p. 59 | The “Word Only.”

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 7, 1871

The “Word Only.”

In the International Exhibition of 1862 were two pictures which I shall never forget. The first was called “Waiting for the Verdict.” Standing at the door of a room where a trial was going on, there was a little gathering of people. A woman—oh, what agony was in her look! and a dear little child lying against her asleep; another who looked like the grandmother, holding the youngest child; the grandfather with one hand fallen down between his knees, the other covering his face, from which the big tears were rolling; the dog looking up, and wondering; the elder sister standing against the door, all anxiety. What meant it all? Before the bar in that court of justice, the father was standing, and they were “waiting for the verdict.” There was a second picture. The same people standing at the same place, only one is among them we did not see before. A man is sitting on the bench, his wife with joyful look embracing him; the dog licking his hand; the grandmother with eyes swollen with weeping, only they are tears of joy now, holding up a dear little child for a kiss from the father, who, a few minutes before, had been standing before that bar. Why are they all so changed? Why joy where there was sorrow? happiness where there was misery? A “word only” had done it all. Not guilty. “The acquittal.”

Does not this remind us of a bar before which we must stand—a Judge before whom we must appear? We shall be “Waiting for the Verdict.” The “word only” of Jesus will have power to fix our state forever—“Come,” “Depart.”—Sel.