Is Adventism Dangerous?
By Editor
If there is a manifestation of folly in any one thing above all others, it is in the course of the average secular newspaper when treating of religion and religious subjects. In Pocasset, Mass., a most shocking murder was committed,—that of a child by its father, professedly in obedience to a "divine revelation." This is enough of itself to prove, what is currently stated, that the father is insane. But, unfortunately even for an insane man, he called himself a Second Adventist, and now the papers raise the cry of "A Dangerous Doctrine." The San Francisco Post gives the following notice:— "What is to be done with the Second Adventists? They appear to be quite crazy in Massachusetts. Is religious fanaticism anyhow only a phase of madness?" Perhaps it would please the Post, etc., to have them all hanged as murderers, or sent to insane asylums, because one who called himself so committed murder as a freak of his insanity! Was ever such charitable logic as this known? In answer to about a score of questions on this subject we reply:— 1. Elder Haskell has just arrived here from the East. His home is in Massachusetts, and he has for years been President of that Conference, and is acquainted with every church of Seventh-day Adventists in that State. He informs us that there are none in Pocasset connected with us, and we have no friends or believers near there of the name of the persons who are implicated in this barbarity. 2. If they stand connected with any body of Adventists at all, we shall not lay this atrocity to the charge of that body, unless their religion leads them to indorse it, which we know it does not. We do not hold the Methodist denomination responsible for the action of a minister of that denomination who took the life of his wife some time since, in Illinois. It was contrary to their principles. But it would be just as reasonable to stigmatize the whole Methodist fraternity as criminals because of that act, as to reproach any class of Second Adventists with this. 3. We are willing to have the lives of Seventh-day Adventists in Massachusetts, California, or any other State, compared with the lives of any other class, religious or irreligious, and let that determine “what shall be done with the Second Adventists.” 4. We are not pleased with the illiberal spirit manifested by these papers. Scarcely a week passes but, somewhere in the country, a husband kills his wife, or a parent his child, not being insane, but temporarily and voluntarily under the influence of liquor; yet no call is made in these papers for a suppression of the traffic in liquor; they seek the favor of those who deal in it when their influence is needed to carry an election. They are not actuated by a spirit of disinterested humanity, but of partiality against a class of conscientious Bible believers. 5. Finally, they cannot show a single point of doctrine, held by the Second Adventists, which in any wise leads to insanity. The Camp-meetings of the Seventh-day Adventists which are now well known and largely attended, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are proverbial for good order, and for freedom from that excitement which so often characterizes other meetings of that kind. Even the popular “revival” exceeds in disorder and confusion anything which can be found among us. Why, then, endeavor to make us responsible for the conduct of an insane man who acts, not in harmony with the precepts of the Bible, but under a hallucination, and directly contrary to the Bible? Why not hold us to answer for the actions of Judas Iscariot? He was a follower of Christ, also!