Latter-Day Signs | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 21, 1871

Latter-Day Signs.

It is rarely that we find the startling signs of the present time commented upon, and in the same breath slurs and sneers thrown out against those who think these things so significant of coming events. But these flippant remarks against “our Millerite friends,” are themselves as significant as the others; for in the last days just such things were to be. We have nothing to say in palliation of the course of the Antinomian Adventists, who, by their foolish time-settings, give such occasion to sensible people to cherish disgust, and express ridicule, for anything that bears the Advent name. Meanwhile we will try to bear patiently the reproach to which we are subjected by these unfavorable circumstances, and hope to the end for the grace soon to be revealed.

“Social morals are sadly out of order; crimes are increasing fearfully; murders, not traceable to insanity and drinking, but to cool and deliberate planning. We boast a refinement of civilization that borders on perfection, superabundant and self-sustaining; but the egotism of our civilization kills the spirit of religion, and like a ship all sail and no anchor, our national life whirls on, where, alas, where? In the meantime, our Millerite friends, so the eastern papers say, have appointed another day for final destruction, which, should it accomplish its end, will save much bother and settle a good many vexed questions of theology and politics. The eleventh day of February is the day beyond which, according to their theory, the year of grace is to go no farther, and eighteen seventy-one, is to have the honor of being the last of revolving cycles. The world has been merciless in its ridicule of those children of prophecy, and the church at large has not regarded them with a friendly eye; but there are worse doctrines daily enunciated than that which finds its warrant in the emphatic declaration of the word, ‘Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.’”