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Heralds of the Advent

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 19, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 23.

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Heralds of the Advent.

THIS is the glory of the Christian life—to know God's presence by a knowledge that no external circumstances can shake, a knowledge surer than sight. And it is by this that all events of life can be met. Under every disaster, amidst every perplexity, the soul strengthens itself by this. It knows that behind all the darknesses which surround it, infinite love is doing its work. Trouble comes, and we know that it is but the gate of joy. We see the world about us travailing in pain, and we know that these are the birth-pangs of a new and perfect creation. Our plans are crushed, our life-work seems to have been a fruitless and idle thing, but we know that God's strength is sufficient to make good our weakness.
Christ's religion seems to rejoice in showing its power by bringing the brightest light out of the profoundest darkness. Its teaching is, to hope when all seems hopeless. In the words and in the life of Christ, sorrow is made the messenger and forerunner of joy. “Blessed are ye that mourn, for ye shall be comforted!” The coming of the Son of man, that grand consummation of good on earth, is to be heralded by dire calamity. Never has the imagery of the natural world been so grouped with alarms and troubles of the soul, as in Christ's picture of those latter days. “Signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars;” “distress of nations, and perplexity;” “the sea and the waves roaring;” “men's hearts failing them for fear.” And the voice of these signals is to be, “Look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh!” Horror itself is to be but the minister of triumphing, exultant hope!—H. W. Beecher.
How dangerous to defer those momentous reformations which the conscience is solemnly preaching to the heart! If they are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are increasing every month. The mind is receding, degree after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone, till at last it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed in relentlessness and eternal ice.—John Foster.