Take the Back Track by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1872

Take the Back Track.

By R. F. Cottrell

If one gets bewildered in a forest, there is one safe way out, provided he can see the tracks by which he came. If he take the back track, it will conduct him to the place whence he started.

If the Christian find himself far away from the path of peace, his only safe course is to remember and retrace his steps. Some wrong steps have been taken, divergent from the path of duty, or some duty neglected, perhaps seemingly small; but the effect has been a wide departure from the right way, clouds and darkness have obscured the sun, and the way is lost. There is but one way out of this darkness, and that is to return by the way you came to the very place where you left the straight path of duty. You cannot by a circuitous course find the right path at an advance from the place where you left it. You must go back to the very spot, and thence proceed, however rough that part of the way may seem to be.

Let that brother or sister that is in darkness call to mind the place where the light was left, God has given us light. But at some point the light was left, and an easier way was chosen; but without the least intention of departing wholly from the truth. The consequence of that false step has been darkness, growing more and more dense; and if this course is pursued, it will end in hopeless night. Brother, sister, return to the light. Go back to the very place where you first diverged from it. Find the narrow path right where you left it; and light and peace and joy will return, and the darkness of which you complain will have passed away.

R. F. COTTRELL.