LET HIM TRY | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1881

"LET HIM TRY."

"Some years ago, it is said, an insane man in a New England town, once rose from his seat in the midst of a large assembly, and seizing with a great deal of energy one of the pillars that sustained the galleries of the church, declared aloud that he was going to pull it down. Had another Sampson Agonistes suddenly appeared, and declared himself just ready to bow between the pillars of another of Dagon's temples, there could hardly have been a greater consternation. If the people had but stopped to consider, their good sense as well as their confidence in the architect of the edifice, would have assured them of the man's utter impotence to execute his threat. But amid outcries and faintings and general confusion, they yielded to the most foolish fears. Nor did they recover their self-possession, and quietly resume their seats, until another man, significantly pointing to the large and strong pillar which had been threatened, calmly said, 'Let him try; let him try.'"

"This proposition restored order and confidence at once; the house did not fall, and the services went on. 'And so, to compare great things with small;' when men insanely threaten to pull down the pillars that the skill of the Divine Architect has reared, and holds up, we are too easily moved with alarm, and too slow to consider the strength of the structure. When God pleases he can indeed make 'the pillars of heaven to tremble, and to be astonished at his reproof.' But so long as it is a feeble mortal who undertakes to shake them, our confidence in the Omnipotent Ruler would do well quietly to 'let him try.' This seems to be the very object of that assurance of God to the trembling inhabitants of the earth in a time of great fear: 'The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved;' that is, melted with fear, trembling with dark forebodings; but 'I bear up the pillars of it.'"

The skeptic, the scoffer, the blasphemer, or the persecutor, boasts of his power, and threatens to overturn Christianity, explode religion, confute the Bible, and introduce a new order of things. We have heard of such threats before. Let him try. Let everything that can be shaken, shake, and everything that can be overthrown, tumble; something has hitherto survived such assaults, and there may be some of God's work left after the devil has done his worst. If a man thinks to bombard Gibralter with boiled potatoes, 'let him try!' One who knew man in his weakness and his strength, has said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."—The Christian.