Untitled article by L. D. SANTER

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

THE NEED OF REVELATION.

By L. D. SANTER

EVERY rational mind must acknowledge the need of revelation. Almost daily we bear loved ones to the churchyard, and as we fold the still hands over the pulseless bosom, and close the eyes from which the light has died out, we yearn to know when we shall meet them again, or if ever. As we send our thoughts into the future, they return to us from over the wide waste of waters, weary-winged, and bearing to us no olive-branch, or tidings of the life to come. We are a class of intelligences, yet we strive in vain to demonstrate a truth, throwing light on the hereafter. Alas! our dull ken may not pass the portals of the tomb. We search in vain through nature for a knowledge of futurity. If we ask the bright sun as he threads the upper deep, casting a glorious flood of light upon us, he gives back no reply. If we ask the pale moon that nightly crosses the heavens, her pale effulgence brings us no light respecting the misty future. Ask we the stars that nightly vigils keep, no whisper comes to answer our inquiry. If we ask our own heart, it is deceitful, and allures us with hopes as unreal and illusive as a desert mirage. Between us and the eternal years of God is a gulf that mortal feet can never cross, an obscurity that mortal eyes cannot pierce; hence, if we would know of the future, God must communicate it to us, or delegate a messenger from the world unseen. This he has done in the Bible. There and there only can we gain a knowledge from the other world; for it must emanate from the other world if genuine, and not through any agency initiated in this. Suppose that infidelity was true, resting, as it does, its faith upon a broad negation, what would be gained by becoming a deist? Nothing, and worse than nothing. The horizon bends closely around the earth, and through the darkness we should strive in vain to behold emerging life beyond the tomb. If, for a moment, they see an evanescent light purporting to dispel the shadows of futurity, it is as unreal as the dreams that haunt their slumbers. Look at the death-bed of the infidel. Oh! what terrors surround it. The trembling, unprepared soul entering a region blacker than Egyptian midnight. No ray of hope pierces the Stygian gloom to light the glazing eye, or cheer the failing heart. I can never, never, NEVER, accept the faith of the infidel. Truly, the infidel is upon a wide sea without rudder or compass. The Bible comes to us as a messenger of hope, ministering to our necessities. In it we find holiness that is perfect, love that is God-like. To me the internal evidence of the Bible is stronger than its external, though the external evidence would prove it a sure foundation upon which to base faith. Every fulfilled prophecy is a proof of its infallibility. The testimony of writers living in different ages harmonizing is evidence of its veracity. The pure and holy doctrines taught by it is proof of its divinity. I will not moot the question of its inspiration. In following its teachings I have found peace that floweth like a river, and for which I have sought in vain in the muddy waters of infidelity. L. D. SANTER.