Untitled article by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 12, 1867

VOICE OF THE WEST vs. ADVENT REVIEW.

By Editor

The Voice of the West has several times of late thrown out to its readers that the Review has ceased to exchange with it; intimating that it has been guilty of a great discourtesy; and it is sorry to state that it is not a “model of a Christian paper,” &c. Under these circumstances it may be proper for us to state the facts in the case for the benefit of such of our readers as see the Voice, and who cannot fail to get a wrong impression from the representations of that paper. That some months ago we did withhold the Review as an exchange, is true; that we did it without cause or provocation, about which the Voice says nothing, is not true.

Some time last winter the Voice ceased to come to this Office. For four weeks we received none. Meanwhile we received a number of letters from different correspondents asking if we had seen such and such statements in the Voice, and if we designed to notice them. What the statements and articles referred to, were, we could not tell, as they were in the missing numbers. We then wrote to the Office of the Voice, stating that for some reason that paper had failed to appear among our exchanges, and requesting the back numbers to such a date, if they had them to spare. In due time they were received, also the current number for the week in which we wrote, and then the paper again stopped coming. In three weeks we were again inquired of by a correspondent respecting articles in these last missing numbers of the Voice, but we had no way to find out what they were but to send to that Office again for them. To thus be obliged to write for every paper we wished to see, was extremely annoying, to say the least. As the Voice was thus continually publishing from its correspondents attacks upon our positions, we thought best to have the paper, and then we wrote again, inclosing a year's subscription price, stating that the paper had not been received for three weeks, and that we had now concluded to subscribe for it, and that it might be sent to our address; also that we wished the missing back numbers. The paper then commenced coming to our address; but no notice was taken of our request for the missing numbers. None came, nor any explanation why they were not sent. We afterward got them by advertising through the Review for them.

At this point, not before, we ceased sending the Review as an exchange; and we did not think it would require any special discernment, to ascertain the reason why; for when it becomes necessary, in order to secure a paper, to subscribe for it, the sending of the Review as an exchange, is a gratuity which we are not “model” enough to continue. When the Voice commenced coming to our address on subscription, it also commenced again coming to the Review, but after a time ceased; which the Voice now says it does not consider any discourtesy. Certainly not. This is not where the discourtesy comes in.

On receiving the articles alluded to above, we found them to be only the contributions of an irate individual down in New Hampshire; who manifests the marvelous consistency of professing to love the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and then falling into ecstasies over the attacks of its bitterest enemies, and bidding them Godspeed in their unholy work. We did not consider his communications worthy of any notice; nor has our mind changed in the least, though he has since in the same paper, made a very pugnacious flourish at us, by saying that it is because we dare not do it.

Another matter must be alluded to here, as we hope to have no occasion to refer to this subject again. The reader will remember a few weeks ago an article from W. C. G., reminding the Voice that we had not received the promised copy of the work of T. M. Preble on the Sabbath question, for the prospectus which we published in No. 8, present volume. The Voice thinks we should have stated that the probable reason that we failed to receive the work was because we failed to notify the publishers that the prospectus had been inserted. We supposed the Voice had access to the Review, as it goes to Buchanan, and from time to time items appearing in the Review have been quite promptly noticed in the Voice. As it appears that the Review was not seen by the managers of the Voice, it would not have been out of place for them to conform to the custom in such cases, and request a marked copy of the paper containing the notice, if it was inserted; in which case we should have sent it.

If at the expiration of our subscription, March 12, 1868, the Voice sees fit to exchange with the Review we shall be pleased to do so.