TO THE PUBLIC by Editor

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 4

TO THE PUBLIC

By Editor

TESTIMONY NO. 29.

A LOCAL paper in Battle Creek having undertaken to raise a sensation by publishing garbled extracts from this work, we addressed the following note to the Battle Creek Journal, the leading city paper, which appeared in its issue of Jan. 14, 1880:—

TO THE PUBLIC.

To the Editor of the Battle Creek Journal:

Will you allow us space in your journal to say to the public that if they believe what a morning daily is publishing concerning the writings of Mrs. White, they are most grievously imposed upon. It asserts that these writings have never before been “presented to the world.” But some, at least, of the citizens of Battle Creek know that since our location here in 1855, these works have been advertised for sale in the publication column of our paper, openly upon the book-shelves of our office, and in all the catalogues we have sent abroad. They have always been free to the public, and many not of our faith have purchased and read them. And those who will look at the record of the proceedings of our late Conference, will see that steps were taken to give them still greater publicity, as we are persuaded that they inculcate the highest morality, both public and private, the scrupulous practice of which would be vastly to the advantage of both the church and the world.

We notice that the publishers of the paper above referred to put in whole paragraphs of their own, and place them in quotation marks as if from the writings of Mrs. White. And again, paragraphs are run together with no indication of any omission, which in the book are on different subjects and fourteen pages apart. The reader can judge for himself how fair a representation of the contents of the book he can get by having it presented in such connection. This is following hard after those who go one step lower and burlesque the Bible by quoting, “And Judas went and hanged himself. Go thou and do likewise.”

If any have an interest to read the book as it is, which is thus garbled before the public, it can be had at the REVIEW AND HERALD Office and at F. E. Peaslee’s bookstore. And if any paper, with a fair and candid motive to present the real truth, desires to publish any of the writings of Mrs. White whatsoever, we shall be happy to furnish them.

EDITOR OF REVIEW AND HERALD.

The following paragraph relative to the same matter, we copy from the Lansing Republican, of Jan. 17:—

“Mrs. Ellen G. White, of Battle Creek, well known in Lansing as an able and interesting speaker of the Advent persuasion, is receiving a large amount of criticism on her recent vision, marking out the track in which her people should travel. In the Battle Creek Journal of Jan. 14 Henry Willis comes to her defense, and among other things says: ‘I would that all other religious beliefs in Battle Creek were as true to morality as Mrs. White and her adherents. Then we would have no infamous dens of vice, no grog-shops, no tobacco stores, no gambling hells, no air polluted with the fumes of rum, and that fell destroyer of man, tobacco.’”

* Some of the Chicago and Detroit dailies have also taken the matter up as “correspondence from Battle Creek,” publishing the most false and unjust statements and insinuations against Sister W. and her writings, especially in representing that these writings are not within the reach of any who may wish to read them. But it is all working well; for it is creating a public interest and demand for her writings, which we have wished to see, and shall now be happy to supply. And so we look for the Lord’s declaration by the psalmist to be a little more than fulfilled in this case, as not only “the wrath of man,” but his meekness also, will be “caused to praise him.”