What Thirty Years Have Proved.
By Uriah Smith
THIRTY years ago this present season, the great body of Adventists were a unit, and the proclamation of the near-coming of the Lord was going with unparalleled power through the land. Not a heart doubted that God was in the movement; for on no other ground could what they felt and what they saw, be accounted for. In unity, and strength, and love, and power, all moved on together to the point of expectation in the autumn of that year. Disappointed in their hope, as the time passed and the Lord did not come, the scene of confusion that followed baffled description; and the discordant views and theories that immediately arose could not easily be catalogued. It was nothing strange that uncertainty should for a while reign supreme in many minds. But it was certain that time would test the various schemes of interpretation devised; and it was to be presumed that that which was the truth would soon begin to assume definite proportions, would begin to make its way steadily among the people, and would prove permanent in its nature. Thirty years have elapsed. Time enough has been given to test the truthfulness and practicability of every theory and every movement; and as we survey the field to-day what do we behold? Over a large portion of the Adventist body, the original confusion still reigns. Theory after theory has been devised which a few years have proved to be false and worthless. Movement after movement has been set on foot, which in a brief season has run its course and perished. But one movement appears which has been steady and onward in its progress, one theory which has stood, and grown stronger with years and investigation. That is the cause of the third angel’s message, as advocated by Seventh-day Adventists. Of all the periodicals that have been started since 1844 in advocacy of other views, some, after running an ignominiously short race, have disappeared, and others, after a few years had proved their position untenable, changed their course, and in their subsequent teaching contradicted their first. And not once or twice only have some of them changed, but their somersets have continued till they finally have no position, but present to the world a heterogeneous mass of incongruous and conflicting views. How has it been with the REVIEW? Its teaching has been the same from beginning to end. Its articles of twenty-five years ago read, in sentiment, the same as its articles of to-day. The views it advocates have increased in clearness and strength from year to year. It has not been one thing to-day and another to-morrow, a gross mistake one year and some new device to cover it up the next. But the movement has steadily grown in power, and the cause has gone forward with accelerating progress. And now there are two weeklies and four monthlies published in its defense, which all speak the same thing, and are all laboring to one end. Never did the cause present such evidences of strength and permanency as it presents to-day. The experience of these thirty years is of inestimable value. It fills a place which nothing else could fill; for however plausible a theory may look when first promulgated, the objection that time may prove it false can be refuted only by time itself. This objection time has removed in reference to our movement. No one need now enter into this work with a feeling that it is an experiment. These thirty years of investigation, of closest scrutiny, and every form and phase of opposition, have proved that the doctrines of S. D. Adventists are well grounded, and will stand. Thus has time developed in this cause such features of truthfulness as no other movement in the ranks of Adventists is able to show. And it is destined to culminate in that triumph which God has ordained for his work and his truth. U. S.