Is Everything Right? by J. H. W.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 15, 1871

Is Everything Right?

By J. H. W.

We see that the editors of the Crucible are quite excited over our recent exposures of some of the boastful assumptions of spiritualists. It will be remembered that we quoted from their own writings to sustain our charges that spiritualism is “evil, and only evil,” that it tends to vice by upholding and encouraging sin. Our only severity was that of truth. But the editors are terribly stirred up. They try to be witty, and succeed in saying many bitter things, and utter some “undeveloped truth,” (according to Davis’ theory.) Davis says that to blame a person for anything he does is evidence of an undeveloped mind; and according to that, the editors of the Crucible have room to progress considerably yet. I have always urged that they never fully believed their own theory that “whatever is, is right,” and now they are proving that I was right. They teach that opposites are equally true, and that virtue and vice are both useful; but they cannot act in harmony with such a belief, especially when an Adventist crosses their track. I was going to write above—they teach that virtue and vice are equally useful—but I could not, as they exalt vice above virtue. Dr. Child in a book recommended by the editor of the Crucible, says:—

“Ere long man will come to see that all sin is for his spiritual good. Holiness lays up treasures on earth. Sin destroys earthly treasures, and causes them to be laid up in Heaven.”

Christ and the People, pp. 32, 33. In another book, “Better views of Living,” p. 128, the same author says:—

“The divine use of the ten commandments is in their violation, not in their observance.”

We are not at all surprised that spiritualists feel abused and slandered when their writings are quoted! But we are astonished that they cannot or will not see that the wrong is in their own teachings, and not in the persons who quote them and expose their immoral tendency.

J. H. W.