NOT WELL INFORMED

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 24, 1881

NOT WELL INFORMED.

THE California Christian Advocate contains the following:—

“The SIGNS OF THE TIMES assures its readers that Seventh-day Adventists have nothing to do with Mr. Harrison, or the ‘so-called Holiness Meetings.’ We never heard them accused of it. We fully acquit them; they can go out of court.”

The Advocate is too hasty in its rulings. It was boastfully announced in the “holiness tent,” that all denominations joined in their work, and even “the Seventh-day Adventists claim it as their meeting.” At this we demurred. Again, after the regiment of singers had paraded the streets it was remarked by a citizen, that “the Seventh-day Adventists ought to be bound over to keep the peace, and not to disturb the town.” We considered that under these circumstances, it was not only a privilege, but a duty to ourselves and to our neighbors, that we disclaim a work, the methods of which we cannot indorse. Our views of Bible sanctification were briefly noticed in our paper of Nov. 3. We advertise in this paper an excellent pamphlet on that subject. In these “holiness meetings,” so called, we see much fanaticism, and not a little irreverence. And we have heard the same views of them expressed by such reliable Methodists as Dr. Parkhurst, Prof. Henry Lummis, and the late Gilbert Haven. Mr. Haven was not yet Bishop when we heard him, and his remarks were more guarded than those of the others, but unmistakable in their import.

We would remind the editor of the Advocate that a competent witness will speak what he knows—or what he has some reason, at least, to believe. As for our remarks, we are not accustomed to speak without a reason, though he may not be cognizant of the reason. And now, as he is “in court,” and appears to be anxious to testify, will he please to tell the jury what he thinks of Mr. Armstrong’s comments on Ex. 16, in his book on the Sabbath, which was published by the Methodist Publishing Houses?