Review and Herald, Vol. 41, No. 9. (2/11/1873)

Review and Herald

Feb 11, 1873

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 11, 1873

OUR PRESENT POSITION:

By James White

or, the Waiting, Watching Time.

BY ELDER JAMES WHITE.

NUMBER TWO.

Text: “Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is.” Mark 13: 33.

There is strength in our position, as manifested in the conversion of infidels, Universalists, common worldlings, and professors from all the churches to the religion of the Bible, and in the united action and stability of our people. Their position being clear and satisfactory, they are not exposed to such influences and discouragements as shattered and nearly destroyed the once united, happy and strong body of not less than fifty thousand believers when the time passed. Their false positions on time, after the passing of the true time, proved their ruin.

And the position of those who rejected the light upon the sanctuary and its cleansing, and held that the periods reached to the coming of the Lord, and who at the same time rejected the new published times for the second advent, was a trying one, and drove many to adopt the several times upon the flimsiest evidences; while those who adopted the new times were doing their part to confuse the body of Adventists, undermine their faith in the Advent movement, and disgust the world.

The hand of God was evidently with William Miller in his conversion from deistical sentiments, his study of the Sacred Scriptures, and his public labors in the presentation of his views of the prophecies. When his positions were assailed by the theological giants of our country, he so successfully defended them as to give him still greater influence over the public mind, which resulted in bringing over to his views not a few of the ministers of the several denominations, and thousands out of their flocks. Among these were some of the ablest of the American clergy.

But age and infirmities were enfeebling the powers of the Low Hampton farmer. He had endured the hardships of the war of 1812, the toils incident to active farming life in a new country, and at the age of fifty entered upon his extremely laborious and successful career as a lecturer and writer, and was sixty-three years old at the time of the great disappointment in 1844. His work—the specific work to which God had called him—evidently closed with his disappointment. In his Apology and Defense, published in 1845, he speaks of his labors and their results as follows:—

“I labored extensively in all the New England and Middle States, in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and in Canada East and West, giving about four thousand lectures in something like five hundred different towns.

“I should think that about two hundred ministers embraced my views, in all the different parts of the United States and Canada; and that there have been about five hundred public lecturers. In all the sections of country where I labored,—not only in the towns I visited, but in those in their vicinity,—there were more or less that embraced the doctrine of the advent. In some places, only a very few, and in other places there have been a large number.

“In nearly a thousand places Advent congregations have been raised up, numbering, as nearly as I can estimate, some fifty thousand believers. On recalling to mind the several places of my labors, I can reckon up about six thousand instances of conversion from nature’s darkness to God’s marvelous light, the result of my personal labors alone; and I should judge the number to be much greater. Of this number I can recall to mind about seven hundred, who were, previously to their attending my lectures, infidels; and their number may have been twice as great. Happy results have also followed from the labors of my brethren, many of whom I would like to mention here, if my limits would permit.

“In all my labors I never had the desire or thought to establish any separate interest from that of existing denominations, or to benefit one at the expense of another. I thought to benefit all. Supposing that all Christians would rejoice in the prospect of Christ’s coming, and that those who could not see as I did would not love any the less those who should embrace this doctrine, I did not conceive there would ever be any necessity for separate meetings. My whole object was a desire to convert souls to God, to notify the world of a coming Judgment, and to induce my fellow-men to make that preparation of heart which will enable them to meet their God in peace. The great majority of those who were converted under my labors united with the various existing churches. When individuals came to me to inquire respecting their duty, I always told them to go where they would feel at home; and I never favored any one denomination in my advice to such.”

In the same address he also says: “My labors are principally ended. I shall leave to my younger brethren the task of contending for the truth. Many years I toiled alone; God has now raised up those who will fill my place. I shall not cease to pray for the spread of the truth.”

And again he says, in the following words which show the Christian spirit, and wisdom of the man whom God had called to put the armor on, and to fight in his cause under reproaches and abuses above measure, but who was meekly laying the armor off, and softening in spirit, and ripening for the hour when his probation should close:—

“I would exhort my Advent brethren to study the word diligently. Let no man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Avoid everything that shall cause offense. Let your lives be models of goodness and propriety. Let the adversary get no advantage over you. We have been disappointed; but disappointments will work for our good, if we make the right use of them. Be faithful. Be vigilant. Exhort with all long-suffering and patience. Let your conversation be in Heaven, from whence you look for the blessed hope. Avoid unnecessary controversy and questions that gender strifes. Be not many masters; all are not competent to advise and direct. God will raise up those to whom he will commit the direction of his cause. Be humble, be watchful, be patient, be persevering. ‘And may the God of peace sanctify you wholly, and preserve you blameless unto the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.’”

While suffering under a sense of his disappointment, and witnessing the decline of the cause he had labored to build up, the apostasy of some and the fanaticism of others whom he had loved in the truth, he looked back in obedience to the apostles injunction—“call to remembrance the former days”—to that period in which God made him a leader in the work of giving the first message, Rev. 14: 6, 7, with great pleasure.

“When I look back to the period when we began to publish the news of a coming Saviour, I think it the happiest time of my life. How were our hearts refreshed by the readiness of the dear brethren in Christ to hear, believe, and obey, the simple gospel of the kingdom! With what delight have I, in company with many of the dear, anxious children of God read and re-read the Scriptures, searched diligently and compared the prophets, Jesus Christ, and his apostles, to see if these things were so! What glorious light I have often seen in that holy book while thus engaged! And with what joy have I taken sweet communion with kindred hearts in the house of God, where our faith was more and more established by the word of His grace; where our prayers were mingled at the same altar, and arose together as incense to the mercy-seat of our Redeemer, for a preparation to meet the coming glories, which we then expected shortly to realize; where our hearts burned with love and gratitude to God for the good news of the near approach of the King of kings; where our songs of praise and hallelujahs to the Lamb cheered our drooping spirits, and prepared us more vigorously to pursue our weary pilgrimage to the land of promise, which, from evidence to us conclusive, and which I am not ashamed of, we soon expect to reach!

“Then, heart beat in unison with heart, soul mingled with soul, and love, holy, heavenly, divine, united us in that oneness of gospel truth; and prejudice and party were dissipated from our thoughts like midnight darkness, or the morning mists by the rising sun. This was a time of love, a time of faith, working by love and purifying the heart. It was this hope, “the blessed hope,” that made us purify ourselves from our sectarian prejudices and bigotry.

“I have often thought that we then enjoyed a foretaste of the love and fellowship of the saints in light. Why is it not so now? The reason is as obvious as the sun at noonday. We have been drawn from our first principles by wicked and designing men, who have crept in among us and drawn us into parties, to follow men instead of God, and to form new tests instead of the Bible. Some of our lecturers first began the confusion, by declaring an unholy crusade against the sects, which brought in men of blood instead of men of peace. True, after the manner of men, the sects had provoked us to the course we took by all the wicked arts and misrepresentations of our views and motives that human and satanic agency could invent,—by slanders, ridicule, and wresting the word of God from the meaning which had long been laid down in their own creeds, and departing from those rules by which their fathers, for centuries, had applied mystic Babylon to the church of Rome. We were not called, in my humble opinion, to engage in so universal a war. I think we have, in this, ‘left our first principles,’ which were, to preach the blessed hope, and beseech men to be ready for the ‘glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,’ without personal or denominational considerations. While we pursued this course, God blessed us in our work. We were commanded by the Word to be patient, sober, to judge not, not to be high-minded, but to fear, and, by so doing, manifest the same spirit that was in Christ. What have been the fruits of this departure from the plain line of duty? Surely they have not been love, peace, and joy, such as we formerly experienced, when we believed in our hearts that Christ was at the door.”

We have quoted largely from the addresses of William Miller after the time passed, that the reader may understand the real position of the man whom God had led in the great movement which we solemnly believe occurred in the fulfillment of first message of Rev. 14. Seventh-day Adventists believe that the third message, now being proclaimed, and the preparatory work for the coming of the Son of man now in progress with those who embrace it, is by the direct providence of God, in fulfillment of certain portions of his word. And this position makes the conclusion that the first and second messages of the same series were given under the same providence, and that God raised up William Miller to bring out the great truths of the first message, appear, to say the least, very reasonable.

Hence we are the more willing to let him speak for himself, that the candid reader may correctly view this representative and providential servant of Jesus Christ, whose name is associated in the public mind with Adventism everywhere.

A Methodist presiding elder, of near kin, once remarked to us, “But few public men grow old gracefully.” William Miller entered upon his public labors as a lecturer upon the prophecies in the strength of manhood, after acquiring habits of self-reliance, firmness, and undaunted courage as an army and civil officer. And this stamp of character, sanctified by the grace of God, constituted one of the important qualifications

necessary to meet the different forms of determined opposition and persecution which he met.

And then, after serving himself to the battle for thirteen years, forming the strongest combative habits, at that period of his life, as he was about sixty years of age, when strong men’s habits generally become very strongly established, to see him calmly, and gently, laying off the armor; and under his bitter disappointment, to witness his resignation to the will of God, and his affectionate appeals and warnings to his younger brethren to be holy men of God, ready for the coming of the Son of man, carries the strongest conviction to candid minds that God had raised him up to do the very work which he did do. As he thus laid his armor off he said to his brethren that his work was done. In this we can see the hand of God. He had spent the strength of his ripe manhood in giving the first message. His burden fell off, which he interpreted, for a short time, that the work of warning sinners was done. But the great work of the third message was then in the future, and if God designed to use him in giving it, he would have given him a new lease of life, and opened the subject to his mind. But he did not see this work and feel its importance; and why should he? He had done his work faithfully and well, and was soon to sleep in Jesus.

It is proper here to state that William Miller did not view the second message as we do. Neither did he change his views upon the immortality and Sabbath questions. Having finished his mission in giving the first message, and having reached the point in respect to age, and debility from his extremely arduous labors as a lecturer for thirteen years, with no periods of cessation, only when compelled by sickness, the candid reader can see the love and wisdom of God in not impressing his mind with those subjects which he could not investigate and vindicate before the people.

Having done, and well done, the great work given him to do, the probation of public labor with him successfully past according to the will of God, he could say in the language of Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 2 Tim. 4: 7, 8.

It is just what might be expected, that those who understandingly embrace the principles of the third message, would first inquire relative to the second and first messages; and would feel the deepest interest in the man whom God raised up to lead off in the opening work of giving the great threefold warning to the world.

Those who have been continually publishing a new time upon the heels of a failure, have been not only disgusting the public, but, at each effort, have been virtually condemning the position of William Miller on the time question, and losing regard for his valuable labors. These can have but little, if any, interest in his life and views.

And on the other hand, those who stood with him on the time question in 1844, and have confessed to the world that they were in error, and have given up their past second-advent experience, virtually condemning his positions and work, and can take, comparatively, but little interest in the history of his life, views, and labors. Both of these classes have departed from the position of William Miller, and have denied, or, at least, hold very lightly, their past second-advent experience, and have left the field to Seventh-day Adventists who stand upon the ‘original advent faith.’ And while occupying the position we do relative to the past movement, the public have reason to expect that, while we hold that William Miller moved in the providence of God in his work,

we should publish the facts as they existed in his life, views, and labors, in explanation and defense, so far as such facts constitute a defense of our position.

Seventh-day Adventists still love the Advent name, and hold it very dear to them. And while they hold the name, consistency would lead them to cherish, and also hold dear, the very means that made them Adventists. To still hold the Advent name, and turn round and curse, or deny, or even hold lightly, the means God employed to make them what they are, seems the very climax of inconsistency. When Seventh-day Adventists can no longer honor the great second-advent movement, and feel called upon to confess to the world that the pioneers of the cause were mistaken on the very calculation that shook the world, and which resulted in making Adventists a separate people, then they will drop “Adventists” from their name, and pass for simply Sabbatarian Christians.

VOICES

1. THE VOICE OF THE DISCIPLE.

One fate with Thee, my Master, I will share; Shame were it to rejoice where thou didst weep; Where thou didst wake, my Lord, I would not sleep, Or faint where thou didst bear.

Far off I follow thee in spite of strife, Returning to thee, though awhile I stray, In spite of thorns and briars in the way, Still on the path to life.

And not alone, because thy presence fills My midnight darkness and my midday light; And so, though friend-bereft, I am not quite Guideless upon the hills.

2. THE VOICE OF THE BELOVED.

My child, thou doest well to trust my love— Can any save thee if I let thee die? Has the world proved to thee more kind than I That thou shouldst doubt and rove?

The world gives tinsel, and I give thee gold; I cast not off my friend for being poor; Come, sad and desolate, unto my door, Or totter, even when old.

Who suffer here, hereafter reign with me, If only they trail not their spirit-wings, Or tire them, by pursuing earthly things, For my eternity.

—Sunday Magazine.

An Indoor Tragedy.

WELL nigh half a century ago a newly married couple settled in one of the western counties of Pennsylvania. They had what their neighbors deemed a fair capital to begin life—a well stocked though small farm, sound health, good common sense, and a more than average amount of shrewd intelligence and culture. Under all this was a sincere trust in God, and a jealous, sensitive love for each other, neither of which their neighbors knew much about. American backwoods farmers take a pride in covering their emotions under a hide as tough as that of their own beeves. They had three or four children, and night after night, over the kitchen fire, the problem they set themselves to answer was, what is the best thing we can do with them, and for them; the question asked daily with such a wrenching of hearts in myriads of homes, and answered so differently. The fear of God seemed to Jacob and his wife the best heritage to give them; the next best, plenty of money. To give them the first, they began by hedging the children’s lives with a system of rules, borrowed half from the Jewish laws, half from the theory of their sect. Strict morality, the keeping of Sunday as a periodical day of penitence and wretchedness, the learning, under penalty of dark closets and thrashings, of the chief duty of men—therein was their religion. Life, they were shown as a strait and hard path through a dark valley, with the terrors of Sinai behind, and the traps and pitfalls of a flaming hell on either side. Even Jacob’s wife, Mary, holding her darlings to her breast, than which no mother’s ever ached or throbbed with more tenderness, had no other sermon to preach to them. It never occurred to her or her husband that it was into just such fields of grain as those about them, under just such towering cedars, that Jesus led his disciples and taught them, by the sunshine and the rain, the tender mercies of God. The world grew green around them, faded again and wrapped itself in snow, year after year; the river sang its mysterious songs to the woods at their very door; and overhead the stars that had declared to the patriarchs of the old world the infinite secrets of Jehovah, blazoned them forth still, unregarded. Day unto day uttered speech, and night unto night showed forth knowledge of Him, but both farmer and wife were deaf and blind. God was to be approached only through a dog-eared catechism, and fields and rivers were worth only so much fish and wheat per year.

The children’s salvation being thus provided for, the next thing to be insured was money. Husband and wife worked and stinted as only a Scotch-Irish farmer’s family can work or stint. All produce that was salable went to the market; the children were reared on the refuse, the skim-milk, the poorest bacon, and water potatoes. Their clothes were coarse and patched, their feet bare and chilblained. The house grew barer year by year, the father’s back more bent, his face harder, but the balance in bank increased dollar by dollar. As for the plump, bonny Mary, she had long ago joined that sisterhood of lean, yellow-skinned, toothless women, who, with dirty calico dresses and wisps of hair twisted up behind, are sometimes found in farm-houses like ghastly megrims, or daylight specters of wasted life. When churning and scrubbing were done she would sit up until near morning, washing and darning their clothes, that they might look more “genteel” than she, dragging her aching body to look at them when they slept, praying for them with a fierce longing to have power to be God himself—to be able to protect and care for them. The boys had certain strong animal propensities and physical tendencies which required skill and knowledge to guide or restrain. One had a morbid imagination; another, a tendency to alcoholic poisoning, against which his diet and training from infancy should have defended him. The girls, left to themselves, were filling their brains with sickly false fancies of life and their work in it. But what time had Mary to read or acquire in any way the power to comprehend or help her children? There was the scrubbing and churning to be done, the money to be saved. Boys and girls were sent to colleges and seminaries; every advantage that education could give them was theirs; the only mistake Jacob and his wife made in this respect was not to educate themselves as well. The children went forward; they sat down and grubbed.

What is the end of it all? The daughters grew up dyspeptic and sickly for the lack of early proper food; they married and died before middle age, brilliant, hard women, and neither of them in any sense religious. One son went into politics, was successful, is now a member of Congress, one of the most influential of his party. Jacob and Mary read of his life at Washington, his wife’s receptions, his popularity. But long ago he was a stranger to them. It is years since he crossed the old threshold. What is there in common between him and the ignorant, boorish farmer and his wife? A few weeks ago the last of the sons came home to die; the one of all the children who had real power of intellect; the only one who was not ashamed to talk of “mother” fondly to the last. He died in her arms, a drunken, worthless sot. The thin, haggard woman closed his eyes without a tear. “I have lost all my children,” she said. “I must have made a mistake somewhere in the beginning, God knows.” Is no other mother making this mistake?—N. Y. Tribune.

“My Trust Is in Jesus.”

By Nellie F. Heald

Precious words! uttered but recently in the dying moments of a beloved sister. Precious in connection with her memory; they are also the sweet expression of every Christian heart. In joy or sorrow, in the vigor of life, or when called to pass death’s chilling billow, the Christian’s trust is in Jesus. When health and strength fail, and the shadow of death steals over us, who but Jesus can bear us safely through. He alone can smooth the dying pillow. Friends, loving and tender, may yearn to give relief, but their aid is powerless in such an hour. Jesus, only can speak peace. His smile alone can light up the dark valley and enable the dying Christian with calm confidence to say, “My trust is in Jesus.” How precious is such a trust. No price can count its worth. What depth of meaning in these few words. Let such be the language of the heart.

“And, wanting all beside, with these shalt thou be rich. Though all around be woe, these shall make thee happy. Though all within be pain, these shall bring thee health.”

Give Jesus thy whole heart, thy perfect trust, and,

“Life shall have no labyrinth but thy steps can track it; For thou hast a silken clue, to lead thee through the darkness.”

There is no joy like that which springs from love to Jesus; and having once tasted its sweetness, can we go back? “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” No service is so rich in compensation as the service of Jesus. “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.” “Riches and honor are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold.” “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Life here, with all its toils, and cares, and sorrows, has much of sweetness; but, oh! how sweet will be eternal life: with no pain, no tears, no sickness, no death, nothing to mar its perfect joy. Devotion to Christ has its reward even in this life.

The worldly and the pleasure seeking know not the secret of the Christian’s joy. They know not the blessedness of trusting in Jesus. How could we be happy amid life’s uncertainties without this trust? And when this troubled life is over, what then? Then this world with all its brightness will be nothing to us. But if our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, all will be well. Happy will be the portion of those whose trust is in Jesus, even an inheritance in Christ’s heavenly kingdom.

NELLIE F. HEALD.

Temple, N. H.

STOP AND WEIGH.

One morning an enraged countryman came into Mr. M.'s store with very angry looks. He left a team in the street, and had a good stick in his hand.

“Mr. M.,” said the angry countryman, “I bought a paper of nutmegs here in your store, and when I got home they were more than half walnuts; and that's the young villain that I bought 'em of,” pointing to John.

“John,” said Mr. M., “did you sell this man walnuts for nutmegs?”

“No, sir,” was the ready reply.

“You lie, you little villain,” said the countryman, still more enraged at his assurance.

“Now, look here,” said John. “If you had taken the trouble to weigh your nutmegs, you would have found that I put in the walnuts gratis.”

“Oh, you gave them to me, did you?”

“Yes, Sir. I threw in a handful for the children to crack,” said John, laughing at the same time.

“Well, now, if that ain't a young scamp,” said the countryman, his features relaxing into a grin as he saw through the matter.

Much hard talk and bad blood would be saved if people would stop to weigh before they blame others.

“Think twice before you speak once,” is an excellent motto.

The Jesuits of New York.

Zion's Herald calls attention to a paper recently prepared for and published in one of the New York weeklies, respecting the rapid and threatening advancement of the Roman Catholics, or rather of the Jesuitical body, in New York city, in the erection of sectarian schools with the public funds. It says:

Readers will be astonished at the immense amounts which have been wrung from the public treasury during the years of the domination of the “Ring”—amounting to many millions—for the erection of imposing Catholic school and reformatory edifices. These buildings have been placed by the side of the common-school structures, and, by the vigilance of priests, have been crowded with pupils, while the adjoining public schools have been depleted—and all this at the public expense. The School Board has been changed by this covert priestly hand, and been made to operate in the interest of the Roman body. It is easy now, as the eye glances over these imposing edifices, one of them the Catholic Reformatory—drawing between one and two hundred thousand dollars a year from the city treasury—to see the dangerous character of the movement, perpetuating sectarian controversies and segregating one portion of the community from the other; but it is not so easy, now that the mischief is done, to remove the cause.

One institution, fifty years of age—the House of refuge—which has been a perpetual blessing to the exposed children of the city of New York, has been nearly shorn of its moral and reformatory power by the persistent and malignant attacks upon it of the Jesuit body. The public school, defended from a sectarian bias, is the great nursery of a common and intelligent patriotism. The hand that touches it, seriously affects a vital interest of the Republic.

A Soft Pillow.

By Chas. H. Brisbin

WHITEFIELD and a pious companion were much annoyed one night at a public house by a set of gamblers in the room adjoining where they slept. Their noisy clamor and horrid blasphemy, so excited Whitefield's abhorrence and pious sympathy, that he could not rest. “I will go to them and reprove their wickedness,” he said. His companion remonstrated in vain; he went. His words of reproof fell apparently powerless upon them. Returning, he laid down to sleep. His companion asked him, rather abruptly, “What did you gain by it?” “A soft pillow,” he said, patiently, and soon fell asleep.

Yes, “a soft pillow” is the reward of fidelity, the companion of a clear conscience. It is a sufficient remuneration for doing right in the absence of all other reward. And none know more truly the value of a soft pillow than those parents whose anxiety for wayward children is enhanced by a consciousness of neglect. Those who faithfully rebuke and properly restrain them by their Christian deportment and religious counsels can sleep quietly in the day of trial.

Parents, do your duty now, in the fear of God, in obedience to his law, at every sacrifice; and you may lie down on a soft pillow, assured of His favor who has said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

CHAS. H. BRISBIN.

Weston, O., Dec. 22, 1872.

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