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Chapter 64—Fanaticism and Ignorance
Brother E,
While in Rochester, New York, December 25, 1865, before
visiting the State of Maine, I saw some things in relation to the
perplexing and discouraging conditions of the cause in that state. I
was shown that quite a number who were thinking it their duty to
teach the word of God publicly had mistaken their work. They had
no call to devote themselves to this solemn, responsible work. They
were not qualified for the work of the ministry, for they could not
instruct others properly.
The experience of some had been obtained among a class of
religious fanatics who had no true sense of the exalted character
of the work. The religious experience of this class of professed
Seventh-day Adventists was not reliable. They had not firm prin-
ciples underlying all their actions. They were self-confident, and
boastful. Their religion did not consist in righteous acts, true humil-
ity of soul, and sincere devotion to God, but in impulse, in noise and
confusion, spiced with eccentricities and oddities. They had not felt,
neither could they feel, the necessity of being clothed with Christ’s
righteousness. They had a righteousness of their own, which was
as filthy rags, and which God can in no case accept. These persons
had no love for union and harmony of action. They delighted in
disorder. Confusion, distraction, and diversity of opinion were their
choice. They were ungovernable, unsubdued, unregenerated, and
unconsecrated, and this element of confusion suited their undisci-
plined minds. They were a curse to the cause of God and brought
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the name of Seventh-day Adventists into disrepute.
These persons had not experienced the work of reformation, or
sanctification through the truth. They were coarse and uncultivated.
They had never tasted of the sweet, pure refinement of the world to
come. They had never experienced, neither had their hearts been
awed by, the mystery of godliness. They placed divine and eternal
things upon a level with common things, and would talk of heaven
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