In taking notice of places where I have laboured outside of our own district, I cannot pass over Fifeshire. I feel about as much at home in Fife as I do in our own district. The trouble is, I can only give a passing notice, and there are so many people that I know well there, and so many places and incidents present themselves to the mind, that if I begin I hardly see a stopping-place. What you mention must be a mere nothing compared with what you do not mention. Had there only been Dunfermline or Kirkcaldy, one might have said a good deal about either of them, but when I put them both in, I realize that I have more than I can deal with. And when I add all the rest of the "Kingdom" to these two, I feel like saying, "My compliments to you all, friends," and pass on. In contending for the faith which was once for all delivered unto saints, I had one public experience in Fife, somewhat different from anything I have had elsewhere. I may say something about that in passing. A few years ago the Seventh-day Adventists were trying to make themselves felt in Kirkaldy. They sent two men and a large-sized tent to that town. Through the local press they offered £200 reward for a passage of Scripture which said that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. They also talked about being willing to debate the differences between themselves and other religious bodies. Our friends at Kirkcaldy wrote asking if I was free to come and pay some attention to these people. I expressed my willingness and set out for Fife. When informing our friends at Kirkcaldy that we were willing to come, we asked them to offer through the local papers, £200 reward for a passage of scripture which proved that Christians were ever commanded to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. That was a sufficient reply to their £200 reward. I at the same time asked them to arrange for a public debate. When they tried to arrange for a debate they found that our Seventh-day friends were not willing to go on with it; but the chief man of the two in the tent offered to let me have the use of the tent for a night, that I might give my objections to Seventh-day Adventism. That offer was accepted. When it was announced in the tent that a gentleman was coming on a given night to lecture against Seventh-day Adventism, the second man in connection with the tent rose and asked for the name of the man who was coming. When he was told, he objected to me getting the use of the tent. He said, "I know that man, and he is not a Christian." However, the first man had given his consent and the second man could not hinder us. On the night of my lecture the tent was crowded to its utmost capacity. They asked the liberty to make their usual collection to help to defray expenses; we raised no objection to that. Our Brother Thomas Harrow of Dysart took the chair. He thanked them for the use of the tent, and introduced me. Before beginning with my lecture, I said, "I have been informed that a gentleman in connection with this tent has publicly objected to my getting the use of the tent, on the ground that I am not a Christian. That gentleman is present. I invite him to come forward and publicly give proof for that statement, or publicly withdraw it." But he would do neither. He said, "I shall see you at the close of the meeting." "No, no," I said; "you made the charge in public, give the proof publicly, or publicly take it back." But he would do neither. He lost more by refusing to make his charge good than he had gained by making it. When he refused to come forward, I proceeded with my lecture. I had a most attentive hearing, and a good many people knew more about the other side of Seventh-day Adventism after that evening. I went home after that lecture. Our friends in the tent gave three lectures in reply to my one. The press gave brief reports. A friend took notes and sent them to me, and I returned and gave another lecture in review of the three delivered in the tent. I did not get the tent for my second lecture. But I had a good audience; if not the best, at least one of the best I ever addressed in Sinclairtown chapel; and I have addressed a great many good audiences there. I am not in the habit of making long speeches, it is one of the sins that I have tried to keep clear of, knowing how many good preachers it has cursed, but that night I talked for over two hours. But the interest never flagged all the time. There were so many questionable statements, or statements worse than questionable, in the three lectures I was reviewing that though I had a fresh subject every three or five minutes, and moving along as fast as I could, it took me over two hours to get to the end of my task. But the people were so keenly alive to every point that it was a pleasure to address them.

I suppose I must let this do for my notice of Fifeshire. How often I have visited Fife, or how much labour I have given to it, one time and another, it is simply impossible for me to tell.

When I have the Seventh-Day people in hand I may mention how the second man in connection with the tent got to know me. Some time before I had the brush with the Seventh-Day people in Kirkaldy, I was preaching in Motherwell. A friend who lived in a mining village near Holytown Station called upon me. He told me that he and some other miners had been talking to a man who said that he belonged to the Seventh-Day Adventists. He was employed in selling their books. My friend said, "We were not equal to him in conversation. He seemed to know his ground well, and we knew very little about it." My friend gave me a sample of what passed. He said, "The Seventh-Day man took us to the Ten Commandments. He read the first and then asked, "Do you all admit that this commandment is binding upon you?" We all said "Yes." He took us to the second and third in like manner. He said, "We shall pass over the fourth just now." He took us to all the others, and we all admitted that they were binding upon us. He then took us back to the Fourth Commandment and asked, "How comes it that this Commandment is not binding upon you? You admit that the other nine are binding upon you, and they were all given at the same time and by the same authority?" Some of us said that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day to the first. He pressed us for our proof, and none of us could give it." My friend continued, "My object is coming is to see if you are willing to have a conversation with this man, if I can arrange for it." I gave my consent, and when the time and place were fixed, I was sent for. We met in a miner's cottage with, I would say, over a dozen miners present. The conversation was not long commenced when he introduced the Ten Commandments in the manner that my friend had told me of. He read the First Commandment, and then asked, "Do you consider that this commandment is binding upon you?" I answered "No." He looked surprised and asked, "Did you say no?" "Yes," I replied, "I said no." "But," he asked, "how could you say no." "I said no," I replied, "because I could not in truth say anything else. That commandment was delivered to a people who were brought up 'out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' I never was in Egypt, nor any of my ancestors, so far as I know. That the Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews is certain; there is no proof that they ever were delivered to all the world." "Then," he said, "you will consider yourself at liberty to kill, or steal, or bear false witness." "That does not follow as a consequence," I replied. "I am not a Jew, and I am not and never was under the law of Moses, but that does not prove that I am under no law. I am under law to Christ. There is any amount of proof that Christians are not under the Law, but the commands of Christ and His Apostles are binding upon Christians. Nine of the Ten Commandments have been made binding upon Christians. But Christians never were commanded to keep the Seventh-Day sabbath. And Christian Churches from the first met for worship on the first day of the week. In the New Testament, Christians are never commanded to keep the seventh day, nor are they ever blamed for not keeping it." Our Seventh-Day friend tried hard to break down this position, but it was no use, I could hold it easily. And our mining friends were pleased that I had come to their aid. They were anxious that we should have another evening's conversation, and we both consented to meet again next week. It fared worse with our Seventh-Day friend in the second conversation that it had done in the first. Towards the close of the second conversation our friend became a bit nasty, and told me that he would "waste no more time on me." Our mining friends who heard the conversations did not wonder at that; they knew that he had got as much of my conversation as he wished to have. We parted in this fashion, and the next time that I heard of him he was declaring in the tent at Kirkaldy that he knew me and I was not a Christian. I have already recorded that he refused to come forward and prove this charge as publicly as he had made it. As I was about to go out of the tent that night that I spoke in it, he called me aside. "No," I said, "I refuse to speak to you by yourself; anything that passed between us must be in the hearing of a witness or two." Two or three came forward, and he asked, "Do you remember having conversation with me at Holytown?" "Yes," I replied. "Well," he said, "the second night you sneered. I distinctly saw you." I replied, "I am not conscious of it if I did. Is it upon this and this alone that you found your charge that I am not a Christian?" "Yes," was his reply. I said, "If a person behaves in a contemptible way, I have never been able to convince myself that I have sinned, even if I, in some degree, show the contempt which I cannot help but feel." I do not know that I sneered at Holytown, but I felt rather like sneering that night when I left the tent. When people cannot meet your argument they are apt to fault your manner. As a rule, we should be pleased when they are driven to that. If he had been able to defend his cause at Holytown, he would have been less likely to impeach my character at Kirkcaldy.

I need not say more about the Seventh-Day Adventists. Books dealing with their errors can easily be got. Perhaps D. M. Cartwright's book is the best. His long connection with them gave him an extensive knowledge of them. Our brethren in Australia have a number of very good tracts on this subject. These tracts alone are enough to show the main errors of Seventh-Day Adventism.