p. 140 | The Present Hour by G. W. A.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 3, 1865

The Present Hour.

By G. W. A.

To the waiting, expectant child of God, and the diligent student of the prophetic word, the present is a period of unbounded interest. The moral, the social, and the political signs of the times, are but the infallible indexes of that era of future glory for which the saints of God for sixty long centuries have waited, and watched, and prayed. The four grand monarchies of the world have successively arisen, and for their allotted time borne universal sway, and each in its turn has crumbled and fallen, and been numbered with the things that were. To-day there is but a step between us and the rest that remains for the people of God. As we look about us, and like careful mariners on the ocean, take our bearings, we behold the most pleasing proof that our voyage is nearly finished, and we soon shall find our moorings in the haven of eternal rest.

These things are the mighty consolation of the church, a comfort to God's children in the hour of their most poignant sorrow and keenest grief. The thought that it will be but a little while till He that shall come will come, and will not tarry, sweetens the bitterest cup, lightens the darkest moments, and the sorrowing saint becomes like a hart or roe upon the mountains of Bether. And well may the church rejoice, well may she take courage, for a Voice from Heaven has spoken good concerning Israel, and the time is near when "the glory of the Lord shall rise upon her," yea, that favored time when Zion shall be remembered, when her warfare shall be ended and her victory accomplished. Glorious thought! blessed fruition of all our labors, and toils, and cares, which we sustain here in the vineyard of the Lord for the Master's sake. As the poet says,

“We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand and awful time.”

Never was sentiment more truthfully embellished with verse than this. How many harbingers of that era of coming glory does the eye of faith now behold, and also how numerous are those terrible omens, the sure precursors of the gloomy hour of God's impending wrath. Already the sword of Divine justice is being furbished, and the mad surgings of angry nations, hitherto somewhat restrained, show their eagerness for the battle of the great day. A spirit of rebellion and innovation agitates society at large, which occasionally, like the pent fires of the volcano, breaks forth, then again it is smothered and there is a lull, all of which come before us as the lively types of that final conflict in Armageddon's field, when "every man's hand will be against his brother," and the "battle of the warrior will be with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood."

Now is the time to work, to watch, to fight, and pray. No long ages of fabled peace and good, loom up before the mind, in which at our leisure we can investigate and compare, and so make our titles sure to the heavenly abode; but the interest and importance of an age are all compressed into a day. The Nobleman, after a long and dreary absence, is soon to return, and who shall be clad in the robe of the Lamb's righteousness is the great and exciting question now. As we look around on the earth, we behold disquiet and unrest; but "in me," the departing Saviour said, "ye have peace." Let us ever have suitable acknowledgments for this, that there is One that loves us, who does all things well, and who, out of confusion will bring forth order, and in the midst of the grossest darkness will cause his unerring light to shine. G. W. A.