First-day Adventist Testimony

As to what the First-day Adventists of New England know about the extreme shut door doctrine, let the following letter testify:—GSAM 223.3

“August 5 to 9, 1891, I held a debate with Elder Miles Grant, at Brookston, a city of about 30,000 inhabitants. The debate was in the large tent, and was presided over by Mr. John Barbour, once president of the city council. This city is about twenty miles from Boston. The debate was on the Sabbath question, but Mr. Grant tried to drag into the debate the matter of Sister White’s experience in this work. He charged that ‘she was shown, way back in 1844, that probation was passed, and there was no more mercy for sinners.’ “GSAM 223.4

“In reply, I told him that the First-day Adventists took that position, nearly all of them, at one time, before we separated from them, and that instead of Mrs. White’s favoring the position at all, one of the first things she was shown was that that position was ‘false,’ and that there was still mercy for sinners. I said, ‘This is so, and Elder Grant knows that it is so.’ As I said this, numbers of the First-day Adventists people before me [that class constituted quite a portion of the large tent full] nodded their heads in emphatic and positive assent to the statement. Suffice it to say that Elder Grant did not mention that point again in the debate.”GSAM 224.1

Signed “Geo. E. Fifield, South Lancaster, Mass., Dec. 6, 1895.”GSAM 224.2