p. 3 | Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 28, 1909

Editorial

By Editor

SHORTLY after the passing of the time, in 1844, when the early believers in the “blessed hope” expected to see the Lord come, William Miller wrote an address, exhorting to the patience that worketh experience, which in turn worketh the hope that “maketh not ashamed.”

NOR yet had the light come explaining the disappointment, and showing that the cleansing of the sanctuary was the opening of the final phase of Christ’s work in the heavenly sanctuary, and not his second advent. Nor, as yet, had those believers generally begun to throw away their experience in the first and second angels’ messages, and to plunge into the confusion of subsequent time-setting. In his address, adopted by a conference at Low Hampton, N. Y., Dec. 28, 29, 1844, Mr. Miller said:—

We bless God for you, my brethren, that you are all taught of the Lord. Your creed is the Scriptures; your spelling-book is the Bible; your grammar is the Word indicted by the Spirit; your geography respects the promised inheritance of the holy land; your astronomy respects the bright, starry crown of righteousness; your philosophy is the wisdom which cometh down from God; your bond of union is the love and fellowship of the saints; your teacher is the Holy Ghost; and your professor the Lord Jesus Christ; your recitation-room is your closet; your recitations are heard in your prayers, and your songs fill up your vacations. We speak not of rewards, diplomas, and degrees; for these are reserved in heaven for us, when these dusty walls of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, and we are called home into the new heavens and the new earth, to a full fruition of that hope of which we are not ashamed. Ashamed of this hope?—No. Ashamed of looking for this hope?—No. Ashamed of expecting Jesus? Why, what a question is that! . . . We would not yield a hair’s breadth of our expectations for all the honors of Caesar’s household, with all the popular applause of a worldly church. We exhort you, then, by all the love and fellowship of the saints, to hold fast to this hope.

HAD the body of believers heeded this exhortation, and held fast to the foundation of this hope, the sure word of prophecy that fixed forever the beginning of the cleansing of the sanctuary in 1844, they would have walked straight on, with the few who did hold fast, into the glorious light of the third angel’s message which is now soon to close with the coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven. Still,—

“There is a blessed hope, More precious and more bright Than all the joyless mockery The world esteems delight.”