“TOO DEEP IN THE COUNTRY.”
By R. F. Cotterill
A PEDDLER called on us the other day. I took him to be a Jew, and so inquired of him if he was a son of Abraham. He said he was. I told him I also claimed to be a son of Abraham. That in our Christian Scriptures Paul who was a Jew teaches us that if we be Christ's, then are we Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. I also informed him that we kept the same Sabbath that Abraham and all the holy men of old kept, as it was the only Sabbath of the Bible, of the New Testament as well as the old. But I found, in the conversation, that he was like some other Jews as well as professed Christians, that say they cannot afford to lose two days in a week, and so work on the Sabbath and rest on Sunday. On the following Sabbath as we were on our way to meeting, near Gasport, we overtook the same Jewish peddler, with his pack on his back, making his way toward the station. After bidding him good morning, I remarked, You are out then upon the road on the Sabbath. We are going to meeting, you are about your business. Said he, “I must go back to Rochester, and I was so deep in the country that I could not get to the railroad yesterday, and so I go to-day.” We passed on thinking that he was not the only one that was “too deep in the country” to keep the commandments of God. Those whose worldly gain prevents them from keeping the Sabbath of the Lord, are too deep in the country, and so are they that will not embrace the truth for fear of losing their good name. Professed Sabbath-keepers whose worldly business leads them to encroach upon the sacred hours of the Sabbath, are too deep in the country. Those who work so hard during the week as to unfit them to attend upon the public worship of God on the Sabbath, are too deep in the country. In short, those that cannot find time to worship God and keep his commandments, are too deep in the country. And let it be remembered that those who shall be found so deep in the country as to fail to reach the first train to the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, will never gain the heavenly country. Let our actions all testify that we seek a country, a “better country, that is, a heavenly.”
R. F. COTTERILL.