THE TRUTH SPREADING

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 5, 1881

THE TRUTH SPREADING.

A LADY correspondent of the Herald of the Kingdom, writing from Hartford, Conn., says:—

One morning, during my visit in H., Dr. Stone [Baptist] preached on the second coming of the Lord. As there had been no previous notice of it I did not hear it, but was told by some who did that it was an excellent sermon. He remarked at the outset that, while he knew that the subject of the Lord's coming was distasteful to many, partly on account of the position taken by many who profess to be looking for the Lord, their mistakes concerning the time, etc., yet he felt that the subject was one of great importance, and one in which he was deeply interested, and that he must present it to the church. He thought the advent, or return of the Lord as he liked to call it, was near at hand, and he would rejoice to see him. In speaking of the different views of the millennium he said that, without a present, personal Saviour there would be no millennium to him.

I attended the evening service, and shall not soon forget it. After the opening exercises by the pastor, the meeting was left to the church to carry on, and not a moment was left unoccupied. The first one who spoke was a young man, son of a well-known minister in the city, and who is himself preparing for the ministry. He thought they should feel under great obligation to the Adventists for bringing out and keeping the subject of the Lord's coming so prominently before the church; and, notwithstanding all the mistakes they might have made, they were a standing rebuke to other professed Christians, for their indifference to so important a subject. He was followed by the pastor's wife, and quite a number of others, all expressing deep interest in the subject. One brother said he rejoiced that the subject had been brought up. He never heard but one sermon on it before, and had remarked to his wife only a few days before that it was strange that ministers did not preach about the Lord's coming more. He thought the subject of deepest importance, and, next to the thought of a crucified and risen Saviour, that of a coming Saviour was the most precious to him. Quite a young man, who had not been a Christian long, said he wished to live so that he would never be found in any place or doing anything that would cause him to be ashamed if the Lord were to come.