Conference Department by L. E. Graves

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 19, 1867

Conference Department.

By L. E. Graves

Exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. Heb. x, 25.

This Department is designed to fill the same place in the paper that the Conference or Social Meeting does in the worship of God. Speak often one to another to comfort, edify and aid each other in the way of holiness and true Christian experience.

From Sister Graves.

DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: We read that we should add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience. Here we see that temperance comes in before patience; and I believe that before we get the patience of the saints, we shall have to be temperate in all things.

Again we read that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we should do all to the glory of God. If we are indulging the appetite in eating and drinking such things as would tend to tear down the temple of the Holy Ghost, can it be to the glory of God? I think not. If we would have the blessing of the Lord rest upon us, shall we not have to walk in the path which he has marked out for us? And has not God marked out the path for his people to walk in? Verily he has. He has spoken to them through his holy word, and through vision; and who will heed the voice from Heaven, and take hold of the work of the Lord as they should, and enter heartily into the reform before it is too late? Oh I fear that some will turn away from the counsel of the Lord, as did Naaman the Leper, when Elisha told him to go and wash seven times in Jordan and be clean. He turned away in a rage and said, Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the rivers of Israel? But if he had not come to the river Jordan and washed, he never would have been cleansed from his leprosy. And did God require obedience in the days of Elisha any more than at the present time? Certainly not. Then if we would be cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord, we must walk in the light as he has revealed it unto us, and be temperate in all things. Then we shall be where God can

consistently work for us, and let healing power rest upon us if need be; and we be prepared to stand with his people when there shall not be a feeble one in all their ranks, and finally to walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Is not the reward great enough? Praise the Lord. I think it is. I want to be a perfect overcomer, lay aside every weight, and run with patience the race set before me, that it may at last be said to me, Well done, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord.

L. E. Graves.

Battle Creek, Mich.