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Manuscripts and Memories of Minneapolis

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    A. T. Jones to Brother Holmes, May 12, 1921

    D. File 189
    AMERICAN SENTINEL
    of
    Religious Liberty
    925 E St. and Md. Ave.
    Washington, D. C.
    Alonzo T. Jones
    May 12, 1921
    Dear Brother Holmes,

    My answer to your letter of inquiry of April 12 has been delayed by many things. And now I do not think that I can do justice to it in the time that I have. That Minneapolis meeting and conference embraced much more and meant much more than what occurred in the meeting and conference. In a way it was the culmination of a number of things before it, and it was also the origin of a lot of things after it.MMM 327.1

    From 1885 to 1888 Bro. Waggoner and I both worked on the Signs of the Times and the American Sentinel at Oakland, Calif., each of us taught in Healdsburg College, and preached in the churches mostly, I in San Francisco and he in Oakland. Each of us pursued his own individual study of the Bible and teaching and preaching. Never in our lives did we spend an hour in study together on any subject or upon all subjects. Yet we were led in perfect agreement in the truths of the Bible all the way. To illustrate: One Sabbath Bro. Waggoner was away from Oakland in a campmeeting, and I preached in his place in the Oakland church. My subject was “Righteousness by Faith.” The next Sabbath he was at home and preached in his own place in Oakland church, and I in San Francisco. Sunday morning when I came into the Signs office and began to work, I said to Bro. Bollman, What did Bro. Waggoner preach on yesterday? He replied, The same that you did last Sabbath. I asked him, What was his text? He replied, Some one that you had. I said, What line did he follow? What illustrations? He replied, The same that you did.MMM 327.2

    And that was the way all the time. Oh, yes, another illustration proves this. Bro. Prescott and his wife went to England, starting from Battle Creek. They left, as I remember it, the evening after the Sabbath. That Sabbath I preached in the Tabernacle. They arrived in London the next Sabbath, and went to the meeting in London, arriving there in the midst of the sermon, and Bro. Waggoner was preaching. And he was preaching on the same subject on which I had preached the Sabbath before in Battle Creek. And he preached so entirely parallel with me, that Mrs. Prescott herself told me afterward that when Bro. Waggoner had finished his sermon and the meeting was closed, and they spoke to him they told him that, We appreciated your sermon, Bro. Waggoner. But it would have been a little newer if we had not heard it from Bro. Jones last Sabbath in the Tabernacle in Battle Creek.MMM 327.3

    To the General Conference of 1887 in Battle Creek Bro. Waggoner went as a delegate from California, or possibly it was 1886. At any rate at that Conference Eld. Geo. I. Butler opposed his preaching of “Righteousness by Faith,” and issued a pamphlet in opposition to what he called “the much-vaunted doctrine of justification by faith.” As I remember it his pamphlet was entitled, “The Law in Galatians.”MMM 327.4

    By their known agreement of Bro. Waggoner and me in the Gospel of Righteousness by Faith, which included of course both Galatians and Romans; and that did not agree at all with the views of Butler and the other General conference heads; Butler and the others had framed in their imagination that “these two young men”—Bro. Waggoner and me—had concocted a scheme to revolutionize the doctrine of the denomination and to carry the denomination into new, and of course, “heretical” fields. For, along with the truth and “heresy” of righteousness by faith for which Bro. Waggoner was held as the leader, I had carried through the Signs of the Times a study of the four beasts and the ten kingdoms as in Daniel 7. In tracing the ten kingdoms to know exactly what they were in the history, I found that the old traditional list of those kingdoms as held by the denomination was not correct. When I began the study Bro. Uriah Smith wrote to me that he was glad that I was going to search that out, for it had never been done: but that the list that was used in the 1844 movement had been simply carried along by the denomination without any attempt having been made to verify it. But when I brought out the truth that the list was not correct, Bro. Smith was not a bit glad; and opposed it, and defended the old list. This made me the head of that new “heresy” as Bro. Waggoner was of the other; and this was a double proof to the other men that Bro. Waggoner and I had got up a new doctrine for the denomination which at the Minneapolis Conference we were going to have settled as the orthodox denominational doctrine. But neither Bro. Waggoner nor I alone or together ever in our lives thought of any such thing. All that we were doing any of the time was studying the Scriptures to know the truth.MMM 327.5

    An institute of three or four weeks' duration had been appointed to precede the actual General Conference that was to come at Minneapolis. Some time before starting to that institute, C. H. Jones, general manager of the Pacific Press, W. C. White and some others asked Bro. Waggoner and me to go with them for a few days outing and we all study together the Scriptures on these “heretical” questions that were certain to come up in the institute and conference. Wind of this little innocent thing wafted to the brethren in Battle Creek as further confirmation of their settled view that Bro. Waggoner and I in furtherance of our scheme to revolutionize the doctrine of the denomination were working other brethren into our scheme so as to come to the institute and General Conference at Minneapolis so strongly fortified as to carry our scheme. We did not know till after the institute and conference were all over that the General Conference man in Battle Creek held these things concerning us, and we never in our lives having thought of any such thing came to the institute and conference as unknowing of what the other men were thinking as we were ourselves of what they thought that we were thinking. And so in all innocence we came to the meeting expecting just nothing but plain Bible study to know the truth. Eld. Butler was sick and did not get to the institute or conference at all. But he had men instructed, and by correspondence and by telegraph he kept his hand upon things there.MMM 328.1

    When the institute opened I was invited or appointed to lead out in the study of the prophecies, and this brought in the ten kingdoms of course. But there was nobody to give any historical studies in opposition to this for none of them knew the history will enough; so all that they could do on that was to appeal to tradition. And Elder Butler telegraphed from Battle Creek, “Stand by the landmarks.”MMM 328.2

    Thus the real fight in the institute and conference came over “Righteousness by Faith.” Bro. Waggoner led in the studies on that. Eld. J. H. Morrison was chosen by the General Conference folks to lead the opposition. And he did it: and it was righteousness by anything and everything else than faith.MMM 328.3

    I cannot now name anyone who definitely and openly accepted there the truth of righteousness by faith. But in the time following I could not name the numbers who told that their true Christian experience in the Gospel began with the study of righteousness by faith in that meeting. In that meeting and conference the tide of things was indicated by what one of the Battle Creek leaders said one day to a cluster of man after one of Bro. Waggoner's studies. He said, “Now we could say Amen to all of that if that is all there were to it. But away down yonder there is still something to come. And this is to lead us to that. And if we say Amen to this we will have to say Amen to that and then we are caught.” Thus they would not say Amen to what they knew was true for fear of what was to come after, to which they would not say Amen anyhow—and which never came either, for there was no such thing, and so they robbed themselves of what their own hearts told them was the truth; and by fighting what they only imagined, they fastened themselves in opposition to what they knew that they should have said Amen to.MMM 328.4

    The opposers ware Geo. I. Butler, J. H. Morrison, and all who could be swung by General Conference influence.MMM 329.1

    But as you know Sr. White stood out openly and strongly all the way for righteousness by faith; and after the conference was over the preaching of righteousness by faith was followed up by her and Bro. Waggoner and me through the winter following and by her and me in Battle Creek direct, and it was given the greater force by the message of religious liberty that was indorsed in that General Conference, and which by resolution of the Conference I was directed to carry to the Senate Committee in Washington in opposition to the Blair Sunday bill. This went on through the winter and spring. Then when campmeeting time came we all three visited the campmeetings with the message of righteousness by faith and religious liberty; sometime all three of us being in the same meeting. This turned the tide with the people, and apparently with most of the leading men. But this latter was only apparent; it was never real, for all the time in the General Conference Committee and amongst others there was a secret antagonism always carried on; and which finally in Daniells, Spicer & Co., gained the day in the denomination, and gave to the Minneapolis spirit and contention and man the supremacy as the accompanying leaflet will demonstrate to you (The leaflet is entitled “The Everlasting Gospel of God's Everlasting Covenant.).MMM 329.2

    Please read this leaflet through carefully, and when you get to the marked place on page 31, you will appreciate along with this letter what is there said. For you will see, what is there said is a synopsis of what I have here written.MMM 329.3

    And I personally know that if a testimony that was written in 1902 and was read to me by Sr. White herself, that was addressed to Daniells and Prescott, had ever been published as other testimonies were published, those two man with that gang never could have run the course that they did run. But so far as I know no copy of that testimony was ever allowed to get out of her house; and I know that for this W. C. White was in no small measure responsible. I do not know whether even Daniells or Prescott ever saw a copy. Even if copies of it did get out, I very seriously doubt that they ever got out as that testimony was originally written and read to me; for it is morally certain, and practically physically certain, that if it had been made public as important testimonies usually were, as it was originally written, it would have put a quietus on their campaign against Dr. Kellogg as they began it in Battle Creek in November, 1902.MMM 329.4

    When I returned from that meeting in Battle Creek, to California, she asked me to some to her house. I went; she asked me, “What was done in that meeting in Battle Creek?” I said, “Don't you know? If you don't know I am not going to tell you.” She said, “That is just what Knox said.” Then she started in and told me what had passed in that meeting, just as well as I could have told it myself. Then she read to me the testimony to Daniells and Prescott. And both what she told me of what occurred there, and the testimony she wrote to Daniells and Prescott, set out Daniells and Prescott in their true light just as they were in that meeting and as they were in themselves.MMM 329.5

    In justice to Bro. J. H. Morrison he should be given credit by name for the truth and fact that some time after the Minneapolis Conference was over, I cannot state definitely just what year, cleared himself of all connection with that opposition; and put himself body, soul and spirit into the truth and blessing of righteousness by faith by one of the finest and noblest confessions that I ever heard.MMM 330.1

    Wishing you only all blessing always, I remain
    Truly,
    Signed: Alonzo T. Jones.

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