EXPLANATION

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 8, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 2

THE following communication from Eld. A. E. Main, relative to the article, “Is the Sabbath Anything?” which appeared in REVIEW No. 25, last volume, we submit, at his request, to our readers:—

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REVIEW AND HERALD: It has been neither my desire nor purpose to engage in a discussion of the differences between the Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists; for I believe that such discussions are generally without profit, particularly when there exist fundamentally different principles of interpreting the Scriptures. What I have written, therefore,

was not with the idea of enlightening your people or of attacking their faith, but with sole reference to what seem to me to be the interests of our own cause. And my object in asking for a little space in your paper is to make this statement, and to correct one of your most important mistakes respecting my position. You quote from my article as follows: “We need not and do not fear to meet their errors in equal and open conflict; but if we shut our eyes to our danger, the conflict will, through our own fault, become an unequal one, and the battle may go against us;” and then add the following explanation of my meaning: “We know not how else this language can be taken only as an open challenge for public contests over our differences of opinion, and a recommendation to his brethren to enter upon an immediate and vigorous crusade against S. D. Adventists.” Your “deduction from the language” is as incorrect and groundless as it is strange. This was my meaning: Truth and error are always in conflict. The grave and practical errors of your faith, as I believe them to be, will in one way and another be placed before our people, and before those to whom we wish to carry the gospel; and the way of safety and prosperity is such a course as shall leave no room for doubt as to the practical and weighty significance we attach to the doctrinal differences between the two denominations.

Yours truly, A. E. MAIN. Ashaway, R. I., December, 1879.