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A TOUR EAST

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 10, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 20.

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A TOUR EAST.

By John H. Waggoner

In the kind providence of God, I was permitted to attend the New York Conference. It was an occasion of many privileges and blessings. Some of the friends in that State I had seen before, but most of them I met for the first time, and our acquaintance was formed under the most happy and pleasant circumstances. There, also, I met, for the first time, Eld. D. T. Taylor, so well known by reputation to all who love the appearing of the Lord. Though the association was brief, it was one for which I shall long feel grateful. The words spoken by Bro. and Sr. White and Bro. Andrews, were heart-searching and instructive; and the lessons imparted to the ministers by their testimonies were well calculated to increase a sense of responsibility in those who are called to carry this holy message.
The evening of the 25th was the occasion of a special favor. While Sr. White was leading in prayer,
“The angel of the Lord came down, And glory shone around.”
It was a solemn time. The humiliating testimony, that we all need converting to the spirit and power of the present truth, has rested with weight on my mind, and my earnest prayer is that I may realize it still more and more. As a professed teacher of present truth, I am far from being satisfied with myself. I have followed my own heart’s ways too much. I have not hungered and thirsted after righteousness as I should.
But if we all need converting anew, how deplorable is the condition of the lukewarm and the careless! and “where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” So near the closing scenes of the Judgment, and yet so nearly asleep—so little realization of the times in which we live and the impending danger. Oh! what a responsibility to be a watchman in these days of peril! yet what a privilege to labor in such a sacred cause—a cause in which all Heaven is interested.
I have never moved out with more trembling than at the present time. I deeply regret that I have ever suffered myself to be bound with burdens that a servant of Christ ought not to bear, and my desire is to be free in the work of the Lord. I look at the wants of the cause, and my own weakness, and I can but cry out, “Who is sufficient for these things?” May I have grace to find my sufficiency in God.
Looking at the past, I see that I have lost much time, and labored to great disadvantage while the enemy has had his chains of darkness thrown around me. Weak and feeble as I am, I still desire to “redeem the time, and rise above the enemy’s cruel devices. Thank God that I feel some courage to take hold of this work with renewed diligence and zeal. Beloved brethren and sisters, all, pray for me.
J. H. WAGGONER.
South Lancaster, Mass., Nov. 1, 1868.