Having said thus much in reference to the treatment we received at the hands of the editor of the _Statesman_ up to the time of the completion of the publication of our articles, we shall be pardoned for expressing our surprise at finding ourselves, in his first reply, standing somewhat in the attitude of one who had taken advantage of indulgence shown him to present a line of argument different from that proposed at the beginning. It is possible that we have mistaken the design of the statements to which we allude. This we hope may prove to be the case; for, so far as we are concerned, individually, we have covered the precise ground which we designed to at the first. If the editor of the _Statesman_ has found himself disappointed, either in the nature or the length of the argument, he is to blame, and not we. 1. Because, so far as the matter of length is concerned, we stated to him that we should leave that entirely “with his magnanimity, convinced that he would not cut us short in our work so long as what we had to say was pointed, gentlemanly, and of such a nature as to bear forcibly upon the question at issue between us.” 2. As it regards the scope of the articles, we stated, unqualifiedly, that we should treat the subject from the stand-point of an observer of the seventh day, appealing to the Bible for our authority. Nor were we content with declaring our plan of opposition by _letter_, but we went so far as to give, in the caption of our articles themselves, an outline of the order in which we should treat the subject. It was as follows: “The Constitutional Amendment; _or_, the Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and the Restitution.” In it, as will be observed, is exactly set forth the manner in which we discussed the propriety of the amendment; (1) Showing the emptiness of the claims of the Sunday. (2) The force and obligation of those of the seventh day. (3) The manner in which the change of days occurred, and (4) The work which God has inaugurated for the purpose of bringing about the Restitution. Thus much by way of personal acknowledgment and explanation. We turn now to the criticism proper upon our argument. First, there is an attempt to state the positions which we assumed to prove. In reply, it is sufficient to say that it is deficient in one very important particular. That particular relates to our proposition that God himself has inaugurated a movement _entirely outside of, and opposed to_, the Constitutional Amendment party, for the purpose of bringing about a Sabbath reform in his own way. For proof of this, we appeal to our last article in full. It is, to say the least, not a little remarkable that the editor of the _Statesman_ should have overlooked this point in our communications, since a perception of it would have saved him the perpetration of the great mistake which he has made, as we shall see hereafter.