
tile or unpopular thought is, as d rule,
measured only by its power, there
is this saving grace under our sys-
tem-it is an educating system. If
in free government and under
the rule of the majority we do sometimes
go wrong, and do grevious injury TO hu-
man right, we are all the time, as DIR.
Maurice puts it, 'going to school" That
is to say, the age is not going backward;
ws are in constant evolution instead of