A Sabbath-Keeping Baptist Testimony
SISTER L. ORCUTT, of Whiteside Co., Ill., sending a remittance for the paper, says:
I shall ever esteem it a duty and privilege to pay for the paper as far as my means will admit; for it is my preacher, my commentary, my conference meeting, and all the instructor I have except the Bible, and surely it is to me a portion of meat in due season. I am almost sixty years of age, have been a member of the Baptist church about forty years, have been trying, though in weakness, to sustain a Christian walk. I feel to mourn over my shortcomings and slow progress in a divine life. I often think if I am a Christian, I am the least of all. May the Lord enable me to double my diligence, to consecrate myself wholly unto him who is able to keep me from falling, and present me faultless before his Father's throne. It is three years since I commenced keeping the Sabbath. Bro. R. F. Andrews came to our place and gave some lectures on present truth. I was led to search the Scriptures to see if those things were so. I could nowhere find where man had a right to change the commandments of God. I can truly say that many things contained in the word of God that once were sealed now look very clear to me. I feel to thank the Lord for the light of present truth, and pray I may ever be enabled to take heed to it as to a light shining in a dark place. I stand alone, my name having been dropped from the Baptist church, there being no Sabbath-keepers near me; but my trust is in God, and my course shall be onward. Pray for me and for my children, that they, too, though some of them are far away, may be gathered into the kingdom. SISTER M. A. STROUD writes from Stephenson Co., Ill.: I have never been a subscriber to the Review, having had the privilege of reading a friend's who resides in the same house. But I prefer henceforth to own a paper while I can raise three dollars, if it is hard earned, as I wish to read and give them away, hoping thereby to scatter the good seed while a kind Providence gives the increase. Those who are afflicted as I am with deafness, can rightly appreciate the Review with its weekly sermon. I wept for very joy when I read the first sermon that appeared, as it was the food I had so long hungered for, obtained at last. When I contemplated the amount of good the sermons will do to the scattered flock, and of those who are perhaps weary when writing them, I am reminded of that beautiful passage of scripture that must often cheer the weary minister in his endeavors to gather the wanderers into the Good Shepherd's fold. It is this: “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves with him.” Is not that compensation to the pure in heart? “Pilgrims, oh! there's rest in heaven,
Rest from every anxious care,
Rest in Jesus' smiles, forgiven,
Peaceful and eternal there,
Oh! ’twere sweet to toil in sadness,
Oh! ’twere well the cross to bear,
If, at last, in joy and gladness,
We may rest forever there.”