AN ENCOURAGING LETTER by Mrs. J. A. Hardiman

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 8, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 15

AN ENCOURAGING LETTER.

By Mrs. J. A. Hardiman

BY MRS. J. A. HARDIMAN.

THE V. M. society of Frankfort and Litchfield, N. Y., are in receipt of the following heart-cheering item of correspondence from a young minister of Kansas. Hoping its practical suggestions and its tone of implicit trust in our Heavenly Father, may prove an incentive to others to “go and do likewise,” we present it for the columns of the REVIEW. Bro. F. W. Gibbs, of Stafford Co., Kan., writes under date of Feb. 16, 1880:—

“I have examined the Sabbath question carefully, and with much prayer that I might be shown the truth, and that I might not be deceived by false doctrine. I have had perfect confidence, from the beginning, that the truth would be made plain to me; but little did I imagine, when first I commenced a candid search after truth, the conclusion at which I should thus arrive. I see that the word of God is plain on this subject. The fourth commandment means just what it says. I can find no place in the Bible where it has been done away or changed. It stands as a part of God’s holy law. No authority is given us to substitute anything in its place. If it is not plain and positive, there is nothing reliable in the Bible. I can no longer keep the venerable day of the sun, nor any other day than the seventh, as answering the requirements of the fourth commandment. To do so, with the light which has come to me, would be willful disobedience to the commands of God.”

“For some time past, I have contented myself with the thought that the use of one-seventh portion of time in the culture of man’s moral nature was fulfilling God’s design in the fourth commandment; but I see, when I apply the same rule of attempting to interpret God’s design to the other nine commandments, that the door is thrown open to the grossest immorality. I only wonder that I was not sooner convinced of the truth. I am sure that from the first I made the endeavor to lay aside prejudice of education; yet amid the light of the full blaze of truth, for awhile, I could not feel it my duty to change. I conclude that my depraved heart is so constituted as to unconsciously bear the impress of past habits of thought, for the effacement of which time is required.

“My study of the prophecies has done much to cause me to see the plainness of Scripture statement, and the strictness of all God’s commands. I shall be obliged to lay aside preaching entirely for the present; I desire to spend a large portion of time in the investigation of present truth. I think, however, that I shall open my mouth in behalf of the Sabbath, publicly, before long, in my own community, that my example may be rightly understood.

“My heart swells with gratitude to God for the light which he has shed upon me.”

He also requests earnest prayer that the hearts of the people may be prepared to accept the truth. Let us join our hearts and hands to labor on,—

“Hoping, trusting ever, Till our raptured souls shall find” Rest in God forever.