LETTER FROM BRO. BATES.
By Joseph Bates
Bro. Smith: I have been with the churches in Allegan and Otsego the two Sabbaths in this month. The trials they have experienced with some of their number who were unwilling to be squared by the divine testimony, has borne heavily upon them. But, thanks to the Lord, they are moving onward again with their faces Zionward, striving to enter into the strait gate. There is a man by the name of Cranmer, whose home is near Galesburgh, Mich., who has been endeavoring to stir up the people in this region by preaching the second advent of the Saviour, and that the seventh day is the Sabbath. And when asked who is engaged with him in this work of reform, he replies that "we (himself and followers) believe and teach the same as the Battle Creek church, except the visions of Mrs. White, and a part of the midnight cry, and some of the work in the Sanctuary." All of which is in agreement with the "Messenger" party who came up here a few years ago and suddenly scattered, divided, and were cut off77and died in a hopeless and desperate condition without the least remedy in their case. What more can this party expect from the hand of an unchangeable God, who are striving to get up a second edition of such miserable work, that will not only ruin them, but prevent those who listen to them from ever coming to the knowledge of the truth as given by the third angel of Rev. xiv, 9-12. I was invited to give a series of lectures at the stone school-house, five miles north of Otsego, where I commenced the 8th inst., when I was told that Mr. Cranmer had also preached there. I closed with the third lecture, because the people would not come out to hear. I was told by some that did come, that they had heard this subject (the Sabbath, Sunday, &c.,) over and over again, and it was the same thing. In reply to my inquiries, I was told that Mr. Cranmer was the only man who had preached the Sabbath there.