Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, January 21, 1868

An Apt Sermon.

A LONG while ago, Rev. Lemuel Haynes, a colored preacher, was settled over the Congregational Society in Rutland, Vt. He was an able preacher, and remained the pastor of that church, if we recollect rightly, some twenty-five years. It is doubtful, by the way, whether said church even at the present day can measure up to its ancient antecedents on the score of brotherhood.

During the pastorate of Mr. Haynes, Rev. Hosea Ballou, one of the earliest apostles of Universalism in this country, came into this town and announced that on a certain Sabbath and at a certain place he would preach. Mr. Haynes' friends persuaded him to forego his third service on that day, and go over and hear Mr. Ballou. He did so. Mr. B. invited him into the pulpit. He went. After the sermon, the preacher turned and asked Mr. Haynes if he had anything to say. He arose immediately and delivered a fifteen-minute sermon—the most memorable one, probably, he ever delivered in his life. His text was: Gen. iii, 4—“And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Ye shall not surely die.’” Topic, CHARACTER OF THIS PREACHER. He was:

An old preacher.
A cunning preacher.
A laborious preacher.
A heterogeneous preacher.
A presumptuous preacher.
A successful preacher.
A universal preacher.

This, as may well be imagined, fell like a bomb into the enemy's camp, stirred up an intense excitement, and gave rise to a long, voluminous, and more or less bitter controversy.—The Messenger.