The Missionary by Charles L. Boyd

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 16, 1882

The Missionary.

By Charles L. Boyd

"Preach Christ."

WE do not always appreciate the help of opposition. Paul says, "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will." The truthfulness of this text is forcibly illustrated in a family who recently embraced the Sabbath here in Washington Territory.

A missionary worker had given them a package of tracts and papers. Being destitute of religious interest they laid the tracts on a shelf at the side of the room. Time passed, and a shepherd of the flock with which this family once had a connection, came to their home. A glance at these tracts and papers called forth the most solemn warning against their perusal. He pronounced them the most dangerous and corrupting literature, unfit even to remain in the house; and desired the privilege, Jehoakim like, of burning it "in the fire that was on the hearth" before him. This privilege was denied. A daughter, a young lady of active mind, said that she had read some of them and thought them good.

The dangers of permitting such literature to be before their child was presented in such glaring colors as to excite the curiosity of the parents, and they determined upon its perusal. They were astonished at the high tone, purity of language, and strength of Scriptural argument in support of the doctrine. They continued to read, weighing all on the scales of the Bible, until they became established in present truth.

This man was "an inveterate tobacco user." He had tried several times to overcome the growing evil, but suffered so severely, both in body and mind, in the struggle, that he had met as many times with an inglorious defeat.

Once more he resolved to make an effort; and this time he looked to God for help. His smoking tobacco was lying on the shelf, and that for chewing was in his pocket. From that time, he says he never tasted tobacco, suffered no incon-venience either in body or mind; and, wonderful as God's works are, has had no craving for it since that time. A family altar was erected, and a neighborhood difficulty, in which he had probably suffered the greater wrong, was settled, and last Sunday, in company with his wife, he followed the Saviour into a watery grave.

My fellow-missionary laborers, do not mourn if some enemy of the truth, with the plowshare turns the soil where with tender hand you have scattered the precious seed.

Some kinds of soil require this kind of tilling. With Paul, let us "glory, whether in pretense, or in truth, Christ is preached," and souls are saved from the wrath to come. CHAS. L. BOYD. Renton, W. T., Oct. 28, 1882.