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Usefulness

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 10, 1866

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 28, No. 6.

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Usefulness.

AN eminent Scotch Divine (Rev. Ralph Erskine) visiting a poor crippled woman, she thus addressed him: "O, sir, I am just lying here, a poor useless creature."
"Think you so?" said the minister.
"I think," added she, "that if I were away to Heaven I should be of some use to glorify God without sin."
"Indeed," replied the good man, "I think you are glorifying God now, by resignation and submission to his will, and that in the face of many difficulties and under many distresses. In Heaven the saints have not your burdens to groan under. Your praise, burdened as you are, is more wonderful to me, and, I trust acceptable to God."
The great secret of Christian usefulness is to be awake to opportunities, and intent on doing what we can, rather than bewailing that it is in our power to do so litttle; and in this respect, he who faithfully improves the one talent, bids fair to be intrusted with the five or ten.