Writing Against Spiritualism
By Calvin Monroe
Dear Brethren and Sisters : It is some six or seven years since I embraced the Sabbath of the Lord, and the Third Angel's Message; during which time you have heard from me but seldom. Hence, an apology is due; the more especially, after the many calls that have been made to delinquent brethren to write for the Review and Herald. My apology for the last two or three years, chiefly is,—to say nothing of the numerous, family cares of an aged man—writing against Spiritualism, which has engrossed most of my leisure moments. The result of this labor has been some three hundred pages of ordinary letter paper; most of it as condensed as possible. In all which, I have had an eye, not only to warning the world, but to the perusal of the brethren in the columns of the Review, or otherwise. Particulars referred to the editors. This was too prolix for the secular press, to which it was tendered, a separate article excepted, written by request, touching a late discussion of Spiritualism in one of our city papers. This article is now in the hands of the editor of that paper, "The Progressive Age," but for the press of historical and other matter, will be delayed, as he informed me, till about the beginning of February, ensuing. When it thus appears I shall send it forthwith to the Review Office for insertion. My object in first offering the main work to the secular press, was to send it broadcast, wide as the bane of Spiritualism has spread, and is spreading—wide as the world, which the Review would be powerless to do. That work at present, I leave in the hands of the Lord, through whose aid, I have been enabled to perform it. Thus you see, dear brethren and sisters, that little as I have been seen or heard by you, I have not been wholly idle, in the vineyard of the Lord. Besides, I have read with peculiar interest, your stirring epistles and labors of love in the Review, and sympathized with you in your pilgrimage thus far, through the last stage of the church—leaving a Sodom world, for a better world to come. Aroused as was the church and world in 1843-4, it was a perpetual trial to me then, and it has continued up to the last move of the Laodicean church, that the former, strongly as they were looking for the coming of the Lord, possessed a character so incomplete and unfinished, to meet that event, my poor self included. Others likely have felt the same. This was argument enough to refute our error, had we been prepared to receive it. The last move, under the Third Message, prepares us to understand, that to meet the Lord, and pass with him the gates of life, we must be as pure as were Enoch and Elijah, a type of their successors in translation. Are we thus pure? Not yet. When we are, the saints upon the earth, the Lord will come, and they will then go, for they can no longer stay. Is not the blessed work in progress? It is. My brother, my sister, can you not testify of its progress in your heart, your life? You can; you do. Your companion in tribulation can do the same. At two things I am greatly astonished. First, that I have been so great a sinner, even since I professed the Advent faith. Second, that the Lord has done such great things for me since I embraced the Sabbath, and Third Message. Cannot every honest soul thus led, say the same, or something like it? His teachings are a unit, and his children are one. Blessed be God. Dear brethren and sisters, amid all our trials, let us thank God and take courage, for the Lord is dealing faithfully and kindly with us—fitting us to glorify and enjoy him forever. "For yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come and will not tar71ry." O joyful home! O blest abode! Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, and take thy waiting children home. Waldo, Me., Dec. 13th, 1857.