God's Word Gives Light
By H. C. Goodrich
UNCLE BEN is a colored man, seventy-six years of age, living at Corozal, ninety miles north of Belize, British Honduras. He was baptized in the sea at that place last week. His name is Benjamin Messiah. His education is very limited. Of his family only one married daughter remains, and all his income is from the cultivation of a little garden. For three years he has been alone in keeping the Sabbath, as he understood it, refusing even to light a fire or bring a pail of water. During the last year we have had some correspondence, and last week I visited him, that his desire for baptism might be gratified. After some conversation, I said, “Well, Uncle Ben, how did you find out about the Sabbath?”—“Four years ago,” he said, “I was reading Matt. 28:1, ‘In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,’—and I noticed for the first time that the first day was not the Sabbath, but was the day after the Sabbath.” “And what did you do then, Uncle Ben?”—“Then I read the commandment, and found that it did not say the seventh day was the Sabbath, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. Then I knew that it is the Sabbath now.” “And what next?”—“I began to read the Bible regularly. Isaiah pronounced a blessing on the man who takes his foot off the Sabbath; and Jesus said, ‘Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.’” “What books or papers did you have to read?” I inquired. “Not a book or a paper, but the blessed old Bible,” said this dear old disciple. Three years ago, Brother Branster, our colored canvasser and colporteur, found Brother Messiah, and asked him if he would like a book which teaches that the coming of Christ is near. “Why,” said Uncle Ben, “the Bible shows that we are living between the sixth and seventh seals.” John 7:17 came to my mind, and I knew that the Spirit of God had found a willing mind. Thousands to-day are finding the Bible so hard to understand, so dark, so mysterious; and the law, like a great cloud of darkness, hangs before them, as did the pillar of cloud before the Egyptians by the Red Sea, because, like them, they are on the wrong side of it. Solomon says, “The commandment is a lamp; and the law is light.” Prov. 6:23. And David, speaking of God’s law, says, “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” Ps. 119:130. Paul said the word of inspiration was intended to make the Christian perfect in word and doctrine, but that the time would come when they would not endure sound doctrine. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; 4:1-4. To-day even the word of the church is accepted in the place of the Word of God; and men who are seeking light are made to accept fables instead of Bible truth. Let us reject every man-made commandment, that the light of God’s Word may be to us as it was to Uncle Ben, a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path. Belize, British Honduras, Central America.