p. 19 | The Former Days by Washington Morse

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 10, 1903

The Former Days

By Washington Morse

For fifty-one years I have taken this most valuable paper [the REVIEW], and I have learned to love it dearly. Fifty-one years ago this month I was with the little company at Ballston Spa, N. Y., where steps were taken to purchase a hand press to print the REVIEW and tracts. At this meeting about seven hundred dollars was raised, and put into the hands of Elder James White, to purchase the press, and locate the office at Rochester, N. Y. The history of the work since then was given in the REVIEW of Jan. 6, 1903.

I with thousands of others experienced the great disappointment of Oct. 22, 1844. No one but those who had that experience can ever know our heartfelt sorrow. Our experience was like that of the disciples of Christ after his crucifixion. But we read, “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. . . . For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” We were the people to whom those words were spoken. The burden of that message was time; that was what all our great men rose up against; that was just what stirred the world; and that is the basis of these messages, as by these prophetic periods we are able to show just when the judgment began. Never did the truths of the first angel’s message shine so clearly to the world as now. O my dear brethren, with such a flood of light as we have, can we doubt that this work is heaven-born?—No, we can not doubt. There is no longer delay. I have no if’s in my faith. There is no uncertainty about this great work. God has led out a people to give these warning messages to this last generation, and some who are now living will witness the glorious appearing of Christ in the clouds of heaven. The time has come when we must show by our works that we are preparing for the hour of temptation just before us. See Rev. 11:1-10.

Sixty years ago this present winter I witnessed the night when the moon seemed turned to blood. Beginning at 10 P. M. everything on earth looked as red as blood. Elder Wm. Miller was giving a course of lectures in the village of Pittsford, Vt. He had finished his lecture, and had gone to his boarding-place, when he was suddenly called out into the street to witness the moon and the earth draped in blood. Presently a young lady who had attended his lectures night after night, but was a great scoffer, came up to Brother Miller; wringing her hands in anguish, she said, “Mr. Miller, will you pray for me?” He exclaimed, “Madam, Christ is not coming down the vaulted skies to-night. But you may know how you will feel when he does come, unless you repent.” She gave her heart to God that night. My dear brethren and sisters, the day is just before us when our cases will come up in the court of heaven, and unless we are free from sin, we shall be eternally lost. Then we shall have no time to repent.

Now we can look back over the events which have occurred in the history of these messages, and as we compare them with the prophecies, we see that they exactly correspond. In 1844 all who came out and accepted the time message were greatly blessed. It was like—yes, it far exceeded—our happy conversion from sin to holiness, and we knew that God set his seal to the preaching of time. The mystery of God is to be finished in our day. In Rev. 10:7 it is said, “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” This angel began to sound in 1844 when the judgment began (see Dan. 7:9, 10), and already we have passed fifty-eight years under its sounding.

As I read of the destruction of our publishing house, I could but say to myself, What do these things mean? May the Lord help us all to learn the lesson that he designed to teach us in this great calamity. WASHINGTON MORSE.