p. 25 | False Witness by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 8, 1885

False Witness.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

SOME time ago we received a circular from a crank who pretended to know exactly when the Lord would come. We say "a crank," because his professed "calculations" showed that in his mental make-up he was decidedly crooked. He represented nobody, and made no pretensions to, and we thought we treated his guess-work with great respect when we promptly granted it a place in the waste basket. The time that he had set was Jan. 5, 1885, and as this date is in the past, he is doubtless now at work on a new and improved computation.

But news was scarce after election, and the most of the papers to which this circular was sent, gave it a prominent place in their columns. More than this, both secular and religious papers have given the gratuitous information that "the Adventists have fixed it that the end of the world is to be January 5, 1885." When this statement was first noticed, a denial of it, and a true statement of the case was sent to the San Francisco Bulletin, which showed its fairness by giving it as prominent a place as it did the other. But not one of the papers that copied the original charge have copied the refutation. After that refutation appeared in the Bulletin, a religious journal in San Francisco repeated the statement that the Adventists have fixed the time for the end of the world. We can only conclude that, not having been able to make any headway against the doctrines of Seventh-day Adventists, it is willing, in order to create prejudice against them, to place itself among those who love and make a lie.

Wherever Seventh-day Adventists are known, it is well understood that they set no time for the Lord to come, and have no sympathy with those who do so. It is true that some who profess to be Adventists do presume to fix the time when the Lord will come; but the unwarranted act of a few irresponsible persons should not be set down against an entire denomination, which repudiates both the persons and their methods.

The Lord himself, speaking of his coming, said, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man." This is in the same chapter in which he says that after certain signs have taken place, we must "know that he is near, even at the doors." The same word that obliges us to be Adventists, also obliges us to confess our ignorance as to the day, or month, or year when the Master will return.

We have no expectation of causing false reports to cease. We do not suppose that, because of our protest, people will cease to show their contempt for the Bible doctrine of the coming of the Lord, by maligning and ridiculing those who profess it. On the contrary, we expect that such things will increase. Personally they do not trouble us, and our only object in noticing them is to disabuse the minds of some who have innocently believed these false reports, and who, but for them, would look with favor on the doctrines which we are sure are of vital importance. E. J. W.

BUDDHISTS assert that Roman Catholicism is a counterfeit of their religion, and was invented by the devil. The Christian at Work says that those who are familiar with both systems declare that there is a remarkable similarity between them. The Buddhists are no doubt correct in their assertion, only the devil invented the original as well as the counterfeit.