p. 63 | REMARKS by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1866

REMARKS.

By Uriah Smith

From the above, it appears that the work of apostasy on the part of Elds. Snook and Brinkerhoff has proceeded faster than any of us could have anticipated. Having surrendered so many of the fundamental principles of present truth, how long it will be before the whole system will be abandoned by them, the reader can judge. Their downward course commenced with opposition to the visions. Long weeks they spent framing and writing out objections, and blowing up to a white heat in their own hearts, the fires of opposition against the cause of present truth and its leaders. Carefully concealing all this, they came to our Conference last May, passed through the meeting with the most saintly hypocrisy, lisping not a word concerning, nor asking any explanation of, their alleged difficulties, and giving us, Judas like, as they left, their tokens of sympathy and fellowship.

Scarcely had they reached their home, ere they threw off the mask, and launched forth into high-handed rebellion, which they have since denounced as a "crazy opposition" to this work. At the meeting held in Pilot Grove, Iowa, in June following, the objections of these men against the visions were all explained by sister White, to their professed satisfaction. She proposed also to explain them to the people there assembled, but B. and S. being apparently unwilling to have their weakness exposed, objected to it, as unnecessary. Soon followed their confessions in Review No. 8, last volume, in which they acknowledged that their eyes had been so far opened that they could see that the work in which they had been engaged, was the work of the Devil. But notwithstanding all this, it seems that they have so soon relapsed into more than their former condemnation, a distressing spectacle of reckless instability and self-deception. Verily the sin of rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

We learn that even now, Bro. Ingraham calls upon B. F. S. for his objections, proposing to answer them, and he refuses to state them; but in Bro. I.'s absence he throws them out in a way to create as much confusion as possible in the minds of the brethren. The indications of such a course cannot be mistaken by the honest. Did he possess a pure and ingenuous spirit, and were there points which really troubled him, he would gladly avail himself of any help to remove his difficulties, rather than resort to the mean tricks of the demagogue to forward his own cause. All goes to show that he is not actuated by honest motives, but is determinedly bent on doing the work of the enemy.

Some time since, B. and S. sent in their resignation to the Gen. Conf. Committee. This committee have for some time been unable to act, on account of the sickness of two of its members, which they well understood. The Devil has truly picked his time for this charge upon the cause of truth. Many of the brethren in Iowa are doubtless waiting for something to be done in this matter; and but for the present condition of the committee, something would have been done before this. In view of this state of things, we take the responsibility of making this statement, and of saying to the loyal in Iowa, to hold on steadfast and unmovable; and the difficulties with which the enemies of the truth would fain trouble you, shall be explained, and probably soon.

U. SMITH, G. W. AMADON, J. M. ALDRICH.