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The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress - Contents
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    PART ONE

    Personal Testimonies from Ellen White

    In Testimonies for the Church 7:288, we read, “As those who have spent most of their lives in the service of God draw near the close of their earthly history, they will be impressed by the Holy Spirit to recount the experiences they have had in connection with His work. The record of His wonderful dealings with His people, of His great goodness in delivering them from trial, should be repeated to those newly coming to the faith. The trials also that have been brought on the servants of God by the apostasy of some once united with them in labor, and the working of the Holy Spirit to make of none effect the falsehoods told against those who were holding the beginning of their confidence firm to the end, should be related.”GSAM 484.1

    It may be proper also to call attention to Testimonies that, from time to time, have been given to me personally from Sister White. After laboring in California from 1868 to the fall of 1878, ten and one-half years, it was voted by the General Conference that I should labor in Great Britain. At that time I received these words in a testimony from Sister White, “You have an experience valuable to the cause of God. It must be made to tell for its full value.” I supposed that to mean that, in my labors I should show what I had seen and known in connection with my labors, of the Lord’s dealings and special leading in the work. At that time I had not thought that it meant that I should write out such experiences for publication, but that I should speak of these things in connection with my public labors. Many times as I would pray, have I said, “Lord, what is meant by its full value?” And when I would ask some of our ministers, “What is meant by that expression, ‘its full value?’ ” All the answer I could get was, “It means just what it says,” but gave me no further light as to its full import. So I went on in my preaching, trying to show that the Lord was surely leading in this Advent movement; and had by direct instruction through the gift of prophecy, as I had often witnessed, directed in this work those who would humbly accept His teachings.GSAM 484.2

    After five years of labor in Great Britain, and six and one half years more in California, in 1890, I was requested by the General Conference to labor east of the Rocky Mountains. Then came this testimony, written to Elder O. A. Olsen, of which a copy was also sent to me:—GSAM 485.1

    “I say let Elder Loughborough do a work that is suffering to be done in the churches. The Lord would have his voice heard as was John’s, telling the things which he himself has experienced in the rise and progress of the third angel’s message. Let Elder Loughborough stand in his right place, as a Caleb coming to the front, and bearing a decided testimony, in face of unbelief, and doubt and skepticism, ‘we be well able to go up and possess the goodly land.’ Do not fasten Elder Loughborough in a corner anywhere. Do not bind him down to any one conference. Let him go here and there, and everywhere, telling what he has seen, and known and handled in the rise of the third angel’s message.”GSAM 485.2

    Rise and Progress of the Third Angel’s Message

    Elder Cornell gave me to understand that she also said to the committee that, “I should write these things out.” Be that as it may, I do know that shortly after this I was asked by the General Conference committee to write the Rise and Progress of the Third Angel’s Message. It seemed to me that I was getting some light on what was meant by the words, “its full value.” So that winter, with the aid of my wife, who was just as anxious as I that the book should be as efficient as possible, took hold with me in reading up and selecting matter for the book. She had been a very successful school teacher in Hillsdale County, Michigan, before accepting the third angel’s message; and glad was I to have such efficient aid for five months in preparing the manuscript for that book.GSAM 485.3

    At that time the plan had not been adopted of making carbon copies, so that with one putting of the copy through the typewriter you could get several copies of the manuscript. We wanted four copies of the manuscript so that it could be examined by several persons at the same time. She made four copies, one by one, one copy being equivalent to 480 pages of print. That job of hers was not simply a matter of recreation.GSAM 486.1

    The Great Second Advent Movement

    After the printing of the book, it was used in connection with my public labors, until the Review and Herald fire in Battle Creek, Mich., when the plates of the book were melted. Then the General Conference committee requested me to write The Great Second Advent Movement,” to be translated into foreign languages, as our people were calling for such a work. So the faithful wife was on hand again to help make this book just as complete as it could be with our facilities. The book was printed, and has been translated into Swedish, German, and Chinese. And a short time ago, I received a letter from Brother Crisler, stating that he had seen a copy of the book published in the language of Korea. Not many months after the book was in the German language, Brother Conradi told me that a new Encyclopedia had been printed in Germany, the best they had ever published. In it was a mention of my book in the German language. It quoted some of my testimony respecting Sister White’s work, even quoting some of the evidences I gave of the divine origin of her testimonies; and there was not a slurring hint in the book against her work.GSAM 486.2

    More Testimonies

    While my wife and I sought the Lord earnestly that the book might be just right, I was cheered by calling to mind a testimony written to me in 1863. It said, “I was shown that God lays out the work for John, and he must perform it as long as he remains a servant of the Lord.” And again in the same testimony, “I was shown that God will lay out the work for John, and if he takes a straight forward course, he will come off a triumphant conqueror.”GSAM 487.1

    Since receiving that testimony, I have especially tried to seek the Lord, to know just what He would have me to do. When Sister White was in Norway, she wrote me on July 6, 1886, from Christiana these words, “I feel an intense interest that you should receive all the blessing God has to bestow upon you. I feel deeply, more than I can express for you who have grown gray in this work, and in this cause. Have the joy, the peace, the perfect trust in Jesus that you ought to have, and never rest until you do have it. Let the heart be melted with the love of Jesus, and you will melt your way.”GSAM 487.2

    In the winter of 1852, before I had begun to preach the third angel’s message, when I was studying whether I should preach the message, or sustain myself and wife by hand labor, a vision was given to Sister White in our meeting in Rochester one Sabbath, and a direct testimony was given for me to hesitate no longer, but to go out and preach the message, and the Lord would open the way for me to be sustained. I went home from that meeting, went to my room, and told the Lord, “I will go out, and leave it to you as promised to provide the sustenance.” When I made that promise I had only three cents in money, and did not know where any more would come from, as every effort I made to get means failed. A few weeks before I embraced the third angel’s message, I had, beside meeting expenses, laid up thirty-five dollars. But now (my wife not knowing the condition of my finances) it was all gone but the three cents. But lo! about ten o’clock Monday morning, an entire stranger to me called, and gave an order for the very things I had been trying for weeks to sell, but did not succeed. My clear profit on his purchase comparing what that would buy then, and now, at the high prices, was equivalent to $100.00.GSAM 487.3

    When I had got fairly into the work, in those early times, there was manifest what then was a mystery to me. It was this—in every important meeting in different states that Brother and Sister White attended, they would call upon me to go with them. I would say to myself, “Why do they not ask these ministers instead of me all the time?”GSAM 488.1

    Then again, when those three rebellions came on from 1853 to 1865, when they started three different papers, one for each of those tirades, why was it that I was present, and saw each of the rebellions start? Then again, why was it that I was present to see Sister White in her open visions over forty different times, see her examined by the physicians, hear her make predictions of what was to take place—things that seemed incredible to those hearing the predictions, and yet literally fulfilled? I say in all candor, these opportunities were not occasions of exaltation to me, but a mystery. I would say to myself, “Why is all this so?”GSAM 488.2

    Before I had made my first trip to Maine with Brother and Sister White in the year 1858, she said to me one day, “Your labors will yet be called for in New England.” Elder Cornell said to me that he heard her say in a meeting when I was not present, “If Brother Loughborough is faithful, his labors will yet be called for in England.” She had probably seen things farther ahead than I had ever imagined, which led them to do as they did in my going with them without their ever explaining the matter to me.GSAM 488.3

    A Letter of a Different Strain

    But “a truce to this strain,” I have just received a letter in this month of September 1918, that talks on altogether a different strain from all I have been quoting. So I will copy some of it, the exact words of some of the paragraphs, which will show you that Elder Loughborough is not in danger just now of the “woe” that our Saviour spake of in Luke 6:26; “Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you.” So I will quote:—GSAM 488.4

    “Dear Brother Loughborough: I sure you [the word sure had a pencil mark drawn down between the s and the u. I suppose he meant assure.] the words of Paul to Timothy in introducing my letter to you, ‘Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father.’ 1 Timothy 5:1.GSAM 489.1

    “From early childhood I can remember with what intense interest I listened to your experiences, and much of your book was fascinating to me. And when in later years, after I engaged in the ministerial work, I heard and reread with unabated interest incidents of the pioneers, but O! I can’t describe to you the shock that came to me when I discovered that your testimony was wholly unreliable, and deceitful, yes, more than that, it was absolutely false, and deceitful. Had it not been for my personal acquaintance with my heavenly Father, the God of the Bible, I think it would have driven me into hopeless infidelity. I am writing this for your good, to lead you to repentance. I have counseled no one in its preparation, and no one but my wife and copyist have a hint that I have written it.GSAM 489.2

    “Brother Loughborough, you are an old man even now past the Bible limit of years. You haven’t long for this life. What prospect can you have for the future life with this blot on your life? You have deceived God’s people, not ignorantly, but knowingly and purposely. You have misrepresented the First-day Adventists. These charges may sound harsh to you, but you know they are true. I have put it in this positive way to lead you to see the sinfulness of your course, that you may be led to confess your sin and receive forgiveness. ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.’ ‘He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy.’GSAM 489.3

    “These things cannot be covered up much longer. They are coming to light more and more every day, and the deceived are sure to be undeceived. It would be better for your standing, and for their spirituality if they discovered them through your confession, rather than that of your enemies.GSAM 490.1

    “I send this to you with a prayer that the good Lord may lead you to receive it in the Christian spirit in which it is written. And that the Comforter may lead you to take the right course in dealing with this matter. Hoping to hear from you at an early date.GSAM 490.2

    Your brother _____”GSAM 490.3

    An Attempt “To Deceive the People”

    Now I am charged with “purposely” writing to “deceive the people.” Well I suppose you would think, “That will make him furious to have such a charge as that made against him in his old age.” Not at all. I have read about the apostles, that when they had even been imprisoned for speaking what they knew was the truth, they even praised God that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for His name, and for the truth which they had uttered. I have read those testimonies that say “our trials rightly borne, are not the least of our blessings.” I have enjoyed much of the blessing of God, since receiving this letter. I have said, “Lord, here is more experience.” And as this brother goes back over the past in his letter, and speaks of things that took place when I was there, even back before he was born, I begin to get more light on that expression, “must ... tell for its full value.” He has introduced a lot of things I said nothing about in my book. How good the Lord is to make things plain when His time comes.GSAM 490.4

    Of course this is a world of curiosities, and there seems to be one connected with his statement of the claim he makes against the book, The Great Second Advent Movement. It was printed in the office over which Elder Geo. I. Butler had charge. He was acquainted with that movement, and lived when and where it went the strongest in 1843, 1844, and onward, and knew just what did go on there, and yet he never discovered that hypocrite Loughborough was lying in what he told about the movement. And now the colleges, academies, and schools of the denomination, with the advice of the educational department, have for more than ten years made that book the “standard of attainment” in denominational history. And now somebody has to confess Elder Loughborough’s sin, if he does not do it pretty quickly, that he has “purposely” and “knowingly deceived the whole Advent band.” From my acquaintance with the Adventists, I had not learned that they were so easily fooled.GSAM 490.5

    Now he has stated that I “have knowingly and purposely deceived the people.” Why did he not at least intimate what great object I had in view in “deceiving the people?” Surely I never thought I had in view to be a Barnum trikster who said, “The Americans like to be deceived, and so I deceive them.” So he deceived them with his “white elephant” for a time. “This was the only one ever brought over from where it was regarded as a sacred animal.” And so the people would go to see the wonder. It went on swimmingly until one day, as the story goes, in the city of New York, a policeman accosted a lad, whom he thought to be a “vagrant,” with the question, “What business does your father follow?” The little fellow innocently replied, “My father does not follow any business. He just gets our living by going round with Barnum, to paint his white elephant.” And that affected Barnum’s purse.GSAM 491.1

    A Few Facts in This Companion to My Book

    This letter has led me to some serious thoughts. My enemies are going to confess my sins for me. Perhaps they would like to do it while I am still alive. But if they should wait until the old man is dead, or not able to get around to reply to their confession, some persons might wish to know what the old man would have said if he had seen their confession. So I said to myself, “I think I had better take this case in hand. Day by day, as I am able, I will pen down my ideas, and a few facts concerning these things that are mentioned, which I surmise is on the line of my confession they are preparing. And I will have them put in a pamphlet as a companion to the book, The Great Second Advent Movement. But as my brother asked me to write soon, I began to write, as follows:—GSAM 491.2

    “Your registered letter of August 26, sent to Lodi, has come to hand here. I am not living in Lodi now, but since Sept. 27, 1916, my home has been here at the Sanitarium, Sanitarium Post Office. I have made terms with them for the remainder of my earthly pilgrimage. The climate in Lodi was not as congenial to me as this climate. Of course, as you intimate, at the age of eighty-seven, I must be nearing the close of my earthly account. I am fully aware of that, and my peace is made with God; and my trust is in Christ ‘The Rose of Sharon.’ Song of Solomon 2:1.GSAM 492.1

    “I thank you for your trouble in writing this letter to me. I suppose we should consider as our best friends those who in kindness try to show us our wrongs, or supposed wrongs. It must be a feeling of relief to you to have unburdened yourself of this load respecting me, which I judge from your letter has been accumulating for years.GSAM 492.2

    “I have found in my limited ministerial experience, some things rather peculiar, among them, the different manner in which different persons look at the same thing. I said to myself, ‘I am not the first man that has been thought to be wrong through misunderstanding of facts in the case.’ Paul placed himself and his associates in that same line, when he said, ‘By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers, and yet true.’ 2 Corinthians 6:8.GSAM 492.3

    “You intimate that I have some great confession to make, and if I do not do it, some one will do it for me. I was not aware that I had ‘enemies’ that were preparing to make confession of my faults. I surely consider myself a poor sinner, and as Abraham said, ‘am but dust and ashes.’ If ever I am saved at all it will be through the merit of Christ, so I am anxious to have a righteous character before God, more than simply trying to build up a reputation.GSAM 492.4

    “These ‘enemies’ of mine, (who they are I know not) I judge from your letter, are preparing to confess my sins. Horace Greeley, not long before his death, when his enemies were pressing him sore, calling him, ‘The late Horace Greeley,’ etc., said it was a ‘good thing for a man to have a few enemies; it made him more careful of his ways.’GSAM 493.1

    If ‘enemies’ are preparing to confess my sins, it seems to me it will be poor spiritual food for them, somewhat like a man trying to build up physical strength on peanut shucks.GSAM 493.2

    “On the first page of your letter to me you say, ‘I find you have made false statements and misused quotations, with the seeming purpose of deceiving the reader. I therefore intreat you as a father to make this right by confessing before you are called into the presence of the judge of all the world.’ “GSAM 493.3

    A Shorter Letter to Accusing Brother

    Then I said, “I have not the strength to rush through an answer to all this letter that he wants soon. I will just write him a short letter, so that he will know I have received his letter, and take time, as God gives me strength, to carefully and moderately look over these matters, and prepare a pamphlet for all the people.” The former writing I did not send to him, but wrote simply as follows, which I did send. “Dear Brother, Your registered letter is received. Thank you for freely expressing your mind to me. I do not say that these matters of which you write do not appear to you as you say. You would not expect an old man, well along in his eighty-seventh year, to answer all you wrote, in a short letter.GSAM 493.4

    “Then you intimate that things are coming to light, and that my ‘enemies’ are going to confess for me. The thought occurred to me that if I should wait until they make the confession, if it was one that I could endorse, it would make a shorter job for me, and meanwhile give me more time to look over these things you have written. Yours in hope of eternal life. J. N. Loughborough.”GSAM 494.1

    Some Thoughts Concerning “Light”

    The brother writing to me says, “light is coming in every day,” and this matter of my condition, as I understand, “cannot be kept back much longer.” This led me to some thoughts that the Saviour, and the Apostle Paul expressed concerning “light.” Paul said to the Galatians that they had been moved away from the gospel to that which was not a gospel. They undoubtedly thought they had “light.” Galatians 6:2, 3. Our Saviour said to the Jews, “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.” John 12:35. At another time He said, “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.” Matthew 6:23.GSAM 494.2

    As an illustration of following what was supposed to be light, which actually led into trouble, there came to my mind what was related by my grandfather concerning an incident in New Jersey, where he was born and resided until near his fifties. An uneducated colored boy was sent on an errand. He was detained in returning, so he had to make his way home in the dark. His path was by the side of a swamp, with no fence between it and the near waters and mud of the swamp. He was feeling his way along the edge of the swamp. All at once he discovered a little flashing light that he thought a special favor for him, sent to guide him. Now if he would follow in the direction of this light, he would be all right. But Oh! Horrible! in a few minutes he found himself sinking in mud and mire of the swamp. Surprised was he to learn that his providential light was a little lightning bug, that was making its way out of the hot air to get into the cooler air over the water of the swamp.GSAM 494.3

    To Say Something on These Matters

    Then I began to enquire, “Lord what is this lesson to me, in stirring up these matters of the past?” And I said, “I began to preach twenty-four days before I was eighteen, and I have been sixty-nine years in the work. That is a goodly part of my life. I think the Lord, in His providence is moving me to say something on these matters that are thus brought before me. If He will give me strength, I will put in writing what my brethren may want when I am too feeble to write, or have been laid to rest.”GSAM 495.1

    So here we will begin to look at the matters of the brother’s letter. After bringing accusations against one and another of the brethren, and Sister White, he has two special charges against me. These I will notice before I take hold of the other matters. By these charges he supposes he proves that I am really “a willful deceiver.” So I had better notice each of these distinctly and separately, and then pass on to other matters which will lead us over the past, and enable us to speak of things I have had connection with directly, many of which are not mentioned in my book on The Great Second Advent Movement.GSAM 495.2

    Charge Number One

    Now we will have the charge that is made directly against me, in his own language, as found on the second page of his letter: “These statements of yours are contrary to the facts; are absolutely untrue; yes, are doubly false. For the First-day Adventists as stoutly opposed the “shut door,” while Seventh-day Adventists as stoutly affirmed it. No one can read the literature of the Seventh-day Adventists, from 1845 to 1851, without discovering in almost every issue that you have grossly and libelously misrepresented the First-day Adventists, and deceived and mislead your brethren.”GSAM 495.3

    There you have it plainly stated, surely. If it is true you must conclude it would send a man to purgatory, at least for a few days. Well, now that does look like a clear case, doesn’t it? If anybody back there ever said, “shut door,” it always meant, “no more mercy for sinners,” and it surely could never mean anything else. This led me to the following supposition about things back there.GSAM 496.1

    A little boy has a fine pony which he has a ride upon, before doing up his evening chores. So one day, after he comes in from his evening work, his father says to him, “Johnie, when you finished up your work, did you see to the shut door?” “Why father, I did not know my pony was a sinner.” “Well son, what do you mean?” “Why father, they say you never use the words shut door unless it means no more mercy for sinners, and if anybody should say you meant anything else, they would be called notorious liars.” “Well son, I see I was careless in the question I asked you. So now I will ask the question in a more simple manner, so that any little boy can understand it. After you had attended to the stock, did you close the stable door?” “Well, father, I understand you now, but how could I understand it any other way, when you asked me before?”GSAM 496.2

    But the brother contends, “You know there was a very bitter controversy between the Seventh-day Adventists led by Elder James White and wife, and Elder Joseph Bates, and the First-day Adventists, over the ‘shut door.’ The former accusing the latter of departing from the faith, because they taught an open door for sinners.” Yes, I know it, for I have been on both sides of the question myself, and know just what the controversy was about. It is thus stated by Sister White herself, in Experience and Views:—GSAM 496.3

    “The nominal Adventists charged me with fanaticism, and I was falsely, and by some wickedly, presented as being the leader of the fanaticism I was laboring to do away.” Experience and Views, p. 17.GSAM 496.4

    That was the case of her attendance at Paris and Garland, Maine, in 1845 and 1846. In those meetings, she reproved Joseph Turner for his false doctrine of, “no more mercy for sinners.” Persons, who were not at the meeting, reported her as teaching what she really reproved Turner for teaching, and those nominal Adventists have kept up that story until this day.GSAM 497.1

    What is Meant by “Shut Door”

    The whole matter of the controversy rests on what is meant by the term, “shut door.” When used by Seventh-day Adventists, did they mean by it, “no more mercy for sinners?” or a change in Christ’s position as our High Priest? A change that He made at the close of the 2300 days in 1844? That was the point in the controversy, when I was connected with it. The real merit of the case is plainly stated by Sister White in Experience and Views, page 34; “The time for God’s people to be tried on the Sabbath truth, was when the door was opened in the Most Holy Place, in the heavenly sanctuary, where the ark is, in which is contained the Ten Commandments. That door was not opened until the mediation of Jesus was finished in the Holy Place of the sanctuary in 1844, when Jesus rose up and shut the door of the Holy Place, and opened the door into the Most Holy, and passed within the second veil, where He now stands by the ark, and where the faith of Israel now reaches.”GSAM 497.2

    She continues on page 35, “The enemies of the present truth have been trying to open the door of the Holy Place, that Jesus shut, and to close the door of the Most Holy Place which He opened in 1844, where the ark is, containing the tables of stone on which are written the Ten Commandments by the finger of Jehovah.”GSAM 497.3

    Did she teach that there was “no more mercy for sinners,” in her vision of June 27, 1850? On the subject of the seven last plagues she says, “Then I realized as never before the importance of searching the word of God carefully, to know how to escape the plagues that are declared in that word shall come on all the ungodly who shall worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in their foreheads or in their hands. It was a great wonder to me that any could transgress the Law of God and tread down His Holy Sabbath, when such awful threatenings and denunciations were against them.” Experience and Views, p. 55.GSAM 497.4

    In a vision of Aug. 24, 1850, she speaks of those laboring in the cause in these terms; “To all eternity they will enjoy the satisfaction of having done what they could in presenting the truth in its purity and beauty so that souls fell in love with it, were sanctified through it, and availed themselves of the inestimable privilege of being made rich, and being washed in the blood of the Lamb, and redeemed unto God.” Ibid, p. 61.GSAM 498.1

    If there was no more mercy for sinners, what were they going to be washed from, and redeemed from? “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Matthew 9:12.GSAM 498.2

    But my enemies will say, “She speaks in other places of sinners whom God has rejected. Who are these?” We will quote her own explanation of it. At the Paris, Maine, meeting in 1846, Sister Marion Stowell (Truesdail) enquired of Sister Harmon (White) about an earnest friend of hers who had not been permitted to attend Advent meetings, to know if such would be saved. Sister White said to her, “God has never shown me that there is no salvation for such persons. It is those only who have had the light of truth presented to them and knowingly rejected it.”GSAM 498.3

    The Day of Atonement in the type was a special time of putting away of sin. It would be strange indeed if in the antitype there was no more mercy for sinners.GSAM 498.4

    Joseph Marsh: The Voice of Truth

    As proof positive that I have misrepresented the First-day Adventists in the matter of the “shut door,” the brother gives us these words, “In the January issue of Review and Herald, 1851, is presented a letter from E. P. Butler to Joseph Marsh, editor of The Voice of Truth, A First-day Adventist paper, in which he asks ‘Brother Marsh’ to stop his paper, which he has taken from the beginning. And he assigns as his reason the fact that The Voice of Truth has ‘abandoned the ‘shut door,’ and rejected the Seventh-day Sabbath.’ “GSAM 499.1

    And that is his proof that I had misrepresented the First-day Adventists, and have a poor chance of any part in the world to come. Why? Because I said that “The idea of no more mercy for sinners did not originate with Seventh-day Adventists, but with Joseph Turner at Paris, Maine in the winter of 1844-1845, with those who were keeping the first day of the week.”GSAM 499.2

    Now what does his reasoning prove? If it proves anything, it proves that Joseph Marsh, and The Voice gave up the doctrine of “no more mercy for sinners” at the Albany meeting in 1845. So I have misrepresented the First-day Adventists, and am in danger of losing eternal life, because of what I said of the origin of that doctrine.GSAM 499.3

    It seems Joseph Marsh, and The Voice (which was really Marsh in print) had “given up” something, here called, the “shut door.” It would seem this brother’s use of it when speaking of the “First-day Adventists” is to clear them from my claim that the origin of the “no more mercy for sinners” doctrine was not with Seventh-day Adventists. He is trying to clear the First-day keepers, on the ground that they “gave up” that doctrine at the Albany meeting, in 1845. It is evident that something was given up by Marsh and The Voice, and those assembled at Albany. What was it?GSAM 499.4

    Before making direct answer to this, I will state that for years I was personally acquainted with Joseph Marsh. For six and one-half years of my residence in Rochester, N.Y., he lived on Alexander St., and I on Union St., the next street, and our homes were in sight of each other. For four years from 1848, when I was in the city, we met each Sunday, in the same hall for worship. To my certain knowledge Joseph Marsh never endorsed the idea of “no more mercy for sinners.” So that is not the “shut door” that he gave up. So I do not see that it has any bearing on what I said about the origin of the doctrine by Joseph Turner in the winter of 1844-1845. To get this clearly before us, let us see Marion Stowell’s own words in the matter. See Testimony in The Great Second Advent Movement, the chapter entitled “The Shut Door,” pages 222-223.GSAM 499.5

    As to what Marsh held that he “gave up” at Albany, we will quote what he said in the first number of The Voice after the disappointment in October, 1844: “We cheerfully admit that we have been mistaken in the nature of the event we expected would occur on the tenth day of the seventh month; but we cannot yet admit that our great High Priest did not on that day accomplish all that the type would justify us in expecting. We now believe He did.”GSAM 500.1

    The “Shut Door” Marsh Abandoned

    Now what would we expect from the study of the work of the typical High Priest on the Day of Atonement? That at the close of his yearly service in the first apartment of the earthly sanctuary he would close the door, and enter upon his work in the second apartment. That was what Marsh did believe in the matter, until just before that Albany meeting. And the “shut door” that he gave up, was that “shut door” of the first apartment in the heavens. When he abandoned that belief which he affirmed in Oct. 1844, he substituted something in place of it. Of course, it took him a little time to get this all in shape to publish to the world. If he gave up his tenth day of the seventh month in 1844 experience, it must be with substitute dates. This would involve many other time periods beside the chronology of the 2300 days. At Albany in 1845, he abandoned the 1844 date.GSAM 500.2

    He was not ready to give the whole matter to the people, until the issue of the double number of his paper The Voice, bearing date of May 27, 1846. The paper he advertised at $4.00 per hundred copies. Of his delay in the matter of the publishing, he said, “We have not kept the time of the Lord’s coming before the people as we should.” Then of the reckoning of the time in 1844 he said, “Time has proved that date incorrect, for had the midst of the week been A.D. 31, the 2300 days would have terminated in 1844.” “Time has proved the earlier date incorrect, but the whole time (2300 days) has not yet expired.... There is a date of a different character from that on which we have relied.... The point, and our point, of mistake is the precise commencement and termination of the prophetic periods.”GSAM 501.1

    So we will notice in his own words, the reasoning he used in the Albany meeting, and now presented in The Voice of May 27, 1846. His lengthy reasoning on the subject, he sums up in these words, “The conclusion therefore is this, that the seventy weeks or 490 years of Daniel, ending at the conversion of Cornelius, A.D. 37, together with the 2300 years are to be started from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, as given in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The termination of the three and a half years ministry of the Saviour on the one hand, and the conversion of Cornelius after the three and one-half years of apostolic ministry among the Jews on the other, together make up the one, or last of the 70 prophetic weeks; and added to the thirty years of Christ’s age when He commenced His ministry, it demonstrates that the 70 weeks closed A.D. 37. [You see he dropped the well known fact that A.D. was really four years before the common account called Anno Domini.] Now carry back the 70 weeks or 490 from A.D. 37 to the era B.C., and you have the date of the command to restore and build Jerusalem, 453 B.C. or A.M. 3690, then the 2300 years beginning at the same time we ascertain their termination, merely by deducting the years before the incarnation, which brings us down to A.D. 1847.GSAM 501.2

    “By what event is the close of the 2300 years to be signalized? Answer—By the cleansing of the sanctuary. The accomplishment of the vision—the last end of the indignation, Daniel 8:14-18, 23-27. In other words, in A.D. 1847 the Lord Jehovah will appear for the restoration and establishment in Palestine of the seed of Abraham, which He swore unto their fathers.”GSAM 502.1

    There you have it in his own words. It is seen from this reasoning that Marsh not only gave up the “shut door,” but he also “gave up” some other well established dates. He placed the decree of Artaxerxes in B.C. 453, as the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus.GSAM 502.2

    Now I will quote from a slip I took from the Advent Herald of Boston, Mass., an article published on the date of March 2, 1850. The Boston Branch of the First-day Adventists never gave up the former reckoning of the seventy weeks, as used in the first angel’s message. They took no part in the time setting of Marsh and others. They did not, however accept the third angel’s message and the Sabbath. This is what they printed in reference to the date of 457 B.C.:—GSAM 502.3

    “The seventy weeks date from the going forth of a decree respecting the restoration of Jerusalem. There were no decrees between the seventh and twentieth years of Artaxerxes. Four hundred and ninety years, beginning in the seventh, must commence B.C. 457, and end in A.D. 34. Commencing in the twentieth, they must commence in B.C. 444, and end in A.D. 47. As no event occurred in 47 to mark their termination, we cannot reckon from the twentieth; we must therefore look to the seventh of Artaxerxes. This date we cannot change from B.C. 457 without first demonstrating the inaccuracy of Ptolemy’s Canon. To do this it would be necessary to show that the large number of eclipses by which its accuracy has been repeatedly demonstrated, have not been correctly computed; and such a result would unsettle every chronological date, and leave the settlement of epochs and the adjustment of eras entirely at the mercy of every dreamer. So that chronology would be of no more value than mere guess work.”GSAM 502.4

    The change made in the reckoning of the seventy weeks, and the close of the 2300 days, made it necessary, of course, for Marsh to make other changes. So he changes the date of the conversion of Clovis who became “the first son of the Catholic church,” from 508 to 511, so as to bring the termination of the 1290 days down to 1847, to agree with his 1847 time. And the taking away of the dominion of the papacy he placed in 1802, when Pius VII was installed as pope. Marsh held that then the pope was so reduced in his former grandeur that it was the taking away of his dominion. Of course, he had not time to note that he was set up when the third of the three horns were plucked up, in 538.GSAM 503.1

    And then, even in this copy of The Voice of May 27, 1846, he seems to throw a blanket over his new reckoning, in his instruction to those going out to teach it, in these words: “Tell them you do not know that you are correct, but think you are. At any rate you can confidently say that the evidence in the case, if it does not positively define the day, month, or even the year, makes it a matter absolutely certain that the Lord is near even at the door.” Not much like the reasoning of those giving the first angel’s midnight cry, “no doubting.” More like another who later on set up another reckoning for the seventy weeks, and said if that failed, they might have to wait until the Lord came, and then “figure back to find where the seventy weeks began.” Brother Uriah Smith enquired, “Is that the way prophecy backs up?”GSAM 503.2

    The “Shut Door” Butler had Accepted

    Now is it not sad for my “enemies” that Marsh, in all this “controversy” at Albany, and even in his double number of The Voice, was so absorbed about the Jews, and “going out to convert the world,” that he never once mentioned that any one of them ever believed that there was a time when there was “no more mercy for sinners?” Well, my “enemies” will probably say, “We know that was what they were driving at, if they did not use the word. For according to Brother Butler, it was the ‘shut door’ that they gave up, and that never means anything else but ‘no more mercy for sinners,’ when anybody back there used it.” How sad it must be for the brother who thought the mention of this Albany affair would certainly bring Loughborough to his knees to confess, lest he should lose all hope for the future world.GSAM 504.1

    In my account of the rise of the doctrine of “no more mercy for sinners,” I was very particular to define what I meant by “First-day Adventists.” I did not say “First-day Adventist denomination,” but those who were “keeping the first day of the week, instead of the seventh.” At the time that theory was proclaimed by Turner, at Paris, Maine, in December 1844, there was not a Seventh-day Adventist in the state of Maine. The first Seventh-day Adventists in the state were Elder James White and wife. Brother White was married to Miss E. G. Harmon, in August 1846. Late in the fall he and Sister White visited Brother Joseph Bates at Fair Haven, Mass. Brother Bates presented to them the Bible Sabbath; they accepted it, and returned to Maine, the first Seventh-day Adventists in the state. They invited Brother Bates to Topsham to present the Sabbath truth to that company. This he did; that company all accepted it, as well as others in other places where he presented this truth.GSAM 504.2

    The query may arise with some, “How is it that Brother Butler should write to Brother White in 1850 about stopping Marsh’s paper, The Voice of Truth, because The Voice had given up the ‘shut door’ at Albany in 1845?” The explanation is this. Though Brother Butler still held on to the Advent movement of 1844 as being of the Lord, he had not received the true light on the sanctuary and its cleansing until just before writing that letter to Marsh. It was then that he had received the explanation of the past, the Sabbath, and the true light on the sanctuary, from the teaching of Elder James White, at Waterbury, Vt., Brother Butler’s residence. It was then that he saw the error into which Marsh had fallen, and so he informed Brother White of what he had done. I learned from Brother White himself his experience in leading Brother Butler into the light on the sanctuary, and the Sabbath truth.GSAM 504.3

    What Marsh Developed After the Albany Meeting

    Now let us see how, after that Albany meeting, Joseph Marsh and “the First-day Adventists” (whom my “enemies” are so anxious to save from Loughborough’s misrepresentations) progressed. As you see, from what I have already quoted from Marsh, he had his attention on the Jews, and a work that was to be done for them in the age to come, after the Lord should come in 1847. But the Lord did not come in 1847, so the matter must be fixed up some way. When we come to 1850 there began to be developed what he grasped as some help out of his dilemma. As to what developed about that time, I will quote the words of Sister White, when speaking of a vision given to her Sept. 23, 1850:—GSAM 505.1

    “Then I was pointed to some who are in the error of believing that it is their duty to go to old Jerusalem, and think they have a great work to do there before the Lord comes. I saw that such a mission would accomplish no real good, that it would take a long time to make a very few of the Jews believe in the first advent of Christ, and more to believe in His second advent.” Experience and Views, pages 64, 65.GSAM 505.2

    I learned from Sister White that this testimony was sent to a maiden lady in Philadelphia, a Miss M. She said, “I told her that her mission would be a failure, and not to go.” But she induced a Mr. A to keep the Sabbath, and go with her to Jerusalem. She “was sure she could now do a great work, for the Jews, as she would go there keeping the same Sabbath that they were keeping.”GSAM 506.1

    Mission to the Jews in Palestine

    When they got over there they fell in at once with a rich Jew, by the name of Meshullam, who was a Zionist man, and who taught that in his “Zionist Movement” the work had already begun for the Jews, before the coming of the Messiah. He also thought that the Lord was especially favoring the movement, for they had had glorious rains in Palestine, which was the Lord restoring the early and latter rains to the land. They accepted his theory, and he highly entertained them at his own expense, under the assumed name of Mr. and Mrs. A, not having an idea but what they were man and wife he was entertaining.GSAM 506.2

    They wrote back to Marsh, who accepted this new theory, and now claimed that, instead of the whole earth being the sanctuary that was to be cleansed by fire at Christ’s coming, it was the land of Palestine; and that instead of the cleansing to be delayed until Christ’s coming, the cleansing “by water” had already commenced. This led Elder H. L. Hastings in referring to it, to use that quaint saying, “First in the fire, then in the water.”GSAM 506.3

    Now what did Marsh do? He prepared a pamphlet of about 150 pages giving it the title of “Meshullam,” setting forth in glowing terms what was already going on for the Jews, under this Philadelphia woman’s mission. And in his book he made a loud call for means to help her in her work. He had her come back to America to go from place to place, making personal appeals for the mission. This she did. (I wish I had kept the copy of “Meshullam” which I had. It was such supreme nonsense, I suppose I used it to kindle the fire.) After her work in America, she and Mr. A went back to Palestine, to press on in the mission to convert the Jews in Palestine, and when Christ would come, through the aid of the converted Jews, “convert all the world.” But Lo! in their absence Meshullam had learned Mr. and Mrs. A had never been married. So they returned to America, and reported to Marsh, “Meshullam refused to let us work with him in his mission.” Sad for them, wasn’t it?GSAM 506.4

    Age-to-Come Theory

    What about Marsh in this dilemma? He had adopted the age-to-come theory and a thousand years probation, and had opened the columns of the Advent Harbinger (formerly The Voice) to the promulgation of this theory. He preached it to us in Rochester, until he divided that company. Elder H. L. Hastings came on to try and help matters. Marsh had a pamphlet of some 200 pages, entitled “The Age to Come.” I heard Hasting’s discourses against Marsh’s theory. In one of the discourses, when Marsh was present, he said, “You have preached salvation for sinners in the age to come, neglecting their salvation now, until your church is as dead as a door nail.”GSAM 507.1

    In 1851, when the theory of the age-to-come was being advocated by Marsh in Rochester, N.Y., I listened to a debate on the subject, between him and Elder Phinehas Smith, an earnest soul winner. Among other things, Elder Smith inquired of Marsh, “Who are those whom Satan is kept from deceiving during the thousand years?” Marsh replied, “Those he had been deceiving before.” Q: “Who are those he deceives at the end of the thousand years?” A: “Those he has been kept from deceiving during the thousand years.” Then Smith demanded, “Give me the proof that any one of those escape his deceptions.” Marsh utterly failed to do this. Then Brother Smith, in a strong voice said, “Here then we have a people for one thousand years, knowing nothing of temptations, and life tests of character, such as we have to meet here. The end of the thousand years the devil is let loose upon them, deceives them all and they with him go into the lake of fire and brimstone. What a glorious restitution! With this the debate closed, but it left quite a number of that Rochester company free from this Marsh heresy, and free to examine and embrace the third angel’s message when it came to Rochester in the year 1852.GSAM 507.2

    Conclusion on “Charge Number One”

    So much for that Albany meeting and its results, a meeting which my brother seems to think saved the “First-day Adventists from my misrepresentation of them.” I submit that the facts I have presented save me from the charge made against me in this special “First Count.” What a pity for these who are so busy preparing a confession for me, that this Albany ” ‘no more mercy for sinners’ ‘shut door,’ ”—GSAM 508.1

    “should make of this life such a desolate end, and depart from the world without leaving a friend.”GSAM 508.2

    But really, it looks to me as though somebody has a funeral on hand. But as it is, none of my relatives, you would hardly expect me to go so far as Albany to attend it. It may be in order to request my “enemies” that are “receiving light every day” to see that the corpse of this “Albany” child receives a respectable burial.GSAM 508.3

    The Second Count

    But we come now to the Second Count in this personal attack on my character. It is that in my writings in The Great Second Advent Movement I left out “all the world.” And in another place, the “shut door.” Let us see how he states this charge, for it seems in his estimation, he relies upon it as one of the most formidable of all my evils in the book. Here it is:—GSAM 508.4

    “The most glaring deception you are guilty of, aside from your positive misstatements, is found on page 264.” After referring to the words of the quotation he says, “It is plain from the above words of the quotation that what they had abandoned as error, was the truth. You knew this, and hence had you quoted Brother White in whole it would commit the visions to the ‘shut door’ teaching. In the former quotation you had the honesty (?) to indicate there that something was omitted; you left out ‘for all the world.’ But in this last quotation you left no sign of omission. The above quotation should read: ‘She and all the band in Portland, Maine, (where her parents then resided), had given up the ‘midnight cry’ and the ‘shut door’ as being in the past.’GSAM 509.1

    “Why did you omit the words ‘and the shut door’ if it were not to deceive the people? Truth needs no such deception to bolster it up. I see no other way for you to be right with God and your deceived brethren, but for you to make a full and free confession of your sin. Do it, Brother Loughborough, before it is too late.”GSAM 509.2

    Now let us see. My “enemies” were on a “still hunt” for “shut door,” when Lo! they found some dots, which proved the “deceiver,” for just once in his book was “honest,” but suddenly there broke on their sight a “glaring light.” Three dots missing, and it nearly put out the “eye of faith.” Now perhaps, as in the Albany case, we had better furnish our readers with some “shaded eye glasses” when they read, so that they shall not be made entirely blind. Now if it is absolutely required that I should tell why I omitted, “all the world,” which I indicated by dots, I am free to state it. In the limited space in my book, I did not put in a reason why I omitted that clause. It was to save souls from grasping at once to the “all the world” sentiments that were so rapidly spreading in the world in the pernicious theories of age-to-come and “Russelism” which have advanced in the world, and spiritually ruined thousands. Spiritualism also with its progressive theory taught, not only in their books, where they set forth the final reformation of all men, but of fallen angels, and even the devil himself.GSAM 509.3

    I do not think that these mine “enemies” are aware of what was involved in Marsh’s “open door for all the world,” as we were who lived in Rochester, N.Y., and were tormented with it. It was, as he developed it, that all who had not had a good chance here, were to be brought up and have a new chance in the “glorious restitution state,” while we would read that Sodom and Gomorrah were ensamples to all who should after live ungodly, as stated by Jude 7. He would thrust in our faces Ezekiel 18:32, as positive proof that Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the Jews that had done worse than they, were to have a second probation, (with perhaps less bread and idleness, and more time to “strengthen the poor and needy,” which they had neglected to do in this world. Ezekiel 16:49.) I do not wonder our writers at that time spake of the proposed mission of Marsh as, “a wide open door to the world.” He seemed to be striving hard to open it to “all the world.”GSAM 510.1

    But not to be too hasty, let us see what spiritualism was not only teaching in their work in those times, but praying. I have before me a spirit medium’s prayer. “What,” you may say, “A spiritualist praying?” Yes, and I will quote the prayer as I have it in my scrap book, clipped from The Herald of Progress, of Sept. 20, 1860. A prayer was made to the devil, in Lyceum Hall, Boston, Mass., on Sept. 6 of that year, by Lizzie Doten, a celebrated trance speaker. It reads as follows:—GSAM 510.2

    “Oh Lucifer, thou son of the morning, who fell from thy high estate, and whom mortals are prone to call the embodiment of evil, we lift our voice unto thee. We know thou canst not harm us unless by the will of the Almighty, of which thou art a part and portion, and in whose economy thou playest a part. And we cannot presume to sit in judgment over Deity. From the depths of thine infamy stream forth divine truths. Why should we turn from thee? Does not the same inspiration rule us all? Is one in God’s sight better than another? We know thou are yet to come up in His expanding creation, purified by the influence of God’s love—for His love is not perfected while one of His creatures writhes in misery. So, O Lucifer, we do come up and stand before the throne with thee. As thou hast been the Star of the morning, thou wilt yet become an angel of light. So Satan, we will subdue thee with our love, and thou wilt yet kneel humbly with us at the throne of God.”GSAM 510.3

    “But,” our readers may say, “What has that to do with the danger of sensible persons in Bible lands? There is no danger of any one who reads the Bible being led away by such doctrine as that.” Now do not be so sure. Let me tell you of what I met in England, in the year 1880, when residing in Southhampton. The son of Bishop Wilberforce, who was now a canon of Winchester Cathedral, had accepted the “better hope,” as taught by Canon Farrar of St. Paul’s Cathedral. This “better hope” was an “age to come” in which there was a way of salvation for all. The Wilberforce of Southhampton began a series of discourses at Southhampton, which were reported in the weekly paper of the place.GSAM 511.1

    To some of these I made reply in the Sign’s supplement, which we were publishing there once a month, to be placed on the 1,000 Signs that were sent to us by the General Conference. In one of his discourses he spake of the zeal some would manifest for sinners, those who had been great revivalists here on earth. He said, “If John Wesley over there should see sinners suffering in hell, he would want to plunge into the fire to help them out.” And in another discourse he quoted the words of Christ in Matthew 5:25, 26, and said, “This proves that when the sinner had suffered the full penalty for his sins, the Lord would then forgive him, and he would be rescued from hell.” What was the effect of his talk on the rough element of the town? They said, “What is the use of being so particular now? We are going to have a better chance over there, so we may as well have a good time here.” “Well,” you may say, “That was just in Southhampton, and London.” Don’t be too positive. There was more fruit of this.GSAM 511.2

    After we had been sending out the Signs, in 1883, one day I received a paper from a party, calling themselves “Restitutionists.” It was from a publisher of a professed religious denomination, not small in numbers. In the paper they had an “age to come,” when Christ, with the aid of Jews converted, and the angels, was going to engage first in the conversion of the fallen world. And then all combined, they would convert the devil himself. And in that very number of the paper he called for the name and address of those who would promise him to pray for the conversion of the devil. I said to the family, “If I was going to pray for the devil, I think it would be on this wise, ‘Lord hasten the time when his deceitful rule shall cease.” The paper was such supreme nonsense that I put it into the fire.GSAM 512.1

    Perhaps this is sufficient explanation why I left out, “open door to all the world,” and simply put in three dots. It may be this explanation where I have a little more elbow room, that may release me from the final judgment on that part of the charge.GSAM 512.2

    “Shut Door” Omission

    But why did I leave out the words “shut door?” Because of the persons who are so sure that every time a Seventh-day Adventist said “shut door,” it meant “no more mercy for sinners,” and never meant anything else. There was not space in that brief treatise to spend several pages at that location showing just what they meant by the term, since it was fully explained elsewhere in the book. The most of these expressions, which are hurled over the heads of persons who never believed there was “no more mercy for sinners,” were used by them when they had received the light on the real event which took place after the change of the service of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, at the close of the 2300 days, when He closed the door of the first apartment, and entered upon His work of cleansing the sanctuary, in the second apartment.GSAM 512.3

    It seems a curiosity to me, that persons who contend that Christ never officiated in the first apartment of the sanctuary after He shed His blood, and that He entered directly upon His work in the second apartment when He ascended, have so much trouble about that door being closed at the end of the 2300 days. It looks really as though, if they expressed their idea in the language of those who were teaching the change of the ministration in 1844, they would say, “That door has been closed nearly 1900 years.”GSAM 513.1

    But I am not done with this charge against me yet. It seems the awful sin I am called upon to confess, rests upon three dots that it is said I omitted, while it is yet to be proved that I purposely omitted them. My brother talks as though he knows that I purposely omitted them. Now if he were making this charge against me before an earthly court, instead of an heavenly, there would be at least two question he would be called upon to answer.GSAM 513.2

    First: “Did he see the manuscript of the book he was talking about, so that he knew positively that what he was stating was true?” In a court of law, “what a man thinks” is not evidence. It is, however, “what he has seen, and knows.” Second: “Does he have the spirit of discernment, so that he can know just what I left out in those dots, if I did do it?”GSAM 513.3

    Now this is quite a serious charge he has made against me. It is as though I do not know that a rule in printing is that omissions in a quotation should be indicated by dots. Now let us see if this man Loughborough knows anything about the rules in type setting. For two years, in England, I had the type setting, making up of the pages, and looking up of the forms of a monthly two-page supplement for a thousand copies of the weekly Signs of the Times. For four years, in California, I was editor of the Pacific Health Journal, and had the oversight of making up the pages of each number, standing by the side of Brother Rue. I surely ought to know the rule for omissions in quotations.GSAM 513.4

    But look here. In this charge he is not only involving the living, but my dead wife also. She was just as anxious as I that The Great Second Advent Movement should be made as accurate as possible with our facilities to make it. He expresses himself as though he “knew” positively just what he was stating. When, and where did he examine that manuscript, so that he knew positively that it was not a mistake of the printers instead of mine? We had only one copy of that manuscript, which I sent by express to Elder Geo. I. Butler, Nashville, Tenn., not doubting but the work would be done thoroughly and safely. I never saw a proof of the pages, or any of the print of the book, until I received a complete bound book. We took it for granted that the book was all right; we went through the index of the pages for something we wanted to read, and found eight places where the wrong number of the page was given. We at once sent a correction of this to Brother Butler, and he had a slip printed and put by the side of the index in all the books. If our attention had been called to the dots it would have been corrected.GSAM 514.1

    An Example of Printer’s Mistake

    Now if my brother was so certain that it is impossible for a printer to make a mistake in the type work, let me call attention to an article that was put in print over my signature that is not yet four months old, and see if it will modify this idea of infallibility of printers. There had been so much said in the papers about soldiers in England appearing to their friends, after they had been killed in the army, that I thought I would write an article, which I entitled, “Can Spirits Materialize?” I quoted in the article a clipping which I had from Andrew Jackson Davis, found in his paper of Feb. 1, 1861. In a column entitled “Answers to Correspondents,” he was answering questions relative to the way persons appeared to their friends. One was that when a person who had lost his life in a fire appeared, he was in a flame of fire. “Does he still suffer in the fire?” Davis replied in these words, “All spirits are great artists; they can psychologize a medium to see them, and describe them, in the style which would produce the deepest impression on the receiver.”GSAM 514.2

    This I had in one paragraph in the article. From the answer to another correspondent, I quoted as another paragraph, “It is simply absurd to suppose that persons continue to look and suffer exactly as and what they did just previous to dissolution.” (Italics his own.) I quoted this as another paragraph. Now if my brother is sure that printers never make a mistake in setting or making up type, let us see how that thing read when it came out in print. The two paragraphs were combined in one. Not a very slight change. But, hold on, that is only the beginning of the changes. The last half of the first paragraph was omitted, as also the first half of the second paragraph, and the word “spirits” was changed to spiritualists. So it said “All spiritualists are great artists, and they can psychologize a medium to see them.” etc.GSAM 515.1

    Now you see, if he had found that, and compared it with what Davis did say, what a fine chance he would have had against me. As the article came out in print, there was nothing there about spirits doing anything, but spiritualists psychologizing the medium, so that the medium could see them. I have seen many spiritualists, but it was not necessary for me to be psychologized to see them. So my typist that prepared that type was not infallible. I would rather they had put some dots at the end of that article, than make me responsible for the printer’s blunders.GSAM 515.2

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