The Sign Over the Door by Mrs. J. N. Anderson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 26, 1908

The Sign Over the Door

By Mrs. J. N. Anderson

OUT in the country two or three miles from the village of San-li-tien, we came across a home having over the entrance of its enclosure, in large Chinese characters, this inscription: “MAY THE GREAT TRUTH COME TO THIS DOOR.” It is quite common for these people to express their New-year’s wishes in proverbs over the doors of their dwellings. An atmosphere of thrift and neatness prevailed, which was not common in these homes. But, as might be known from the mute witness over the gateway, temporal things were not the chief concern of the occupants of this home, or, at least, were not so with the wife, who at her first visit, related her experience to the missionary.

Some time last summer a portion of the Scriptures had fallen into her husband’s hands, and through his reading, the suggestion of a new and fuller life had come to her. So earnestly did she desire to know more of this heavenly doctrine, as she called it, that she had committed to the arch of her gateway the longing she knew not how to satisfy.

No one who was present to see how eagerly she pressed to the side of her new teacher, gazing almost rapturously into her face as she read from the beautiful words of Jesus, her own expressive countenance radiant with the light kindling within her soul, and saw how tenderly and lovingly she stroked the New Testament given to be her very own, could for a moment doubt the sincerity of her words.

Long ago she and her husband had ceased to worship idols directly; but knowing no better way, had sent out their petitions to earth, sea, and sky. Into the vast universe of the vaguely known, in search of the Great Unknown. Feeling after God, she had found him, and now she knelt in reverent thankfulness before the Creator of earth, sea, and sky. Mrs. J. N. ANDERSON.