[From Bro. Daniels.] by Dexter Daniels

Publishing Committee · Saratoga Springs, N. Y. · Aug 19, 1851

[From Bro. Daniels.]

By Dexter Daniels

[From Bro. Daniels.]

DEAR BRO. WHITE: Yesterday I received three numbers of your paper, "Second Advent Review, and Sabbath Herald," and one of the "Advent Review." I know not who they are from, but this I can say, they have revived my drooping spirits by reading them. The first that I read was the "Extra," "an appeal to the Laodicean church." I fully agree with Bro. Edson. I have clearly seen, ever since the Enfield camp-meeting in '45, I think, that the Advent people were the Laodicean church, and wherever I have preached, I have not kept back the truth, as far as I have seen it. At that camp-meeting I heard the preacher advise his congregation not to seek for any more light. He told them that they had got light enough, and they needed no more. Truly, thought I, this is the Laodicean church spoken of in Rev. iii, "rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing." And since that time I have noticed that the most part of the Advent people say the same; and some of them have told me in so many words, that they would not go into anything new, or believe anything new. And I do fully believe that "the virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise." Amos v, 2. This is speaking of some people that went out. It cannot be the churches, for they did not go out. Where I have preached I have tried to tell the truth, and by so doing I have brought down the indignation of the popular Adventists upon me, and I have been cast out by them. I have been published in the Boston Advent paper once or twice, and they have tried to stop me from traveling, but God has said, "behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." Amen.

I have no confidence in the great mass of Advent believers. I believe that they are as bad, or worse than those that they have pretended to come out from. I see no love of Christ in them. If they are right, then I am wrong. I do not desire to be in the kingdom with such a spirit as many of them possess. If heaven is not love, peace and union, then I desire the wicked's portion; that is death—for I could not be happy in heaven with such people. But I do not believe that they are the true children of God. I believe that their lamps have gone out. They deny the past in this place, most all of them, and they say that they do not believe that there has been any move in heaven in the past movement, and deny the midnight cry of 1844. This, my brother, I fully believe that we have had. The last sign to the Egyptians before Israel went out from Egypt, was the midnight cry. Ex. xii, 29, 30. This was a type of the true midnight cry of 1844. *

I praise the Lord that I feel unmoved in this evil time. I believe that we are in the wilderness of the people, [Eze. xx, 34-38] and that God will bring his true people into the bond of the covenant. After God brought the children of Israel out into the wilderness, it was then, and not until then, that God gave the commandments to Israel. Then he commanded the Sabbath to be observed by all Israel. After the tenth day of the seventh month, 1844, passed by, I thought that we were in the wilderness of the people, and I began to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, instead of the first-day Sunday, and did so until the next year, when Bro. Boutell persuaded me out of it by saying that Christ was the end of the law to all the Abrahamic faith, and said that he had as lief work seven days in a week at one, for all of its being wicked, and said that he was sorry that I had got into that old Jewish Sabbath. He said that I was in bondage, and that I was trying to be justified by the deeds of the law, and quoted quite a number of texts. I began to reason in this way: Brother Boutell is a good man, and if I am saved he will be, for I considered him better than myself, and why does he not keep the Sabbath if it is to be observed? Surely, he would believe the truth. I then began to study the Bible for the evidence, and I could not find where the Sabbath was abolished, or changed to the first-day. And I saw that most all believed in a Sabbath-day, and said that it was not abolished, but changed to the first day. But I could not find the evidence of the change in the Bible; and being an independent, thinking man, I chose to keep God's day instead of the Pope's; for this, I believed, was the Pope's day. After a while I went out to see my children in the state of New-York, Chenango Co., in German and Pitcher. I call them my children, because they came into the Advent faith through my feeble labors. But none of them would stop their work on the seventh day. All that I could say did no good, but they would not say anything against it, because they respected me, and did not wish to hurt my feelings, I suppose, more than they could help. They would not believe, and receive the Sabbath, and I became disheartened and gave it up, thinking that perhaps I was more zealous for the law than I ought to be. I saw no goodness in myself, and I looked upon every one better than myself. *

I thought that I would love God, and believe the past, and try to encourage the weak, and let that question alone, and I have not observed it since. But I begin to be decided to observe God's holy Sabbath, live or die, sink or swim. Amen.

When there is another conference, will you let me know when, and where it is? and I shall attend, if it is within 200 miles of me. DEXTER DANIELS. Chicopee Falls, (Mass.) 1851.