KNOWN BY ITS FRUITS by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 14, 1902

KNOWN BY ITS FRUITS.

By L. A. S.

“By their fruits ye shall know them,” is the Scriptural rule whereby we are to test the genuineness of that which claims to be from God. In the Christian Standard of December 7 (Disciple organ) appears an article written to prove that by this rule the belief of Seventh-day Adventists must be error. The author of the article is D. M. Canright, a man who has a special motive for proving that Adventists are in the wrong, since he himself was for years prominently identified with the Adventist body. Upon such proof his own course in leaving the denomination depends for justification.

Mr. Canright has endeavored to substantiate his position upon ten different points which he specifies, and which he denominates in general the “bad fruits of Adventism.” It may be worth while to notice briefly what this ex-Adventist minister can say in the way of making it appear that a belief in the approaching advent of Jesus Christ and the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath are productive of “bad fruit.”

First, Mr. Canright notices the disappointment of the Adventist body who expected the Lord to come in 1844, and the confusion and disintegration which came upon them after the passing of their set time. As these people were not Seventh-day Adventists at all, we might pass over this point as proving nothing with regard to the system of belief held by the latter; but we may note the fact, in passing, that while very many of those who expected the end in 1844 did afterward lose their bearings and give up their faith, many others held on to the experience they had had under the Advent message, received light on their position from the subject of the sanctuary in heaven, and enjoyed a new and richer Christian experience under the Third Angel’s Message than they had known before. Now if this was true of many who looked for the end in 1844, why was it not true of all? Was it the fault of the Advent message? or was

it the fault of those who afterward turned from it?

Did that message bear good fruit to some and bad fruit to others?—Certainly not. If the message was bad, no good fruit could have come from it. No true Christians could have been made by it, or Christian experience built upon it. Yet without that first message, the great Advent message of to-day—the Third Angel’s Message, now sounding in every quarter of the globe—would fall to the ground, with all that it has done for the uplifting of men from a life of sin. The one is inseparable from the other.

The second of the “bad fruits of Adventism” is specified thus:—

“When they begin work in any place, their effort is to utterly destroy the confidence of all in all other churches. These churches, one and all, are denounced as Babylon, fallen, apostate, rejected of God, and soon to be visited with His unmingled wrath.”

The Advent message is the message of the second coming of Christ. Adventists proclaim this message as they find it given in the Scripture, where it is declared unmistakably that that event will bring the end of the world, with the total destruction of all earth’s inhabitants who are unprepared to meet the Lord of glory. The “sign of the Son of man” shall be seen in heaven, and “then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn.” The islands shall flee away, and the mountains shall be removed, and “the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man, and every free man [shall hide] hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and [shall say] said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Rev. 6: 15–17. From this and other scriptures that might be cited it is plain that one who believes in the proximity of Christ’s second appearing must necessarily lose confidence in all churches that stand opposed to the message of His coming, and to the religious reforms for which that message calls, to prepare men for this greatest of all events. It is no part of the work of Seventh-day Adventists, however, to denounce other people or other churches. The Advent message is positive, not negative; it is one which builds up the truth that has been broken down, and restores the “old paths” marked out by the word of inspiration.

“In a majority of places,” continues Mr. Canright, “they fail to secure enough followers to build a church or to organize a society. Hence their sympathizers are left without any place to attend church. They will not go to any other church nor let their children go, for that is Babylon. So here they are left without any religious services whatever. They soon drift off into irreligious, godless lives.”

Because not enough followers are secured in a place to build a church or organize a society, it does not follow that the few who accept the message “are left without any religious services whatever.” Did not the Saviour mention particularly that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”? Did not the Saviour foresee that there would be times and circumstances to which these words of His would apply? Church privileges are to be prized, but they are not essential to the worship of God. Where there is no church, Sabbath meetings are held in private houses, and the presence and blessing of God are there as fully as would be the case in a church building.

The third point brought forward by Mr. Canright is but a variation of the second. “In very many places where they attempt to secure a following,” he says, “they get only a few, two or three, perhaps half a dozen, scattered here and there, but not enough to hold meetings. These are soon left to shift for themselves, with no leader, no pastor, no preaching, no church, no meetings. They will attend no other church, nor take the least part in any religious work whatever. They may hold on to their own faith, but they will never co-operate with any body in any effort for the general good after that. Henceforth they live in seclusion religiously as completely as if they were dead.”

Of this it need only be said that it is not true that Seventh-day Adventists “will never co-operate with any body in any effort for the general good.” This is merely a question of fact, and the facts do not bear out this writer’s assertions.

Next, this opponent of Adventism says that “where they do succeed in securing followers enough to hold meetings, they draw off wholly by themselves, and take no part nor interest in anything for the public good, in religion, or in schools, or in politics, in temperance work, or in business enterprises. Their whole time and energy are absorbed in making proselytes to their sect.”

Here he finds that the Adventists are very busy in working among the people for the purpose of “making proselytes,” whereas he had just previously discovered that they soon “drifted off into irreligious, godless lives,” and lived “in seclusion religiously as completely as if they were dead.” He goes on:—

“Convinced that everything is wrong in Church and State and schools and society, that all are soon to go to wreck and ruin, they take no further interest in any of them.” “This same effort to draw off by themselves has marked most of the extremely heretical sects in every age, such as the Mormons, the Shakers, the Oneida Community, etc.”

The assertion that Seventh-day Adventists seek to “draw off by themselves” is another one that wholly fails to be borne out by the facts. As Mr. Canright well knows, Seventh-day Adventists are scattered all over the United States and all over the world, and are constantly instructed, where they are in sufficient numbers to form any thing like a “community,” to scatter out and carry the message of Christ’s coming to the people in other places.

The Adventist meetings, Mr. Canright further asserts, “are necessarily dry and uninteresting.” If this is so, it is not because the subject of Christ’s second coming and the signs pointing to that event, is a dry and uninteresting theme. “Their numbers,” he continues, “are few, from six to thirty or forty.” “Their meetings are held in some private house, or a little hall, or a small church in some out-of-the-way place.” Here he finds that the Adventists, in places where their numbers are very few, hold meetings “in private houses,” although one of his points against Adventism is, as we have quoted, that where these people “fail to secure enough followers to build a church or to organize a society,” and have no “place to attend church,” they “are left without any religious services whatever.”

Next he mentions that the Adventists are “opposed to all Sunday laws,” and “throw their whole influence against any effort to close the saloons or restrict the liquor traffic on that day.” It is true that Adventists are opposed to all Sunday laws, Sunday being a religious institution, and therefore, having no shadow of rightful claim to support from the civil authority. Seventh-day Adventists believe in prohibition,—not in shutting the saloons by law one day in the week only, and thus by the same law, sanctioning these wicked and demoralizing institutions the other six days; but in closing the saloon seven days in the week, which is the only truly temperance measure that can be proposed with reference to the liquor traffic. The influence of true Seventh-day Adventists everywhere is always entirely in support of the cause of temperance.

This is sufficient for a proper examination of the alleged “bad fruits of Adventism” to which this opponent endeavors to call attention. Some few others are mentioned, but of a similar nature to those already examined, and to which perhaps more space has been devoted than their importance will warrant. The substance of Mr. Canright’s objections, taken as a whole, is that faith in the soon coming of Jesus and the observance of the Fourth Commandment Sabbath make people seclusive, irreligious, and useless in work for the uplifting and betterment of mankind. He would give one the impression that in other churches there is much more spiritual life and zeal for the cause of Christianity than exists among those who are looking for the coming of the day of God.

But he does not mention the things that show the sad decline of piety in the popular churches,—the small Sunday congregations, in which the men are conspicuous by their absence; the church fairs and festivals and shows by which money for the “Lord’s treasury” is obtained; the prevalence of intemperance, the use of tobacco, the dancing parties, card parties, and theaters, and other fashionable forms of worldliness that are inundating the churches like a flood; from all which men and women are saved by the reception of the stirring message, “Behold, He cometh!” Verily, if there is anything that will call a person out from the world, and make him an example “in all holy conversation and godliness,” it is the belief that He who was received up into heaven from the summit of the Mount of Olives nineteen centuries ago is about to come again to earth “in the glory of His Father,” to receive His people and purge the earth of its iniquity. What message could be better suited to this world-loving, degenerate age?

In proportion to their numbers, where is there a people that maintain more colleges and schools, more institutions for the treatment of disease and the relief of human suffering; that scatter more literature advocating the principles of temperance and healthful living; that conduct more missions for reaching the fallen and unfortunate in the cities, and that are sending more missionaries into other lands, than do the adherents of that system of belief which Mr. Canright is endeavoring to disparage? These are its fruits, visible to all. Are they bad? Let the system be judged by its fruits; but let the fruits be examined as they are in fact, and not as prejudice or ignorance represents them, before the judgment is passed.

L. A. S.