Raised from Sickness to Service
By S. S. Bartlett
BRO. SMITH: Gratefully would I acknowledge the goodness of my Heavenly Father in sparing my unprofitable life, raising me from a bed of sickness, where for many weeks I had been prostrated, and putting a new song into my mouth, even praise to his holy name. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” Shall I not devote to his service the health and strength which now are mine? God help me thus to do. God give me the earnest resolve, the willing heart and hands, to spend and be spent in the service of my blessed Master who has done so much for me. I realize that for this additional token of his loving kindness my Heavenly Father will require of me a better service than I have hitherto rendered, a deeper consecration of self, a more sacrificing, cross-bearing spirit. Oh! that I may walk worthy of the vocation wherewith I am called; that I may be a humble laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, that when the harvest is ended, and the laborers sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb, I, too, all unworthy as I am, may receive the welcome applause, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” S. S. BARTLETT.
Holly, Mich., Dec. 3, 1868. BRO. L. S. WETHERWAX writes from Waterloo, Iowa: I would wish you to send me Bro. Andrews' revised History of the Sabbath as soon as ready. I left my copy of the first edition of that History of the Sabbath with my friends in hopes it may do some good among them. I am very lonely here at Waterloo, and would be glad to hear from some of our seventh-day friends, and learn their whereabouts and nearest place of meeting. What poor, dry feed for an S. D. Adventist to attend one of the popular churches. I pray the Lord to send a messenger to this place, a man of God, to arouse his children, if he have any in this place. Oh! that their eyes might be opened and their ears unstopped, that they might see and hear and obey the truth as it is in Jesus. How important that we are living Christians, exemplary in all our deportment, so that sinners may be abashed, or stand reproved by our holy walk and godly conversation. Although I am here alone, as it were, yet I am trying to overcome through the blood of the Lamb. The REVIEW is a comforter, companion, and friend. The blessing of the Sabbath outweighs all worldly considerations. Put all the gold of earth in one scale, and the commandments and approbation of God in the other, and these will outweigh all.