THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
By James White
WHAT we have witnessed in the comparatively slow progress of the cause for a score of years in the past, is only preparatory to the vast and rapid work before us, which will be cut short in righteousness under the loud cry of the third angel’s message. We invite your attention to what has been accomplished. 1. Our publications, which to-day are a power in the land. These have reached the number of one hundred and eighty-three, and some of them are now read in seven languages besides the English. These cover the grounds of our faith and hope, and it has cost a vast amount of close and anxious study to bring out the harmonious chains of truth clearly and forcibly set forth in them. The writers of these works have not aimed at the popular style, but in plain, wholesome English have presented the great truths of the message in simple style. This work, thank Heaven, has been accomplished under the Guiding Hand, and now young men who enter the ministry, with willing minds and sanctified hearts, have only to take the system of truth, made ready to their hands, and go forth and repeat it in the ears of the people. A quarter of a century ago the work of editing a weekly paper was more than tenfold what it is now. Then contributors to the columns of the REVIEW AND HERALD were very few, and most of the writers were so poorly qualified, both in composition and penmanship, that not less than three-fourths of all the matter that came from their pens had to be copied and improved before it went into the compositor’s hands. Now there are writers for our periodicals whose numbers and qualifications are neither few nor mean. And, besides these, in our numerous publications are sermons, articles, and paragraphs, rich in thought, waiting to be extracted to enrich the columns of our periodicals. These are ever new to the general reader, and will bear repeating annually in our periodicals, especially in our pioneer sheet, sent out principally on new ground by the tract and missionary societies. When our beloved missionaries go across the water to old England to preach the word, and aided by the press, extend the light throughout Great Britain, and wherever in the Old World and in the islands of the seas the English language is spoken and read, they have only to take our publications along with them to reprint and put them on the wings of the wind to be carried to the tens of thousands whose hearts the Lord is opening to receive the truths they contain. And more. Those missionaries from our country who labor where other languages are spoken and read, although they labor under greater difficulties than missionaries will meet in Great Britain, have only the extra labor of translating from the pure English text of our publications, which contain a pure theology. Thank God for our publications. In them the work of a century has been crowded into a little more than a score of years. 2. Our organization. The extremes which the Adventists of 1844 ran into on the subject of church organization made the work of organizing and disciplining our churches at the commencement of our work difficult and hard. Under the first message, the coming of the Lord was brought very near. The popular ministry, and a large majority of the membership, opposed the doctrine, and believers in the second advent near were pressed to that degree that, with few exceptions, they either came out of the nominal churches, or were pushed out. And while wounded, and still smarting from the rod, the more incautious and rash took extreme views of the words, “Come out of her [Babylon], my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Rev. 18:4. And under these feelings and views, men of ill-balanced minds were not wanting to denounce church organization, and publicly declare that organization and church discipline were means of oppression, with which they classed human creeds, branding the whole, “Cast-iron Orthodoxy.” Expecting the Lord to come very soon, they saw neither the necessity nor the propriety of organizing. And drawing the false conclusion that the unchristian treatment they had received from their former brethren resulted wholly from human creeds and human organizations, prejudice took strong hold of their minds and hearts against that organization and discipline which is clearly set forth in the New Testament. These they regarded as systems of oppression, which they held in widest contrast with the freedom of the gospel. The inevitable result was fanaticism, and the disgrace of the advent name throughout the length and breadth of the land, to that degree that when our preachers enter a new field that has been cursed by the influence of these disorderly fanatics, it requires days, and sometimes weeks, to so far remove prejudice as to obtain the open ears of the public. It was when this state of things was fully ripe, after the great disappointment and scattering in 1844, that our message took its rise, and our work began in earnest among those very Adventists on whom rested the mildew and blight of ultra comeoutism, anti-organization, and fanaticism. You undertake the task of teaching them, and they at once become your teachers. Standing upon the very pinnacle of reform in their opinion, could they be reformed? And, by the way, ardent reformers are the hardest men to reform that live. To instruct, hew, and square others, and make all the rest of the world right according to their warped standard of right, is their business exclusively. And should God send an angel from Heaven with a message to them, burning with truth and love to that degree that it would melt the rocks in the bottom of the ocean, it would not warm that Pharisaical shell that incases them, and they would order the messenger back into Heaven, after finding fault with his dress, complaining of the spirit in which he delivered his message, and charging him with speculation and getting rich. J. W.