NO LAW, NO SYSTEM by Geo. O. States

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 4, 1876

NO LAW, NO SYSTEM.

By Geo. O. States

On my way to meeting a stranger came up and asked me to ride. Learning he lived near an acquaintance of mine who was a first-day Adventist, I made some inquiries in regard to him. Our conversation then turned upon the first-day Adventists, and he remarked that they were like a lot of sheep with a dog among them—it scattered. He said they had no system among them. I asked him if they did have any regular organization. He said, Yes, a sort of one, but it did not amount to much. He then spoke of the Seventh-day people; it was different with them, said they had system in all their moves; that if they wished to send a missionary out they had the means already on hand to do it, and that they were very systematic in all their moves, and were a prosperous people, while the first-day people were badly scattered.

After some farther conversation I asked him his name, and was surprised to learn that he was a noted first-day Adventist minister. Learning that I was a Seventh-day Adventist, he remarked that if there was any day binding to the seventh, but he thought it did not make much difference which day we kept.

I could but think that their loose system was owing to their not having much regard for the law of God. The psalmist says, “Great peace have they which love thy law; and nothing shall offend them.” GEO. O. STATES.