A JOYFUL SERVICE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 21, 1881

A JOYFUL SERVICE.

"What business are you in now?" asked one young man of another.

"I am working for Christ," was the reply.

The friends had met after a brief interval of absence, each to find the other changed.

"An honest, but not a paying, work. You will need to work for the world as well as religion. You always said you meant to be a rich man, an influential man; but you have started wrong for that. Large drafts upon your time, your purse, and the sacrifice of many plans, are demanded by this religion of yours."

"I have started just the right way, my friend, to reach wealth, influence, and all the earthly good I have so foolishly boasted I would have. I have sacrificed nothing, but gained all things. I will try to prove all things."

And the young man did prove it nobly to his friend and to the world. In his business relations, in his intercourse with the world, he stood firmly upon the Rock which he had chosen for his foundation, and many, whose shelter had been early washed away, looked up to his secure dwelling, and built on the same Rock. Religion was his every-day dress, and no Sabbath cloak was needed to cover its soils; for prayer and watchfulness kept it pure day by day. To give as God had prospered him, of wealth, of time, of talent, was a part of his joyful service, and God gave him back in return four-fold.—Sel.