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Our Experience

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 22, 1870

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 36, No. 23.

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Our Experience.

By R. M. Kilgore

Of the experience of my brother David, (the notice of whose death I have given,) and also ours, it might be well to chronicle a brief sketch.
When the tent was in Washington, where our parents and sisters embraced the truth, David and I were in the army, where we endured hardships, suffered in Southern prisons, and passed through hair-breadth escapes with our lives, untouched by the missiles of the enemy. At its close, we returned and found the family keeping the seventh day for the Sabbath, who, in their zeal and anxiety, rather overdid the matter by talking to us; but managed at last to get me down to Mt. Pleasant, where Bro. Ingraham and B. F. Snook were giving a course of lectures, and where I embraced the third angel's message, which then seemed most clear and beautiful, and made a harmony in the Bible that I had not seen before.
Now it came my turn to labor for my brother. The devil rolled a burden for him upon me. I thought I could make him and everybody else see as I did. Oh, how foolish! I thought I was rich and increased in goods, and had need of nothing; whereas, I was poor, miserable, blind, and naked. I was destitute of all the heavenly graces which I needed before I was fit to labor for others. How many there are, who, when they have first heard the truth, unwisely labor, with a misdirected zeal, for their friends, who will doubtless be turned away from the truth in disgust, by their injudicious course, but who might be reached if their principal labor were directed to getting themselves right, making a change in their daily deportment, and living a holy and exemplary life before them. This would talk more loudly, and be more effectual in bringing about the result which they so much desire to accomplish.
This has been something of our experience in the above case. By our unwise course, together with the powerful influence of the world, his friends, and his love for their approbation, he was kept from looking at the truth with any degree of candor. He afterward joined the United Presbyterian church, subsequent to which he acknowledged, and confessed with deep regret, that it was for the sake of being popular, and that he cared nothing whatever about religion, when he did so. He then began to look at the truth more favorably, and believed many of the truths of the third angel's message.
About two years since, he married a very respectable, but popular, young lady of the U. P. church, who previously had acknowledged the truth on the Sabbath question. From this time, the Lord began to call after them. One reverse after another came—accidents, the loss of property, &c., until disease settled upon him: first rheumatism, then consumption.
About the middle of August last, he decided to go North to regain his health, if possible. Preparations were made, their goods sent to the depot, and they had come as far as father's on their journey, intending to start on the cars in a very few days. By a more severe attack of chills and fever, he was unable to pursue the journey, and began to decline very rapidly. We despaired of his life. A burden of his case rolled upon us, not to talk to him, (unless the way should open before us), but to go to the Lord for help, praying that he might work for him, send conviction, and cause him to humble himself before God, and that he might be wholly converted, and a new heart be given him. We endeavored to take everything out of his way, by confessing our failings in the past. Soon we felt that God was working for him. His mind was restless and troubled. He would frequently say, “Nothing troubles me but my sins;” “God be merciful to me a sinner,” etc. Though others tried to console him with the fact that Christ died for sinners, that he should trust in him, for he was able to save; and if he could save the thief on the cross, he could save him; yet he was troubled, and had no peace of mind.
While watching with him, one night, he asked me to kneel down and pray for him, that his sins might be forgiven. I asked to free my mind before I should pray. We tried to faithfully set before him the scriptural plan of salvation: how our sins could be forgiven and atoned for; that we must realize that we have sinned, and confess and forsake our errors; that Christ did not die to save us in our sins, but from our sins. We exhorted him, in view of the Judgment, when his case should be examined, to look at the law of God and see if there were not some commandment which he was transgressing; and asked him to consider the issue when he should meet God over his broken law. We inquired if he did not think that the fourth commandment would then read just as it does now: “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;” “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” “in it thou shalt not do any work,” etc. We asked what right one had to work on the seventh day, if he should keep the first day of the week. “Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” We told him that we could not pray in faith for God to forgive his sins, while we knew that he was transgressing God's law every week; for “if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Ps. 66:18. These words we felt, as they were spoken in love, and with tears.
Before daylight, while father was watching with him, he broke out in a flood of tears, and confessed that he had been convicted of the truth of the Sabbath for more than a year, and said that if the Lord would spare his life till another seventh day, he would keep it from the heart. It was doubtful whether this could be so; but his mind troubled him no more; he seemed calm and quiet from that time. He expressed his feelings to others, and sorely repented that he had not obeyed the convictions of his own mind; but his proud heart and his best friends had stood in his way.
He wished that Bro. White might come and pray for him, and expressed the desire that he should preach his funeral sermon. Just as the Sabbath drew nigh, he said, “This is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” and told different ones, as they came into the room, the same words. He requested that we should hold our meeting there on the morrow; but on account of his weakness, and the feelings of his dear wife and others, we thought it not best. The Lord spared him, that he might fulfill his vow, and on first-day morning, at 9 A. M., he calmly and resignedly, without a struggle or groan, fell asleep, we trust, in Jesus. We laid him away with some grounds of hope that we, if faithful, should meet him again in the morning of the resurrection.
R. M. KILGORE.
Washington Co., Iowa.