Another Effort by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 8, 1875

Another Effort.

By Uriah Smith

A PAMPHLET has been sent to us by some friend, the compound title of which reads as follows: “The Christian Sabbath, Harmonized with Creation Seventh day. The Conscious and Continued Existence of the Soul after the Death of the Body, and the Punishment of the Wicked Shown not to be Annihilation. The Second Advent of Christ, by Rev. E. M. H. Fleming, Member of the Des Moines Annual Conference of the M. E. Church.”

From this title the reader will at once perceive the line of thought presented in this book. His position on the Sabbath question is the one which is becoming so common among Methodists, a rehash of Dr. Aker’s sublime guess-work, making Sunday the original seventh day. We need not remind our readers that this position is abundantly refuted in Bro. Andrew’s review of Dr. A.’s work. On the state of the dead and the destiny of the wicked, the popular view is taken, while the second coming of Christ is thoroughly spiritualized. It is a work of 40 pages. We notice nothing new in it, except the claim that the second coming of Christ took place at Pentecost, notwithstanding Paul wrote to the Hebrews in A. D. 64, some time after Pentecost, that Christ had not yet come, but was to appear the second time, at some future point from their day. We are glad to have these questions agitated and made important as the living issues of the day; for wrong views will last with honest minds only till the truth can be brought before them.

We have also received a pamphlet on “The Sabbath Question,” published by the “Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” at Plano, Ill. We have glanced over it enough to see that it rejects the seventh day, and advocates the first day of the week as the Sabbath. So it seems that the Sabbath cause is to be in no-wise mixed up or identified with the errors of Mormonism. This we are gratified to know.

U. S.