Untitled article by Adolphus Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 26, 1867

THE LAMP FOR OUR FEET.

By Adolphus Smith

I was belated. It was very dark and my path led through a lonely wood beside a river. What should I do! I procured a lantern which cast a dim light just ahead, by which I was able to keep the path. But at times the light emitted was so faint that I had to tread warily, and slacken my pace, lest I should go astray. Again the volume of light cast upon my pathway would be so great that I could tread safely and at a rapid pace; and from the window on the distant hill, beyond the waters, whither I was going, shone the beacon light to tell me I was nearing home.

And so it is with the Christian, whose pathway leads through this dark world. He must needs have a lantern to avoid the gins and snares set for his feet. Such a lantern is supplied in the Bible, which is as a lamp to our feet and a guide to our path; and according as he attends to, or is careless of, what it teaches, will his light be brilliant or obscure.

And then, too, borne on the wings of hope, comes the light from the mansions on the heavenly hills, where the greater effulgence of the glory of God has caused the sun, abashed, to hide his head.

Can you and I, Christian brother, sister, point to that heavenly beacon and truthfully exclaim, “There is my home?”

“A home in Heaven! when our pleasures fade, And our wealth and fame in the dust are laid, And strength decays, and our health is riven, We are happy still with our home in Heaven. A home in Heaven! when the faint heart bleeds, By the Spirit’s stroke, for its evil deeds; Oh! then what bliss, in that heart forgiven, Does the hope inspire of a home in Heaven?”

ADOLPHUS SMITH.

Ottawa Co., Mich., Oct., 1867.