Christians as Palimpsests: Old Writing Beneath the New

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 29, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 5

Christians as Palimpsests: Old Writing Beneath the New

You know that the manuscripts that come down to us from the past were sometimes rubbed over with a substance which covered up the old writing, and were then used to write other things upon. They were called palimpsests,—parchments with double writing,—parchments on which writing was put on over other writing. Sometimes the original writing was good for nothing, and the after writing was valuable; but more often the original writing was valuable, and the after writing childish and unimportant. The way in which it was detected was, that oftentimes in palimpsests the old writing showed through, no matter what the new writing was. Now, Christian people are palimpsests. There is an old writing which the world has put upon them, and there is the new which grace has put over it; and the old writing shows through the new all the time; and, very often, putting the two together makes very queer reading.