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A Grave Charge

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 11, 1863

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 22, No. 11.

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A Grave Charge.

By B. F. Summerbell

IN the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald of June 23, 1863, Wm. S. Foote, under the head of Outside Testimony, communicates an article from the Columbian Register, which appears to be made up of an article on Spiritualism and Hobgoblins, from the Columbian (O.) Argus, with comments by the Providence Post, in which the President of the U. S. is gravely charged with acting under the dictation of demons.
Says the Burlington Argus, “Judge Edmonds, Robert Dale Owen, and other spiritualists, gave the President the long expected communication through mediums, and he acted accordingly.” “Has it come to this?” asks the Argus, “a great country governed by ghosts, spirits, hobgoblins, table-turnings, rappings &c. Be not deceived; this is the animus of the Administration.”
The Providence Post says, “The above is true, undoubtedly, but it does not tell us half the whole truth.
Judge Edmonds, the man of visions, is an adviser of the President, and is frequently in Washington.”
What is the character of the Providence Post? Is that of the Burlington Argus, and Columbian Register, no better, their declarations should be received with considerable caution.
Judge Edmonds is a Spiritualist, but says, (I write from memory) that he has been but once in Washington, and then did not see the President!
Believing, that it is no part of the mission of the Herald and Review to speak evil of dignities, or to countenance those who take delight in vilifying the President, I have not hesitated to pen the foregoing in the hope that the emphatic contradiction by Judge Edmonds is no less satisfactory to Wm. S. Foote, than to myself.
In justice to the Providence Post, I will add, that it was in it, that I first saw the denial of Judge Edmonds.
B. F. SUMMERBELL.
Providence, R. I. July, 1863.
Note. It was not to speak evil of dignities or to vilify the President that the statements contained in Bro. Foote's article were published in the Review, or still more recently those in the article from Bro. Snook; but because these things have a bearing upon prophecy: There may be errors in some of the details of the statements, which it is desirable to have corrected; but the real question at issue, after all, is, Does the President, and many of the leading men of the nation look favorably upon Spiritualism? Is the way preparing for these spirits of devils to go out of the mouth of the beast, dragon and false prophet; and to go to the kings of the earth to gather them to the battle of the great day of the Lord. This point we have not yet seen denied.