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ARE THESE THINGS SO?

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 16, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 29, No. 19.

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“ARE THESE THINGS SO?”

By J. H. Waggoner

“Dear brother, why do you fall asleep in meeting on the Sabbath?”
“Well, I work very hard through the week, and cannot help feeling dull when I sit still.”
“But why do you work so hard?”
“Because I am so poor I am obliged to.”
“Poor! you are more than poor. You are ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’ Poor! yes, you are starving to death, while the bread of life is vainly urged upon you. Do you ever fall asleep over your work?”
“I never did yet.”
“No; you have too much interest in it for that. Six days given you to do your own work; one day to rest to the honor of God, and cannot keep awake the little part of that devoted to public worship. That looks bad—decidedly bad. What would you think if I should take money out of the treasury of the Lord and squander it?”
“I should think you committed sacrilege, it being consecrated to the Lord.”
“Well, time is more important than money in many respects; and the time appointed for public worship is consecrated to God. You have no right to take it to make up for your over zeal in worshiping mammon. If you wish to sleep off the effects of your worldliness sleep your own time. Or, if you think the Lord has not given you time enough in which to feed both body and soul, just reverse your order and feed your soul sometimes. What is it going to profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your soul? Or to have your heart so overcharged with the cares of this life that that day shall overtake you as a thief and find you—sleeping?”
“Nothing!”
I have no desire to deceive the reader; therefore, I will say this conversation never actually took place; I only thought it—a good many times!
J. H. WAGGONER.