DARK CLOUDS by A. Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, May 12, 1885

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 19

DARK CLOUDS.

By A. Smith

BY A. SMITH.

A WELL-KNOWN minister in this part of the State, while the congregation was gathering at a place where he had appointed to lecture against Adventism, sang the old hymn beginning,

“How tedious and tasteless the hours When Jesus no longer I see!”

and repeated the concluding lines of the last stanza,—

“O drive these dark clouds from my sky; Thy soul-cheering presence restore; Or take me to thee up on high, Where winter and clouds are no more,”

with an emphasis that afterward left no doubt of the application he designed for the words, when he showered abusive epithets upon the faith of Seventh-day Adventists. Yes, Adventism is, doubtless, a cloud of very threatening aspect to such ministers and their brethren, for contrary to the Scriptures, they can only see heaven—

“Beyond the bounds of time and space.”

To them, “death is the gate to endless joys.” They teach that the second advent so long looked for and oft promised takes place at the death of each individual; that the soul is immortal, and that at death the wicked are plunged into hell fire; that the first-day Sabbath, a purely pago-papal institution, is the holy day of rest and worship of the Christian dispensation, etc., etc.

But while the doctrines of Seventh-day Adventists overcast the sky of every “ism” that makes a Babel of Scripture themes, and stands opposed to the special work of God in the closing scenes of earth’s mortal history, to those who receive and obey them, they present on their heavenward side a brightness and glory whose sheen is a token of their divine formation.

Although the doctrine of the eternal torment of the damned is not now taught with so pronounced a diction as formerly, yet the popular churches stand committed to it so long as they fail to expunge it from their catechisms, or protest against it publicly. Failing to sustain Sunday sanctity by Bible testimony, they give evidence of leaning more and more upon the civil arm for support, and the confidence of ultimate success thus begotten is becoming more emphatically pronounced from year to year.

But it is gratifying to know that, while as organized bodies the popular churches stand opposed to the special truth brought to view in the third angel’s message, there are individuals in them all who deplore the worldward tendency of the church, and hunger for the truth that will make them free, and for companionship with the pure in heart.