p. 2 | Twenty Years in a Tool Chest

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1916

Twenty Years in a Tool Chest

Some of the most interesting, thrilling, and clearly providential instances are to be found in the experiences of some of our people when they were seeking for a fuller knowledge of God and his special message for this time.

We quote briefly from a letter just received, which illustrates how the Lord hides away his message until those for whom he has hidden it are ready for it, and how he then brings it to them. In this instance the Lord used the REVIEW to bring a knowledge of the truth to one family, and afterward used it again in reclaiming the same persons from discouragement. The REVIEW, in a much larger field, is still working in the same way.

“In 1876 my husband took up a claim in Minnesota. The first year we had but little to read except our Bible, and that was a new book to us before spring. We were ready for the truth then. We talked to our neighbors of what we had read in the Bible, and one woman said we talked like her husband's sister back in Illinois, and told us there was a paper in the bottom of her husband's tool chest which had lain there for twenty years, and asked us if we would like to see it. She said they had not read it, but that his sister sent it over twenty years before. It was the REVIEW.

“We wrote at once to see if the paper was still published. Our letter followed Brother White to Battle Creek, Mich. He sent us enough papers, books, and tracts to establish us in the truth. We kept the next Sabbath. We told the truth everywhere, and others saw it; but the church people asked us to withdraw from the church, but we would not, so they expelled us, saying it was not because we were not Christians, for they expected to meet us in heaven, but if we were allowed to remain we would break up the church. We went back to Michigan to tell our own people the good news, but we did not forget our friends in Minnesota.

“We have had the REVIEW ever since, excepting one year. I was sick and discouraged and let it drop, but a dear sister did not forget me; she sent me her REVIEW. I was reading one she sent me containing one of Brother Thompson's articles on the work of the Holy Spirit, and again the dear REVIEW brought the light of truth to me. What could we do without it! I live eleven miles from the nearest church, eight miles from the nearest Adventist, but I know a number who do not have the REVIEW, and they are mostly sisters whose husbands are not interested. I take nine of our good papers, and the most of them are sent out as soon as read. I am sixty-nine years old. I can't do much, but, thank God, this message is not dependent upon our poor efforts. Praise God for the REVIEW, which to me is next to the Bible and the Testimonies. It is dear to me, and I will do what I can to place it in the families of our dear people who do not take it.

“Yours in the blessed truth, “Mrs. L. J. VAN DOREN.”