Untitled article by C. M. Tenney

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, March 24, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 15

From Sr. Tenney.

By C. M. Tenney

DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: While reading your experience, and words of encouragement in the Review, my hope has been strengthened, and my heart cheered. I have thought perhaps I might say a word that would help, or encourage some one, and if so, how glad I should be. It is three years since I learned the meaning of the Saviour’s words, “Whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” Although I had been a professor of religion over thirty years, and read the word of God daily, my surprise was great to find, while trying to establish myself in the first-day Sabbath, that I had been living in continual violation of God’s commandments all my days. I immediately began to look around and inquire, What shall I do? and oh, the cross that presented itself before me! There was not a Sabbath-keeper within reach; but the Lord who is ever mindful of the needs of his people, called up the mind of a dear sister near by, to the same subject, and presented the same duty to her. We talked the subject over and over, wept and prayed together, and finally decided, come what would, we would try to obey God. Tongue cannot express the joy that then filled our hearts. Since then new light, new truths, and new duties, have presented themselves. In all of these I could see the care of God and his lovingkindness in leading his people. I praise the Lord for Spiritual Gifts; for the Health Reform; and when the reform dress was first introduced to us as a people, I thought it was well, but when I began to think in earnest of adopting it, my proud heart began to rebel, and my feet had well nigh slipped. It seemed that I could give a good and scriptural reason for every part of our faith and practice but that, and to bear the scorn and derision of all around, without a weapon with which to defend myself, was more than I could bear. But God, who is rich in mercy, and not willing that any should perish, bore with my murmurings, and I was brought to see that the great apostle Paul gloried in the cross by which the world was crucified to him, and he to the world; and while comparing my trials with his, I was ashamed, and tried to humble myself before God, resolving henceforth without questioning, to walk in the path of humble obedience. My prayer is that, as a people, Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that we being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and hight, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with the fulness of God. Praise the Lord that he has lain help on One who is able and mighty to save. Brethren and sisters, let us gird on the whole armor anew, and see to it that we be prepared, in the strength of Christ, to stand amid the perils of these last days.

C. M. TENNEY.