Keeping the Commandments
By Warren Sutliff
BRO. WHITE: I have been trying to keep the commandments for about eighteen months. I have never heard a sermon on present truth. I was led into this way by reading books, and the Review. I think that there is no safety in trying to get along without the Review if one has no preaching. The way seems to be a continual warfare, and temptations come up all along. I have had to lose one day in the week a good share of the time since I commenced to keep the Sabbath, besides enduring all the reproach which the scoffer heaps upon me. Friends and popularity have left me, but I can not "cast one lingering look behind;" I would rather put my fingers in my ears and cry, "Life, life, eternal life." Yesterday I attended a funeral. A little child was in the coffin. The minister said that Lena was in the coffin. He said many good things like the following: "Let us turn our feet into the testimony, and make haste to keep God's commandments." But he afterwards said that Lena was in Heaven. He also said that there was one thing in the Old Testament that he was glad to see reversed, namely, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." He said that it was a common saying in Israel that "the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." He was glad that Christ took it in hand to take the kinks out of those old Jewish sayings. I thought that a strange way to string up and dispose of things. I find a good many Adventists about this locality. I thought they would heed the warning of the third angel's message. But I have talked with some of them, and find them very worldly minded, "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." I found one who had once kept the Sabbath, but has since given it up. I keep my books and papers out doing good. I hope and pray that some seed may fall on good ground. Yours striving to overcome.
WARREN SUTLIFF. West Salem, Oct. 9, 1865.