THE SUPPLEMENT by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 3, 1877

THE SUPPLEMENT.

By James White

It is well known to those who have read the Review for several years, that there are persons who profess faith in the Sabbath and in the soon coming of the Lord, scattered in different parts of the country, that stand opposed to Seventh-day Adventists. This is no new thing. A few such persons have acted a part in connection with our history from the very first. And at different times, certain ones have issued sheets in different places, more or less devoted to reproaches and slanderous statements of our people.

They have followed our people with murmurings and misrepresentations of our faith and practices, with no other apparent design than to prejudice certain minds, tear them from our churches, and add them to their feeble numbers. Their course has shown that they have coveted contention and confusion, as an element in which they could best do their work of tearing down. And it has been thought best to leave them to themselves as far as possible, in the hope that they would become tired of their wicked course, and either go to work to convert men to what they regard as the truth of God, or settle down among themselves, and cease to put in print and otherwise circulate a perpetual tirade of reproaches against our people.

But our silence has evidently emboldened them. Our letting numerous statements of theirs pass, which were notorious for either deception, perversions, or downright untruths, has led them out to show their bitterness and reckless disregard for honesty and truth, to that degree that it seems duty to Elders Waggoner and Loughborough to expose certain of them in the accompanying supplement. And it is doing them no injustice to present these as a sample of the many false and malicious statements they publish against Seventh-day Adventists.

We do not expect that the course of these persons will be changed by the exposures made; for those who will write and publish that which they know to be untrue, to tarnish the reputation of innocent persons, have reached a point where reform is exceedingly doubtful. Facts are given for a double purpose,—that the minds of honest persons may be disabused relative to the slanders already published, and that those who wish to know the facts in the case may be shielded for time to come from the influence of those who set themselves deliberately at work to slander the servants of Christ, simply because of differences of opinion as to truth and duty.

J. W.