I was Dumb | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 27, 1856

"I was Dumb."

Few public men or public institutions are free from misrepresentations and groundless complaints. Explanations and replies afford fresh occasions for fault-finding. Patient continuance in well-doing is perhaps the safest course. God will protect the right, and in his own time vindicate those who seek to do his will and trust his care.

The great and good Chalmers once said, "I have all along been vastly too much disquieted by the misconstructions of those who did not comprehend me; and have suffered much both from the fatigue of refuting and explaining the same thing a hundred times over, and from the vexation felt in finding that in spite of every effort, there is a character assigned to my views the very reverse of every principle by which I am actuated. But why should the opposition of men thus affect me? Does it not test my belief in the reality of an all perfect mind, that is now looking on when I suffer so painfully from the adverse understandings of the limited and subordinate minds by which I am surrounded? Would it not nobly accredit my faith in God, that in quiet communion with him I felt a refuge and resting-place when sorely urged by the strife of tongues? To him may I at all times patiently commit my cause, and be still in the thought that he is God. Let me consider Him who endured not merely the controversy of adverse judgments but of adverse wills—the contradiction of sinners—and let me not be weary, nor faint in my mind."