A PLAIN TALK TO THE MURMURERS by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 31, 1877

A PLAIN TALK TO THE MURMURERS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Some Facts for Those Who Are not in Harmony with the Body.

(Continued.)

Now take up the paper published in the interest of these murmurers, and see it filled with articles and letters from those who went out from us. All of them are very holy and much abused. How does the editor know the character of these complainers? In the majority of cases at least, he knows nothing about it. He hears only their side, takes their word, and publishes any accusation they may make against S. D. Adventists. The blacker it is, the better it is liked. Then innocent readers hold up their hands in holy horror at the awful villainy of the “visionites.”

Facts are stubborn things; and these are facts. I do not say that all are of this class; for I do not know them all. Some, no doubt, have turned in with them for other reasons, and some ignorantly. But how can a church or people have the blessing of God, who will receive among them, and fellowship, such characters as these? For more than twenty years this party has been at work under one name and then another, but all of them with the same object and the same spirit. According to the best of my ability to learn of them, all told, they do not number three hundred members in the world. As to the ministers, they have not a tenth part of the talent that they have had at half a dozen different times before, or that they had ten years ago. All their different publications put together would not make one fair-sized volume. Their influence in spreading the light of present truth so far as they do hold it is next to nothing.

There is no union among them in anything except in fighting us. I have been among them, have visited their churches, have conversed with their leading men, and know all about the workings of that party. I think it would be a hard matter to find any two of them who believe alike. I take up their paper; here is one of their leading writers advocating that the wicked never will be raised. On the opposite page is another prominent writer denying it just as stoutly. Look again; here is an article advocating the age to come, and another one denying it. One claims that England is the two-horned beast, another that it is the United States. One believes that the messages apply now, another that they are all in the past. Indeed, to name the different views they hold, you would have to name as many as there are writers for their paper; and then that would only answer for the time being, as they are constantly changing their views. To-day, as a people, they practice the very things which they denounced but a few years ago. They have no union or system in their work. One wants to do it this way; and another, some different way. The consequence is, little or nothing is done in any way. It is impossible with them to discipline their members, or churches, or ministers, as each one is independent of all the rest. They have no man of recognized leading ability among them. Each one thinks he is just as able and talented as any other man.

All those men of ability, who have once been with them, have left them. They have had to get a new recruit of ministers every few years, or they would now be without any. They have not even one man of first-class, or even second-class, ability, i. e., a man who can lay broad plans, can build up churches and conferences, establish finances, build up a publishing house, schools, and other institutions absolutely necessary for the success of any cause in these times. The very most that any one of them is able to do is simply to maintain himself, without being able to establish any general system whereby means shall be brought into the cause, printing houses established, missionaries sent out, and the cause generally built up and sustained. So far as I have been able to learn, and I have been pretty well informed, the regular contributions of the whole party for the support of the ministry do not amount to $500 a year. I think it is even less than that. What a host of ministers that will sustain! In northern Missouri, the most flourishing part of their field, there was only about $200 pledged per year, out of which three ministers were to be supported! Among our people, I can select many a church of not over thirty members who contribute for the cause each year more than that whole party does.

I said that their little semi-monthly sheet is now struggling feebly for a mere existence. In proof of this, look at the following figures. Taking six consecutive numbers, commencing in December, covering a period of three months, or one quarter of the year, and that the very best time for publishers, the very months in which subscriptions to papers are generally renewed, the receipts in its columns show as follows: During the entire three months, thirteen weeks, received:


For the paper,	$79.44
“ book sales,	5.02
“ donations to the paper,	18.50
Total,	$102.96

For this period of three months the average weekly payments are thus shown to be:—


On subscriptions,	$6.11
“ donations,	1.42
“ book sales,	.39
Total,	$7.92

The following are the receipts that appear in a late number of the REVIEW:—


To receipts for REVIEW,	$601.82
“ books by mail,	294.37
“ “ express,	401.69
“ “ freight,	154.17
S. D. A. E. Society,	58.50
Cash on acct.,	258.51
To Pacific Mission,	10.00
“ General Conf. Fund,	15.50
“ Swiss Mission,	8.25
“ Mich. Conf. Fund,	910.69
“ Book Fund,	12.00
“ Camp-meeting Fund,	17.00
“ Swedish Mission,	.50
“ Mich. T. and M. Society,	51.85
“ Danish Norwegian Mission,	4.00
Total,	$2798.85

Taking up another REVIEW we find the receipts for one week are $2,492.97. These are not exceptional cases. Many weeks it runs much higher. Add to this the receipts for all our eight periodicals, and the reader can form something of an idea of the difference between our work and theirs. This is the way they are taking the work from our hands!

One of their prominent men, in their paper of January 9, 1877, says thus:— “DEAR BROTHER JACOB: I have thought much of you lately, as I see the receipts are very small. I sometimes fear that you will get discouraged, but hope that you will not. Although times are very hard, and money is hoarded up by capitalists, yet I hope that every child of God will feel his or her responsibility, and do all they can to help in this good cause.” Then right opposite his name in the receipts, is twenty-five cents credited to him as his subscription to the paper!

This party has now been at work for over twelve years, and what evidence do they show of their prosperity and success? Have they built any meeting-houses within the last twelve years? Not one. Have they any tents in the field with which to prosecute the work? Not one. Have they sent out any missionaries to herald the light of present truth? No.

There is another significant fact which can be observed any day all through our ranks wherever sympathizers with that party or their principles exist among us. It is this: When persons begin to find fault with our work, with Bro. and Sr. White, and with the visions, they immediately commence to cease their contributions to support the cause. They pay no more S. B., or at least very little. They make no donations to aid in carrying on any part of present truth, and very generally they take little part in our meetings. “Oh!” you say, “this is only natural, after having lost confidence in the management of the work, of course they would not feel like giving much to sustain it.” Very well. But has not God a work on earth somewhere? Has not the time come for the light on the Sabbath, and the Advent doctrine to be heralded to the world? So they profess to believe.

Then, is it not their duty to be doing something in that work, to aid it liberally with their means, with their prayers, and with their influence? Of course it is. None of them will deny this. Then if Seventh-day Adventists are not doing that work, why don’t they go at it, why don’t they do something? But do they? No; they do nothing at all, or at least next to nothing. I know of men worth from $5000 to $50,000 who have stood back for years, and contributed nothing anywhere. The only thing they have done is to find fault with us, and use this as an excuse for not supporting the work. Well, if we are not doing the Lord’s work, why don’t they take hold with those who are, or take hold and do it themselves? But no; they never propose to do that. There they sit, and grumble, and curse us, while they make all they can, and keep all they get. The fact is, this is only an excuse to hide their selfishness and covetousness.

And further, I know ministers of good ability, and lay brethren of talent and influence, who once were useful in the cause of God, in converting men to the Sabbath, and sinners to Christ, while they were in harmony with the body; but since they have joined the ranks of the murmurers, what have they done? I do not now refer to those who have openly joined the rebel party, but to the murmurers and fault-finders scattered among our people. Who have they brought to the truth? What churches have they raised up? How many sinners have they converted? How have they shown their zeal for God and his work? What missionary enterprise have they engaged in? What war have they waged with the devil and his host? What articles have they written, what books have they composed? Ah! we know, and God knows, and they know, that they have simply balked, and done nothing anywhere. If they are on the right track, and have gotten nearer to the Lord by withdrawing from us, why do we not see some evidences of it?

And are these the people, this the party, whom God has raised up to give the last solemn warning to a dying world? Brethren, open your eyes and look at these things as they are. Has the time come for the world to be warned, for the last, solemn, Judgment message to be given? one that shall prepare a people for translation, one that shall go to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and even before kings? Rev. 10:11; and is this the people that are giving that message? Are these the instruments through which God proposes to do that work? How foolish! All divided among themselves upon doctrine, not agreed upon anything scarcely, no union and co-operation in labor, no system in prosecuting their work, the regular contributions of the whole body are not enough fairly to support more than one minister. All the able ministers they ever had have apostatized from the faith. They have started on the same project half a dozen times, and have broken into fragments, and gone to ruin every time thus far. Six different papers started in the same interest, and five of them are dead already, and they have not even one man of fair ability in all their ranks—no, not one. The leading men who have started these movements in the past, and particularly the one now existing, have apostatized, not only from the work, but have made shipwreck of themselves. “Oh! but,” say they, “this is nothing against our cause; did not Judas apostatize? Have not there been apostates from every cause? Did not Moses Hull, Nathan Fuller, Eld. Snook, and others, leave your ranks?” But, dear friends, this is quite a different affair. It is no new thing for any cause to have apostates, and it is nothing against the cause either. But when the very leaders and starters of the cause themselves—when these men apostatize, that is something against it.

Judas was only one of the twelve, and he fell before the apostles really commenced their work at all, before the resurrection of Christ; and he even confessed that he had forsaken the right and truth. What show would Christianity have made in the world, if after preaching five or ten years, Peter had apostatized, and renounced the whole thing, if James had given it up and gone back to Judaism, and John had renounced it as a false doctrine, and Paul had turned away, and warned men against it? This is the point to be looked at. The great pillars of early Christianity never forsook it. What would have become of the Reformation if Luther and Melancthon, after having started it and worked in it for years, had come out and re- renounced the whole thing, and gone back to Rome? What would have become of Methodism if Wesley and Whitefield and Fletcher had apostatized from the faith? What would have become of the first message, had Miller and his leading brethren turned away, and given it up? How much hope would there be for the Seventh-day Adventists if Eld. White and Sr. White and Elders Andrews and Waggoner and Smith and other leading men should apostatize from the faith, and give it up as a bad job? Here is the point that we want our friends to look at. The very fathers and founders of these rebel movements have gone to ruin, have apostatized from the very thing which they themselves started. They have renounced it as an error.

Again we challenge them to find a single case in all the history of God’s work upon the earth, where a special message, a great reformation, was to be brought about, where the founder or leaders in that work did apostatize from it, or turn the work in a wrong channel, so that God had to raise up other men to take the work from their hands and carry it on. No such thing has ever occurred in a single instance, and yet this has been the very history of the party we are considering.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

(To be Continued.)