The Advocate Again by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 22, 1883

The Advocate Again.

By Editor

THE California Christian Advocate has again deigned to notice the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and, as usual gets out of temper. We are reminded of the story of a deaf man who attended a discussion, saying that he could tell who got defeated, as the one who lost the argument always got mad. We have several times placed the Advocate editor in a trying position, and it is hard for him to keep his temper when he speaks of us. We took up a book on the Sabbath published by the Methodist Book Houses, which he advertised and recommended, and proved that it wickedly misrepresented the Scriptures, and abused its readers by hiding its misrepresentations under the pretense of a knowledge of Hebrew. We called upon the editor to vindicate the book or withdraw it from the market. The first he could not do, and he therefore passed it by without notice; but he has improved every opportunity since of "making faces" at us—making use of bitter language because he had no just reason to offer.

He is now very much stirred by our article on "That Same Identical Time," and, just as before, evades the issue and makes one of his own, which, if it contained any argument would be as fatal to the first day as to the seventh. This is the point he is trying to hide from his readers. Of the first day he says:—

"We are in favor of Sunday as a day of rest, and believe it ought to be secured to the people by legal enactments."

And again he says:—

"It seems to us of little use to reason with people who do not know, or those who are so perverse they will not acknowledge, that to keep exactly the same time as the Sabbath all over the earth is a practical impossibility."

Now this is a man of straw of his own making, and a very rude one at that. The reader—every intelligent reader—knows that we have never said a word in favor of "exactly the same time" as the Sabbath all over the earth. This is a figment originating in the minds of those who oppose the seventh day. Our article was for the express purpose of showing to the Advocate that they do not and cannot keep the "identical time" for Sunday, and therefore if there is any difficulty in the way of the Sabbath it is a difficulty in the way of Sunday also. And for this he accuses us of perverseness, and rails at us for "stupidity." We shall not retort and call him stupid, for the double reason that we are not permitted to render "railing for railing," and because we do not think that "stupidity" is his difficulty. His ailment is one that is much less excusable than stupidity would be.

It has been our endeavor to bring him to realize the fact that any argument on time which would stand against the Sabbath would stand against the Sunday also. We do not believe that he is too stupid to see it, for any one with the commonest kind of sense can see it. It may be that he has described his own case in the words, "so perverse that he will not acknowledge" this very evident fact. We will quote from his article, substituting "Methodists" for "Adventists," and "Sunday" for "Saturday," as follows:—

"If two Methodists should leave New York, each one fiercely determined to keep Sunday for Sabbath, and one should go east and the other west, and should sail until they came near each other, and should stop on islands in mid-ocean, one would be keeping Sunday and the other Monday for Sabbath, and this state of things actually has existed, and does yet. The only thing these two Sunday Methodists could do would be to proceed to demolish each other for the wicked violation of the law of the Sabbath."

And if there was a "legal enactment" on that mythical island "in favor of Sunday as a day of rest," what could these two Methodists do about it? What would be Sunday to one would not be Sunday to the other. Can the Advocate see the point?

We will be much obliged to the editor of the Advocate if he will notice this subject once more. We will not ask him to say whether he believes that Sunday can be kept. We take it for granted that he believes that it can, because he declares in favor of compelling men to keep it by "legal enactments." But we do ask him to answer the following questions:—

1. Do Sunday-keepers keep "exactly the same time" from the Atlantic to the Pacific?

2. Do you ask that a legal enactment shall compel all the people, all over the land, to keep exactly the same time for Sunday?

3. Can the Sunday—exactly the same day—be kept by all the people from New York to San Francisco, and they not keep exactly the same time?

4. If Sunday can be universally kept without keeping exactly the same time, cannot the seventh day be kept also without keeping exactly the same time?

5. And finally, Does the pretended "exactly-the-same-time" argument involve any difficulty in keeping the Sabbath which is not involved in keeping Sunday?

If the Advocate will answer these questions directly we will republish them with his replies. If he does not answer them we will not impute his silence to his "stupidity," nor rail at him for "perverseness." We will let the reader judge why he evades the issue, and grows captious over our effort to bring him to a recognition of the fact that his argument has no bearing against the Sabbath which it has not against the Sunday also.

Of course we do not admit that there is the shadow of an argument in his position against any day. Not a word can be found in the writings of any Seventh-day Adventist hinting toward the necessity of keeping the same identical time for the Sabbath; and Sunday-keepers know that they do not keep the same time for Sunday. Why, then, do they dwell upon it so much in their opposition to the Sabbath, seeing that it touches no issue in the controversy? It must be because they can find no real argument against the Sabbath, therefore they suppose one; and have proved quite unhappy in the supposition.

Next week we will notice the supposed difficulty in keeping the Sabbath in traveling round the world.