p. 4 | The New Volume by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 5, 1866

The New Volume.

By Editor

The Review this week enters upon its twenty-eighth volume. We commence it under favorable circumstances, and cheering prospects. An interesting, harmonious, and encouraging Conference has just closed. The laborers in the great harvest-field who have been more or less crippled by ill health the past year are coming up. The great subject of health reform is getting to be well-defined and clear, by the light of which all will be enabled to adjust their labors to their physical capabilities, and thus have the surest guarantee against breaking down, and becoming inefficient in the future. The reports from the churches which endeavored to observe the late period of fasting, in a manner that should be acceptable to the Lord, are very cheering and reviving. There is in all hearts, which are imbued with a spirit of the message, so far as we can learn or judge, a buoyant feeling of hope and courage, a calm reliance upon God, and trust in his precious promises; a feeling that he has heard the prayers of his people, and is about to revive his cause, and work mightily for his name's sake, and that the time of release, the year of jubilee, is not far away.

While we rejoice in the truth, we are to remember that it is "not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts." Just so far as we can have the Spirit of God with us, which is designed to guide and illuminate the church, so far we are almighty and invincible; for the apostle sets it forth as the privilege of the people of God to be strengthened with "all might" according to his glorious power. Col. i, 11. Let us seek this Spirit in large measure, and with all the more assurance, because he hath signified his willingness to grant it unto those that desire it, even as parents give good gifts to their children. "Strong in the Lord and in the power of his might," be the motto of all his people.

It is ours to be such a people as God can consistently use in carrying forward his work upon earth; it is then his to accomplish that work, in his own time and for his own glory.

It is ours to realize what manner of persons we ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God; it is his to bring that day, and crown us with redemption at last.

It is ours to change our characters, that they may be in all things conformable to his holy will; it is his to change our vile bodies at last, that they may be conformed to his glorious body.

It is ours to keep the commandments of God in letter and in spirit too; it is his to bring us through the gates into the city, and give us a right to the tree of life.

It is ours to be all that is meant by the comprehensive name of "Christian;" to be all that can be required of the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus; to maintain such characters before the world as are essential to constitute us the people of God; and it is his to bring us into the infinite reward that awaits the overcomers.

And if we fulfill the requirements that rest upon us, sooner would the heavens and the earth pass away, than that there should be any failure on God's part in the things that he has promised.

Do as well as we can, we shall all have enemies; and the better we do, the more and fiercer they will be. Our motives will be traduced, our purposes misrepresented, our actions defamed. Worldlings will deride our hope, and scoff at our conscientious efforts to fulfill our duty; and false brethren will aim at us their arrows dipped in the rankest virus of enmity and malice. But amid it all, in the strength of our Master, we can press steadily on, leaving the result to the great day of adjudication, which will soon settle all the accounts of the past six thousand years of the misrule of error and of sin.

But we are departing from the subject. We want the Review to be a great help to the church in the work here briefly outlined, and in spreading light among the people. We want it to be free from all bitterness, wrath, malice, and evil speaking. We want that every line of its weekly record should breathe forth the spirit of Christianity, meekness, truth, and love. We want all its correspondents to be deeply imbued with the Spirit of God, and to receive a fresh baptism into his will and work.

Then the Review will accomplish its mission. The great Head of the church will own its efforts as of service in his cause; and no weapon formed against it shall prosper.