Is it the Spirit of Christ?
[The following communication, which has been translated for the REVIEW from our Swedish monthly, the Swensk Advent Herald, shows how the spirit of bigotry and persecution still reigns among some classes of people, and what a battle the truth will have to fight among the Swedes in this country. Let us give the mission our cordial support.] The Swedish, Methodist ministers in Minnesota considered, at a Conference held at St. Paul in April, 1873, a question concerning what position they as a church should take toward S. D. Adventists. It was decided that they should to the utmost oppose them; and, in order to make it as positive as possible, they classed Adventists among free-thinkers, i. e., deists. This summer, they have, at their camp-meetings, fully carried out the decision of the Conference. From Chicago Lake, we learn that a few Adventists visited their camp-meeting, where they first heard from the most noted among the ministers a general order to the people that no one should speak a word to any Adventist. When the Adventists understood that such fear was controlling the people, who, for something over a year before, walked with them, hand in hand, in the same faith, they decided to converse with such as dared to enter into conversation with them. When the ministers noticed this, they came in greatest haste to separate the persons conversing, and threatened to arrest the Adventists if they opened their mouths to any of their people—and that within two miles of the place of meeting. One Adventist was in this way separated from his own sister. Here in Meeker Co., at Swede Grove, where I, my wife, and some of our neighbors, visited the Swedish Methodist Camp-meeting, we witnessed the same as above-mentioned. There was one Advent sister who distributed a few tracts to different persons, and when the leading minister, Mr. G., saw this, he rushed forward in the greatest haste, snatched the tracts from the hands of the woman, and from all those he saw who had tracts in their hands, and afterward committed them all to the flames. When this was done, I desired to say a few words, but the foreman of the camp-meeting announced, “If you say a word, four policemen will come and arrest you within ten minutes.” P. E. HANSON.