p. 4 | Let it be Tested by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1875

Let it be Tested.

By James White

It is asserted by some bigoted sectarians, simply because we expose some of the old stale dogmas of popular orthodoxy, that our teachings tend to infidelity. One says that our books make more infidels than Tom Paine’s Age of Reason. And one of our papers was returned from a Y. M. C. A. reading room not long since on the ground that they did not think it proper to harbor infidel publications. Elder Smith of the Review and Herald proposes to test this matter, and will say under the caption

HO! YE INFIDELS!

“This is a serious charge if true; and we do well, therefore, to take some pains to ascertain the facts in the case. We have the impression, from our own observation, and from personal knowledge of quite a number of cases, that the statement is exactly the opposite of the truth; that, so far from making infidels, there is nothing like our views of the prophecies, the nature of man, &c., to rescue men from infidelity.”

“And to test the matter, we have a request to make, which we hope all those concerned will take a little pains to answer. It is this: that all those who have been brought by S. D. Adventist teachings from infidelity or skepticism in any of its forms to embrace Christianity, and accept the Bible as the book of God, will drop us a postal card to this Office, giving names, address, and date of conversion. It will not take much time for each to do this; and if they will attend to it at once, we shall have something tangible to show the objector how fast our doctrines are making infidels.”

Elder Smith’s suggestions are right and just. And we wish to add, that it would be a capital thing for those who have been rescued from infidelity to make pointed statements, of more or less length, touching their experiences in changing from skepticism to a settled faith in the word of God. Let all such report themselves to Elder Uriah Smith, Battle Creek, Mich., and as many give their experience for the future benefit of the cause as are disposed so to do. And we further suggest that the names and addresses of all infidels who can be induced to say that the doctrines of Seventh-day Adventists turned them from the Bible to infidelity, also be reported to Eld. Smith.

Let this matter be fully tested. The popular view of the immortality of the soul, and the conscious state of the dead, is the very foundation and soul of the monster, spiritism. And tens of thousands of the self-styled orthodox churches have been swept in by this whirlpool of destruction, spiritism, whose foundation and strength is found in the creeds of these very churches. Who, then, are making infidels? Who? J. W.