BUTLER’S VIEW OF IT.-

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 11, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 11

BUTLER’S VIEW OF IT.—

It is said that the well-known Gen. Butler was, in his youth, destined by his mother for a Baptist minister; and she sent him to Waterville College for preparation. Mr. Bland, a new biographer, relates that one of the professors delivered a sermon in the chapel, in which he said: “1. None but the elect can be saved; 2. Of so-called Christians, probably not more than one in a hundred will be saved; 3. Heathen people will have more consideration of the Almighty in future life than men of Christian nations, who hear but do not profit by the word of God.” After hearing this sermon, young Butler petitioned the faculty to relieve him from further attendance upon preaching, upon the ground that, according to the proposition stated, not above six persons in the college could possibly be saved; and as there were nine worthy professors, all of whom were doctors of divinity, it would be presumptuous for him, a poor student, to hope for even the remotest chance of salvation; hence in attending church, he was only making his damnation more certain and terrible.