p. 1 | Words of Truth

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 2, 1866

Words of Truth.

The following articles are valuable in the instruction they contain, not merely as adding to whatever stores we may possess of theoretical knowledge, but as being available in practical, every-day life. Let them be studied, and put into practice. They were sent in for the Review by a friend many months since. We have just now found a place for them.

INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS.

It is obvious to all that the cause of Christ can be extended in our world only by the accession of individuals. His blood avails not to the salvation of men in the mass, but to those who individually repent of sin, and accept of mercy. The Holy Spirit strives with men, and sanctifies them only as individuals. It is as individuals that the inhabitants of our world must be raised to Heaven or sink to hell. Yet to how great an extent are the prayers and contributions of Christians made indefinitely for the conversion of the world as a whole, while the salvation of no one individual is the object of their personal and persevering endeavors! How great a portion of that “light of the world” which the church is commanded to reflect, is so hid that no one individual sees it and feels its influence! How great a portion of the “salt of the earth” by which men are to be purified and saved, is so kept in the mass as to be brought into contact with none!

The truth evidently is, that personal efforts for the souls of individuals—the lips, and thoughts, and heart of a living man, brought into contact with the lip, and thought, and heart of a living man—is a grand institution of God, for the conversion of souls; and we must expect success, not in neglecting, but in co-inciding with the Divine economy. It was when “they that feared the Lord spake often one to another,” that his book of remembrance was written. His command is, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another.” Not only the Spirit and the Bride, but he that heareth, must say, Come. Christians are exhorted to “shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life,” and the blessed encouragement is given, “He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins.” The parable of Nathan illustrates this principle with inimitable force and beauty. The words, “Thou art the man,” humbled the king in the dust before God. The same principle is exemplified in the success of personal efforts of the pious mother of the skilful Sabbath-School and Bible-Class instructor; and of faithful pastoral visitation, in all which divine truth is happily pressed upon the heart of the individual. It has also a confirmation in the fact that wherever the Holy Spirit is largely poured out, the ministers and members of the church abound in faithful conversation and prayer with each other, and with the impenitent.

Much of the preaching of the New Testament was unquestionably of this sort. To such labor were the apostles sent out by our Saviour, who sanctioned his instruction by his own example. Paul, with all his crushing public responsibilities, could testify to the Ephesian elders that he had labored among them both publicly and from house to house, and appeal to them as witnesses of his own fidelity, in the memorable and most emphatic words, “Remember, that by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one of you night and day with tears.”

By such labor have pagans, and men far from God, in all circumstances and periods of time, been brought to attend on the public means of grace, and join themselves to his people. “If I had true love of souls,” said Henry Martyn, when contemplating a foreign mission, “I should long and labor for those around me, and afterward for the conversion of the heathen;” and often did he “redeem time from study, from recreation, and from the intercourse of friends, that he might enter the abodes of misery, to arouse the unthinking slumberer, or to administer consolation to the dejected penitent.” “Our views,” said James Brainard Taylor, when a student in college, “must not be confined to the end of our preparatory course. There are many opportunities now of doing good. The call from many a lowly cottage is, ‘Come over and help us.’ Again, ‘Resolved that I will, the Lord being my helper, think, speak, and act, as an individual; for as such I must live, as such I must die, stand before God, and be damned or saved forever and ever. I have been waiting for others. I must act as if I were the only one to act, and wait no longer.’”—Wm. A. Hallock’s Introduction to Life of Harlan Page.

THE SOLEMN RECORD BOOK.

“There is a book of record in your mind, Edwin,” said an old man to his young friend, “a book of record, in which every act of your life is noted down. Each morning a blank leaf is turned, on which the day’s history is written in lines that cannot be effaced. This book of record is your memory; and according to what it bears, will your future life be happy or miserable. An act done, is done forever, for, the time in which it is done in passing, passes never to return. The history is written and sealed up. Nothing can ever blot it out. You may repent of evil, and put away the purpose of evil from your heart; but you cannot by any repentance, bring back the time that is gone, nor alter the writing on the page of memory. Ah! my young friend, if I could only erase some pages in the book of my memory, that almost daily open themselves before the eyes of my mind, how thankful I would be! But this I cannot do. There are acts of my life for which repentance only avails as a process of purification and preparation for a better state in the future; it in no way repairs wrong done to others. Keep the pages of your memory free from blots, Edwin. Guard the handwriting there as you value your best and highest interests.”—T. S. Arthur.

QUALIFICATIONS OF A TEACHER.

The teacher has to deal with the heart; and that is so universally and naturally proud, that it does not love to admit of any advances but those of humility. The humble man can always have access to any man’s heart; while the proud or vain man is uniformly shut out. In the business of teaching, you will need not merely the appearance of humility, but the thing itself, if you would be happy. Without this grace, you will be in danger of feeling that others do not do right,—they usurp authority, or they violate rights, or they misuse you; that you do not have your proper place,—the class you have is the lowest, poorest, in school,—perhaps the most uninteresting of all. Why should that class be given to you? Another teacher is more popular, more noticed, more thought of, than you, and pride tells you that you are almost a martyr to injustice. If you are constantly thinking of yourself, wanting praise, unhappy without it, talking about yourself,—giving hints of your own estimable qualities; if you use stratagems to obtain praise, such as inquiring about your faults in order to learn your excellences,—if you find yourself constantly consoling yourself with the thought that you are not appreciated, and that you are of more consequence than others seem to think you are,—if you are pained when others receive praise in your presence, and feel disposed to detract from their merits, perhaps by speaking disparagingly of them; if you find yourself comparing yourself with others, greatly to your own advantage, if you feel ready to excuse every fault in yourself, to palliate and defend,—you lack that humility which is essential to the comfort, the happiness, and the usefulness of the Sabbath-School teacher. Let the sentiment so beautifully and quaintly expressed by Taylor, be engraven on the memory: “Give God thanks for every weakness, deformity, and imperfection, and accept it as a favor and grace

of God, and an instrument to resist pride and nurse humility; ever remembering that when God, by giving thee a crooked back, hath also made thy spirit to stoop, for, thus vain, thou art more ready to enter the narrow gate to Heaven, than by being straight, and standing upright, and thinking highly. Thus the apostles rejoiced in infirmities, not moral, but natural and accidental, in their being beaten and whipped like slaves in their nakedness and poverty.”—I. Todd.