p. 288 | Misinformed by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 8, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 18.

Misinformed.

By Editor

IN the Oakland Tribune of April 29, we find the following item concerning our late meeting:—

“Last evening twenty Adventists were baptized in Lake Merritt. The party came to the lake in carriages, and entering its waters in company with the officiating elder, were each immersed three times. One of the converts, overcome either by the cold, or nauseated by the salt water, is said to have fainted in the elder's arms.”

Concerning this item the reporter should have said, as they do of certain novels, that it is “founded on fact.” He certainly could not have gone farther from the truth unless he had said that there was no baptism at all. As a matter of fact, there were thirty candidates, the baptism was witnessed by two or three hundred people, most of whom walked to the place; and there was no fainting, or any unseemly demonstration. The entire ceremony was a model of order.

But these errors are of no consequence, and the item would not be noticed, if it were not for the statement that each candidate was immersed three times! Seventh-day Adventists believe that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism [immersion],” Eph. 4:5, and are uncompromising in their opposition to that perversion of the sacred ordinance, which consists in immersing the believer three times. Indeed, the “officiating elder” above referred to, has perhaps done more, both by voice and pen, to expose the “trine immersion” heresy, than any other writer. Will the Tribune please do us justice on this point, by correcting the mistake of its reporter?