The Second Advent and the Sabbath
By J. Edgerton
DEAR BRO. WHITE:—Through the goodness of God I am permitted to acknowledge the reception of your valuable paper. I have been afflicted with the loss of my eye-sight for the last three months so that I have been unable to write or to read until this present time. Your valuable paper has been a source of much comfort and satisfaction, situated as we are, strangers and pilgrims amidst the surrounding gloom of modern infidelity under the name of harmonial philosophy and popular theology. The minister of the Baptist church here gave out that he would preach a discourse on the second advent of our Lord, stating that he had believed the doctrine more than twenty years. The time arrived for his second advent teaching, he took a good and appropriate passage of scripture as the foundation of his discourse. "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." He said that there should be no sign given of Christ's second coming, and quoted the words of our Lord to the wicked scribes and pharisees. There shall no sign be given to this wicked generation but the sign of the prophet Jonas. His design confidently was to evade103the truth of the doctrine he professed to believe; namely, the second advent of Christ. It was obvious to us that he intended to ridicule both us and our belief of the present truth. The next First-day this same minister preached a discourse to overthrow the Sabbath, but we were not there. He stated to his audience that he had prepared a discourse on the Sabbath but those that he prepared it for were not present. It was well known to the congregation, who the speaker meant; for we have declared in public and in private conversation that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord our God. Some few are investigating the subject, while others are skeptical. O, that the Lord would open their eyes to behold wondrous things out of his law. I wish that some of our Advent preachers would come here. "Come over into Macedonia and help us." J. EDGERTON.
Royalton, O., Oct. 21st, 1854.