At her Old Tricks

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 4, 1872

At her Old Tricks.

The church of Rome takes naturally to fraud and deception to carry on her work. Wherever darkness and ignorance prevail sufficiently, she sets these means immediately at work. Moral and intellectual light place her at an immense disadvantage. Hence her efforts to keep the masses in darkness. The following paragraph shows what she is doing to-day among the ignorant freedmen of the South:—

A Pious Fraud.— The Boston Watchman and Reflector gives an account of a curious letter, which, it is said, is being circulated among the more ignorant of negroes in the South in connection with the endeavors made by the Roman Catholics for their conversion to Catholicism. This letter is claimed to have been found near Iconium, 65 years after the crucifixion of our Saviour, and to have been written by Christ himself. It bears also the signature of the angel Gabriel! Among sundry commands in the letter is one to finish labor every Saturday evening by 6 o'clock, and to fast five Fridays in the year, beginning with Good Friday. Plagues and curses are threatened to those who may not put faith in the letter; and the simple possession of a copy of it is sufficient, it is promised, to keep off all danger and secure all conceivable property. The copy of the letter from which the Watchman & Reflector makes this summary was brought to one of the Home Mission secretaries by one of the colored Baptist preachers who had been engaged in the distribution, supposing it to be genuine and all right.