A Most Important Season
By H. G. Thurston
Another most important season is just before us; and as the week of prayer draws near, let each inquire what this season means to him, to this people, and to the world. Special church and conference meetings are very important, but does any gathering compare with the yearly season when all the people, from the least to the greatest, devote days to heart searching, repentance, and giving up to God in a special sense, all that they have and are and expect to have and be? Who can estimate the interest of the heavenly host in such a season, and with what joy God counts as his those who, though sinful, still hope in his mercy? Is this a year of victories? Has God’s loving-kindness been revealed in abundant blessings of health— physical and spiritual — and a harvest of good things? Or have you been led through the valley, brought low through affliction or defeat?12 Remember that God bottles your tears of penitence and sorrow. And is not the blessed season just before us a good time to express our praise and gratitude for our hope in God, and to “take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord”? No one can fully appreciate his blessings and duty until he reads the urgent calls from all parts of the world, and recognizes God’s providences in the advancing truth and ripening harvest. To see people accept God’s message for this generation, stirs our hearts as nothing else can; and we have a right to be awakened and happy over these tokens, for they say plainly that the end is near. It may be we question, How long before our Lord returns? The answer depends, to some extent at least, upon the answer to another question,—How long before we shall do our duty? God has declared that Jesus will come “suddenly,” and this is to be proclaimed and kept “before our own churches also, that the day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly,” and no one is to “feel that he is secure from the danger of being surprised.” Surely, in view of such words, now is the time to seek and find God, and, with undivided hearts, reveal our faith by sweet devotion to the Master’s work in giving large and liberal donations that his work may not be hindered. The time demands it. Even the poor can give dimes and dollars, and the rich can give hundreds and thousands of dollars. Thus the hungry can be fed the bread of life, and many thousands of souls, now in the dark corners of earth, will be enlightened during the year to come.