p. 31 | A Forgery by M. E. Cornell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 8, 1873

A Forgery.

By M. E. Cornell

The following letter I copy from a printed handbill, 10x12 inches in size. This sheet was sold by an Episcopalian man for $1.00 per copy. The sheet claims to be copyrighted (?), and it is supposed that the man made thousands of dollars selling this paper to the ignorant and unsuspecting. The expressions, “Good Friday,” “Holy Sacraments,” “Five bloody wounds,” &c., show it to be a Catholic document, gotten up to supply the lack of Scriptural authority for Sunday-keeping. Many such forgeries have been circulated to awe the people into the regarding of human traditions as sacred requirements of the Lord. No divine institution ever needed any such nonsensical pretense to enforce its claims. The story of the engraved stone, turned over by a little child, &c., sounds much like the pretension of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, of finding plates in Palmyra hill, N. Y., engraved in an unknown language, and interpreted by a special revelation to him. The whole thing is undignified and absurd, when compared with the pure word of God. How strange that thousands have been more ready to believe a forgery than to credit the truth in its purity! The Bible warns us against such deception, and there is no excuse.

“What is the chaff, the word of man, When set against the wheat?”

M. E. CORNELL.

Napa City, Cal., June 23.