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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, January 28, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 7

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UNION MEETINGS AND THE WEEK OF PRAYER.

By Wm. Penniman

The so-called union meetings, which are now in the churches, seem to be one of the signs of the times. They are not a sign that the world is growing better, or that the millennium is near, which is claimed by the orthodox preachers, but seem to be a sign that the world is being lulled to sleep by the “peace and safety cry.” When will these false teachers see that they mistake? I fear many of them will not, until the impending wrath of God is upon them. Honest ones, no doubt, there are, who may yet be led to embrace the truth, and to make their escape from Babylon; while others, who might see, will remain willfully blind, and will lead and bewilder those who follow them, till both shall fall into the ditch.
So far as I have witnessed, and can learn correct reports of the union meetings, there is but very little union about them. In this place there are four meeting-houses, three where they keep up regular meetings. The week of prayer was observed here, the Methodists and Congregationalists uniting. The Disciples could not unite, as they look upon the creed-making churches as too closely allied to the Papacy. The Close-Communion Baptists could not, as they would be taking a step against close communion. Had there been a United Presbyterian church, they would have objected on the psalm question; and so it might be carried out, and the greater the number of churches the greater the confusion.
The preacher, in the introductory sermon, attempted to trace down the chronological events, and to prove that they would all end in 1868, and that consequently the millennium would commence this year, and that he did not know but that it would by the time the meetings closed. It was plain to be seen that the whole drift of the subjects, and of their prayers, was for the conversion of the world. Oh! how I wished, while witnessing their vain efforts in trying to build a millennium tower, that some good Advent preacher would come down, and, if he did not confound their language, that he would instruct them in the way of the Lord more perfectly.
Wm. PENNIMAN.
Woodburn, Ill., Jan., 1868.