Extracts from Letters

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1863

Extracts from Letters.

Sister M. Hayes writes from Little Prairie, Wis. : It is three years since I first enlisted in the service of God, and although the way has been beset with many trials and temptations, and although I have found many crosses to take up, yet I feel no desire to turn back and seek after the giddy pleasures of the world; but I thank God that he ever called after me by the gentle influences of his Holy Spirit; that he ever permitted me to come into his marvelous light, and gave me a heart to obey his truth. I realize that I have yet much to overcome; and my daily prayer is for grace to overcome all my besetting sins, and all my evil propensities, that I may at last come off victorious through the blood of the Lamb.

Bro. M. Singer writes from Morleyton, Pa. : I am an old man. Sixty-six years of my time are gone. I have read two of your books, and I and my companion have both become believers in the doctrine, for we find it corresponds with the Bible. Thirty-five years ago we both set out in the good way of religion, and truly we have found God to be a sin-pardoning God. We tried to live a Christian life, so that when we should die we might receive a crown of eternal life; but we do not now believe that we shall receive that crown until our Saviour comes. Our Christian friends with whom we used to associate, are bitter enemies against us. Some say the doctrine we now believe is of the Devil, and some say that I shall roast in hell for it.

Sister E. A. Dike writes from Alma, N. Y. : I have recently embraced the truth, been baptized and united with the church in Allegany co., N. Y., and I feel strong in the Lord, and have a fixed determination to serve him the remainder of my life, and to try to make some little return for the great love wherewith he hath loved me in giving his only-begotten and dearly-beloved Son to die that I might live. I am trying to keep all the commandments of God and the testimonies of Jesus Christ, and live out the principles of pure and undefiled religion from day to day, that I may meet his approving smiles and approbation continually. I feel to thank God and praise his holy name, that he ever saw fit to give me the light of present truth, and a heart to receive it, and I mean by his grace to live it out as long as he sees fit to spare my unprofitable life.

I never heard an Adventist preach until I heard Bro. Fuller about five or six months ago. I verily thought then that he was sadly mistaken on some points; but as I searched my Bible from day to day, I soon found (by the help of the book, Scripture References,) that it was more truth than poetry; and as fast as I received light I stepped out on it, and shortly after embraced the whole truth, and am now a firm believer in the soon coming of the lovely Jesus; and my heart's desire and prayer to God is, that I may be an overcomer, and finally stand on Mt. Zion with the redeemed.

Our last conference meeting (which was attended by Brn. Fuller and Barr) closed yesterday. We had a refreshing season, and I trust good was done in the name of the lovely Jesus. Five were baptized and twelve or thirteen united with the church. My husband was one of that number who was led down into the liquid stream, to be buried with Christ in baptism and arise to newness of life. My heart rejoices in this, as he never has been a professor of religion; but, through the mercy of God, and the instrumentality of Bro. Fuller and others, he has been brought to a knowledge of the truth, and has become a praying man.

O may God bless these instruments of mercy, and may they ere long reap a rich reward in a far better land than this.