WANING

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 6, 1868

The Episcopal bishop of Michigan writes to the archbishop of Canterbury a gloomy account of the state of religion in this country. Of the churches not Episcopal, he says:—

“A rapid process of disintegration is going on among them. They are fast slipping away from all their standards of faith; and, as a necessary consequence, must sooner or later fall into infidelity. This is emphatically the case in those States in which Puritanism prevailed. My own opinion is that unless the church can step in and direct men to the truth as it is in Jesus, preserved and handed down to us by the catholic church, they will be under the dominion and power of Rome within less than half a century.”

Prophecy will be fulfilled, though it takes opposite events in different countries to do it. Thus in one section the power of the Papacy was to be taken away, and destroyed; and this we see fulfilled in the waning away of its power in its ancient European strongholds. While in another portion of the earth, it was to manifest sufficient vitality to secure worship from another power, though in its youth and vigor. See Rev. xiii, 12. And this we see drawing toward its fulfillment in our own country. While in Europe its power is declining, in this country it is increasing. Prophecy requires both these phases; hence their exhibition before us. The same thing we are taught in the light given through spiritual gifts. All these things admonish us to be ready for the end.