DARKNESS FOR LIGHT by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 25, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 13

DARKNESS FOR LIGHT.

By Editor

A BROTHER sends us a copy of the Herald of the Morning, containing a diagram to represent some of its peculiar and new-devised theories, and asks if there is not some light in it. The diagram, if we understand it, represents a new adjustment of the prophetic period. Thus the 1335 days ended in 1874; 3½ years are marked off as “harvest,” to 1878; 3½ years more are added, marking, we know not what, but reaching to 1881, when the time of trouble commences, continuing 33½ years, and ending in 1914 with the “times of the Gentiles,” and the coming of the Lord.

If any one who had never heard the correct interpretation of the prophetic periods, nor the subject of the sanctuary, nor the third angel’s message, had asked the question whether there was light in such a scheme, we should not have been surprised; but that any one who has had a knowledge of all these truths should for a moment imagine that there is any light in such a scheme as this, is past our comprehension.

If there is any truth in this, then all the system which we denominate “The Present Truth” is simply the darkness of midnight. Then all the arguments upon the sanctuary, the third angel’s message, and the various other views which constitute this system, must be given up. But we know that no evidence can overthrow these positions. The harmony and strength of the present truth cannot for a moment be shaken.

We are forewarned that “here is the patience of the saints.” In our patience, holding fast to these great pillars of truth, we shall possess our souls, and gain the kingdom at last. But any mind which begins to toy with theories that completely subvert these pillars of truth, and then imagines that he sees light in these things, must have become by some means fearfully bewildered. Brethren, beware!