NOT TO SEND PEACE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 13, 1879

“NOT TO SEND PEACE.”

Christ declared emphatically that the result of the preaching of his gospel would be strife and confusion, and not peace; but his gospel is not responsible for the strife. Truth has the right of way, and the first claim. Error is the intruder and the usurper. Truth only is legitimate, having a title in its own right to exist; and if error and worldliness, by disputing and opposing this claim, make disturbance, truth is not to be held responsible for this.

Perhaps there are no religious questions discussed at the present day over which people seem more inclined to give way to hostile agitation than over the views advocated by S. D. Adventists. And the root of all this is not in the truths presented, but in the individual passions and prejudices of men.

According to a report received from Bro. J. Bartlett, of Iowa, he has been the innocent occasion of the exhibition of some feelings not very amiable, to say the least, on the part of some of the members of the Presbyterian church of Onawa in that State. The question came up among the Presbyterians, as reported in another column, whether they should longer permit him to use their house in which to lecture. A division at once arose. Some were in favor of his having it, and others opposed. The excitement at length ran so high that one of the trustees took off his coat to fight one of his brethren, and, calling him an unquotable name, declared that he could whip him.

When a church reaches such a condition that scenes like this can take place among its members, it is evident that a reform is sorely needed.