p. 14 | Standing on the Word

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 6, 1906

Standing on the Word

ONE of our little churches in Jamaica had had a minister with them for some weeks. When the time came for him to leave, the people of the village prophesied that the church would not stand alone. But they did stand, and only one or two apostatized. The reason why they stood is shown by what a little boy of the church said. The little fellow—about seven or eight years of age—had a more than ordinarily bright mind. He could argue with people very well for a little fellow, upon the different points of our faith, and consequently people would induce him to do this, for the sake of hearing him. One day he was sent out to the shop by his mother, to make a purchase. Some men standing there began to chide him, saying, “What are you going to do now that the elder is going away? You will have to come back to our church. You will all go to pieces now.” “O, no!” he said. “But you can not stand when the elder goes away; you just came in because you had a white elder up there, and when he goes away, you are going to pieces. Just see if you do not.” The little fellow replied, “We have an old elder that is going to stay with us.” That was news to them, and they wanted to know his name. When they asked him, he said, “It is the Bible.” The brethren and sisters in the church heard about the answer of the child, and it seemed to inspire them; and whenever any of them are tempted to complain because an elder does not come along very often, they remind one another of what the little boy said—that their elder is the Bible.