Towards Rome | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 30, 1882

Towards Rome.

AT the installation of Dr. N. Smyth over a Congregational Church, at New Haven, Conn., he distinctly avowed his belief in prayers for the dead. He did not regard it as an obligation, but said, "I believe it should be and is a privilege," a privilege "dear to those who wish to confer with the Lord Jesus in behalf of their departed friends." And a committee of thirty-three pronounced the doctor "satisfactory."

And this is New England orthodoxy! Our eyes open wide with astonishment. Of course those who believe that Jesus preached the gospel in hell (hades) while he was dead, and in probation for the dead, while dead, can easily move on into the "privilege of prayers for the dead." But did we ever hear of this before in America outside of the Mormon and Romish churches? If so, when and where? To us this looks like the English Christian's cut at Puseyism, in the parody—

"And nightly pitch their moving tents A day's march nearer Rome."

But it is alarming. And signs thicken.— D. T. T., in Bible Banner.