DISCUSSION AT ROME, N. Y by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 28, 1877

DISCUSSION AT ROME, N. Y.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Sabbath and Sunday, June 16 and 17, we held our last meeting with the church at Rome before our departure for the East. Quite a large number of brethren and sisters came in from the surrounding churches.

This was the time appointed for the discussion so long proposed. As we could not have the opera house Friday evening, we held the debate Sabbath afternoon at 3 o'clock, and Saturday evening at 8 o'clock, having two sessions of two hours each. We had a large audience both afternoon and evening, and the very best of attention. A prominent lawyer of the place was chairman of the meeting.

Eld. Widmer affirmed that the first day of the week had taken the place in the Christian church of the seventh day in the Jewish church. He brought his proof almost entirely from history. He began with Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, and then quoted all the usual testimony upon that point and not one word of Scripture. I pressed him hard upon this point, which made a deep impression against him. To evade the force of it, he affirmed that a written revelation was not so very necessary, after all, because the church existed a long time before the Old Testament was written, and the Christian church a long time before any of the New Testament was written; that many essential things are not written in the Bible at all, and we must go to the history of the church to learn these. We were astonished to hear such doctrine from a Methodist minister. It is the very corner-stone of Catholicism.

I showed that the fathers whom he quoted also taught prayers to the dead, making the sign of the cross, and other Romish superstitions. All his authors said was, that in the second and third centuries after Christ, Christians met together on the first day of the week. This was all. They did not claim it was the Sabbath, nor did Christians rest from their work upon it. I showed by overwhelming testimony that for several hundred years after Christ all Christians worked on Sunday. The elder admitted this, and even argued that it was right. He did not claim that Sunday was kept sacredly in the time of the apostles, nor for centuries after. He said it grew up gradually. In saying this, of course he gave us the whole question. In his last speech, he made a few references to the Bible, every time protesting that the passages quoted did not prove anything positively in favor of the first day. They only gave a slight intimation, which he found more clearly stated in after generations. All our friends felt highly pleased with the results of the debate. I have seldom felt better satisfied with a debate than with this.

I spoke in our church four times, and Bro. Whitney, once. The audience was larger than at any time since the dedication. Sunday afternoon our house was filled. We received eight into the church, and then went to the water, where Bro. Whitney baptized eleven. It was one of the most interesting baptisms we have ever had. It was a beautiful day and a lovely place, and everything was conducted in the best of order. Some estimated that there were a thousand people present. We were glad to close up our meeting after the debate with such a scene. We enjoyed a good social meeting with the brethren on Sabbath morning.

D. M. CANRIGHT.