CANADA by A. C. Bourdeau

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 20, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 16.

CANADA

By A. C. Bourdeau

SINCE I have been laboring in this part of the Province, and some have decided to obey the truth, many have expressed their desire that some one of the five preachers that hold meetings in this place and vicinity should make an effort to support the Sunday institution, either in giving some lectures on the subject in our hearing, or in having a public discussion with me on the Sabbath question. Many have thought for months that we might have the truth; but they kept back from obeying on the ground that they wanted to hear on both sides of the question. They could not get one of these ministers to meet us.

The preachers were asked if they would be willing to converse with us on the subject at their own dwellings. Two of them said they would talk with us if we would call on them. I spent nearly a whole day with a Methodist preacher at his dwelling; I spoke much on the subject of the Sabbath, but he did not run the risk of saying a word upon it. The other preacher who agreed to visit with us was a Baptist. A friend went two miles with me to his house to hear us talk on the subject. But, lo! when we were there, though he was very free to talk on other subjects, I had to do all the talking on the Sabbath question.

While an Adventist preacher was holding a meeting, and was palming off, at a high rate, his no-law and no-Sabbath views, I happened to go into his meeting just as he was saying in his sermon that our faith was such that we could only proselyte, and that we had no conversions of sinners. But as soon as he saw us he changed his tactics, and we heard nothing more from him about the law and Sabbath. At the close of his discourse, I met his misrepresentations against us, and spoke about thirty minutes on the two laws and the Sabbath, to counteract what he had said against our views.

But the time has come—the people are all awake—they have found a debater. The preacher is coming to meet me next Sunday. I am not in favor of holding discussions; but the people demand it, and I have agreed to affirm that the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment is binding upon God's people in this dispensation by divine authority. The Bible alone will be the man of our counsel—our text-book. Pray God that he may give strength and wisdom in holding up and defending the truth.

A. C. BOURDEAU.

Knowlton, P. Q., April 4, 1876.