NO UNION WITH INFIDELS.
By Editor
A BROTHER in Oregon has sent to this office a letter, of which the following is the principal part:— "Mr. Sam. P. Putnam, president of the American Secular Union, and editor of a journal called Free Thought, published at San Francisco, was in this town a few days ago lecturing on Infidelity. While here he circulated some of his papers. In one of these papers occurs the statement, made by J. L. McCartney, that the Seventh-day Adventists had 'joined the Secular Union in opposing the objects of the National Reform,' etc. "Some of the citizens of this place are using this against us, saying that we are a strange class of Christians who unite with infidels." It is no new thing for those who style themselves National Reformers to brand as infidels all who differ with them. This they find to be much easier than answering arguments. But we are not troubled by that; it is a great satisfaction for us to know that their calling us infidels does not make us such. In this instance, however, the reporter seems to have been somewhat at fault. The item in Free Thought was clipped from the Chronicle's report of a ministers' meeting at which Professor McCartney presented the subject of National Reform. The report made the Professor say that Seventh-day Adventists had joined the infidel league in opposing National Reform. As soon as we read the report, we addressed a note to Professor McCartney, asking him if he had been correctly reported. We did not believe that he had been, for we had had a long talk with him the day before, in the course of which he spoke very highly of the spirit of devotion which he had seen in our Sabbath-school and church service. He replied that in his address he made no reference to us, but that in the discussion that followed the reading of his paper, someone mentioned the Seventh-day Adventists as being opposed to the movement. That is all there is to that. We are most heartily opposed to the National Reform movement, but that does not make us infidels. We are opposed to it because we love the Bible and pure Christianity, and we do not want to see them trampled in the mire of politics. One word more. The Congregationalist ministers, before whom Professor McCartney read his paper on National Reform, considered the matter at their next meeting, and voted, unanimously, we think, not to indorse National Reform. Query: Does that act place them in the ranks of infidelity?