Untitled article by C. O. TAYLOR

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · September 17, 1867

THE PAST YEAR.

By C. O. TAYLOR

“To you that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.”

We shall soon reach the time of our yearly gathering. Then another year of precious time will have passed away. Its deeds of good and evil will all be recorded on high. They will be referred to again in the Judgment hour of our individual cases. It is well for us to inquire, whether we have made a good use of the twelve months given to us; whether we are better prepared to meet our Saviour or not; whether we are more given up to his will and service; whether we are better members of his body; whether we are better ministers, better husbands, better wives, better children, better neighbors. As we reach the end of the twelve months just past, does it find us an overcomer of those faults and wrongs that have been a snare to us all our days, a breach in our wall that has let in the enemy? Have we gained victories in the battle for life eternal? Have we said to vanity and trifling, Be gone? Have we put from us that worldly spirit that is drowning its thousands in perdition? Have we resisted the Devil in all the forms he has come to us, when we have known him, not including the many times we have not known him, on account of our blindness? Has each of the twelve months added one twelfth to our stock of knowledge and wisdom? Has the same amount been added to our faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity or love?

We see no end to the inquiry. Each and all are full of interest to us. Alas! for the one that cannot say, I have gained some, that I am a better Bible Christian than I was one year ago.

I suppose you are coming to the Conference. If the Lord will, I hope to meet you there. All the Adams’ Center church will be happy to greet you once more. They have formed a very happy and tender acquaintance with many of you. They wish to renew it. They wish to get acquainted with others that are at present strangers in the flesh, but one in the Lord. Come yourself. Bring your inquiring friend that wants the truth. Let your motive be good in coming, not selfish; therefore don’t come to get a happy flight of feeling which is only for a day. Don’t come to have a visit or a good social time. Don’t come, only to be blessed that you may be happy. Come to toil, to labor, to sacrifice, to fill the gaps, to make up the hedge. Come with a fixed, settled determination to be more holy and righteous before God.

A few weeks ago, in reading a call for a meeting, one east, the other west, it was said that the object was to obtain more holiness, more righteousness. Thought I, a step in the right direction. The Lord has blessed us with a bountiful harvest, and while we promise you nothing that will gratify or pamper the appetite, we pledge you enough that is gloriously good for health and Christianity. Do not bring a worldly-minded spirit with you. Leave your home business at home. Don’t bring a fault-finding spirit. Saying nothing about others, we, as a church, are not perfect, yet we are trying to leave the things that are behind, &c. Bring a large measure of the spirit and truth of the gospel of the Son of God. Come filled with it. Come blessed; and may the God of peace sanctify you wholly.

C. O. TAYLOR.

Rousse’s Point, Sept. 5, 1867.