p. 204 | Close of the Volume by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 13, 1870

Close of the Volume.

By Editor

It has been customary to say a closing word as the record of each volume was made complete. It is natural, on such occasions as the close of a volume, the close of a year, or special anniversaries in one's life, that the mind should pause a moment for reflection; that it should take a brief retrospect of the past, and form new resolutions for the future. At the close of the thirty-sixth volume of the REVIEW, what shall be said to its friends and patrons? The event will doubtless suggest many thoughts to their own minds. The REVIEW is the organ of the cause of Seventh-day Adventism. The utmost importance therefore attaches to it, and it should be made a most efficient means in the work. All its friends may exert a great influence in its favor, either in extending its circulation or in furnishing interesting matter for its columns; and all may properly ask themselves whether they have in the past done all they could have done in this respect. We have no fault to find with any. Many have done well, to whom the thanks of all lovers of the truth are due. But cannot all do better in time to come? Is not the time, the occasion, and this means of advancing the truth, worthy of more than ordinary effort, just now, on the part of all interested in the work? All have doubtless read, with great interest, the suggestions of Bro. White in the last REVIEW, in reference to enlarging and otherwise improving the paper at the commencement of the next volume. It is now designed to carry out these improvements at the time specified. Hence, now is the time for every one interested in the prosperity of the REVIEW, to take hold to work in its behalf as never before. As he well remarked, the period of its mission, at longest, is but brief, and it should be the best religious paper in the world. We believe that all its readers will feel like now uniting their efforts to make it such.

The REVIEW is the only paper advocating the third angel's message of Rev. 14, the message that immediately precedes the second appearing of the Son of Man. It alone, therefore, of all the Advent papers published, occupies a consistent position on the Advent question. During the comparatively long period of its publication, how many ignoble theories of men have we seen crushed into their mother dust by the stately tread of Time! Men, groping in blindness, have set time after time for the Lord to appear; they have marked out certain revolutions to transpire at a certain time; they have set up an insignificant personage as the man of sin, the Antichrist, the destined monarch of the world, &c., and have pathetically appealed to Time to prove them correct. But he, as it must seem to them, like a careless, blundering Jehu, has passed right over their daintily-constructed theories, and trodden them out of sight in his onward march. The past history of these interpreters is but an accumulation of misapplied prophecies and demolished theories.

Under no such incubus of multiplied failures does our cause labor. On the contrary, every passing year confirms and strengthens our position. With tenfold more confidence can the great features of present truth be now set forth than they could even a few years ago. Is God giving time that this system may consolidate into a glorious Gibraltar of strength, and that its advocates, disciplined by experience, may go forth like giants in its defense?

And if the REVIEW is indeed giving the true fulfillment of the third message of Rev. 14, and the next event to follow this work is the appearing of the Son of Man on the great white cloud, the fact that we have reached the close of Vol. 36, is a startling one. All these volumes are like so many milestones to show us how far we have come on the last stage of our journey, how far we have progressed in the proclamation of this last message. The work is a short one; how near must we then be to its close! With an earnest purpose, unwearied efforts, and firm faith in God, let us labor on in the brief but great work before us, until truth has accomplished its mission, and the warfare is closed.