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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, August 6, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 8

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A REVERIE.

By R. F. Cottrell

I seem to see one of the twelve gates of the Holy City—those gates that are to be opened to the “righteous nation that keepeth the truth.” Over the gate I see this motto: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city.” A person approaches to enter the gate. The shining one, who acts as porter, points to the motto, and asks, Have you kept the commandments? “I have tried to keep some of them,” is the reply, “but then you know I lived in Sodom, where it was fashionable to break some of them, and there was great opposition against those that would venture to try to keep them. Therefore it was utterly impossible for me to keep them. Had my circumstances been different, had I lived in some place where all my neighbors kept the commandments, I should have kept them. But there I was; and Sodom was the best place for my business too; but had I attempted to take a course so different from the rest, I do not know what they would have done with me. If it did not cost me my life, it would have cut me off from the society of those who moved in the highest circles in the place. Besides this, I had a family of children, and they would have been cut off from society and every privilege. I did not want them to grow up worse heathen than the Sodomites themselves. It would have excluded them from the privilege of Sunday School; for they had a very good Sunday School in Sodom, where a part of the commandments were taught, those that would not conflict with the popular sins of the place. And a decent respect for the traditions of men were inculcated—those traditions by which they made void the commandments of God—and these teachings were brought to bear upon the minds and consciences of the young by promises of pleasure excursions and picnics, candies, confectioneries and sweet-meats; and thus the grosser appetites and lusts were pampered, while, at the same time, they were rendered subservient to the popular cause.
“Taking all these things into account, you can plainly see that it was entirely out of the question for me to keep all the commandments of God. To be sure, I had read of some in time past who laid down their lives rather than displease God by breaking his commandments; but the time of the martyrdom of the saints was past when I lived upon the earth; and it is not very probable that I should have attained to a martyr’s crown, had I kept all the commandments of God.”
Reader, when you are disposed to excuse yourself from a known duty, think of presenting your excuses to the Judge of all the earth—think whether they will be accepted as valid in the Judgment.
R. F. COTTRELL.