[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
CLXXVIII.
When a young lady I heard of Adventists, and while away from home on a visit I heard one of our strong Methodist preachers prove that the “Millerites” were false teachers. I went home armed with some texts to show to my parents. But, during my absence, Brother I. C. Adrian and others had come to Manchester, N. H., and my parents after hearing them, had become Adventists. They began talking their new ideas to me, and, before I could get in a word of defense, they had used all my texts and a dozen more to prove their position. I could say nothing. Loving and believing my Bible, I soon accepted the light on the near coming of the Lord and the state of the dead.
I had heard of Seventh-day Adventists; for one of them once came to one of our tent meetings (First-day Adventist) and distributed some Sabbath tracts. He gave me one, and I dropped it in the straw at my feet. A sister said to me, as she saw how I despised him and his message, “They are right on the day, if there is any Sabbath in this dispensation.”
Not long after that, about forty-three years ago, Elder Loughborough and Moses Hull came with a tent to Manchester. When informed of the fact, I said, “They may come or go, I will not go across the street to hear them,” and I hurried my preparations to get out of town for an intended visit, taking my little boy with me. The town was wonderfully moved. My friends sent for me to come home, saying, “This is too good for you to miss.” When I arrived, I was immediately invited to hear the new ministers. Not to stay at home alone, or to seem obstinate, I went, but I told them plainly, “You need not expect me to go as wild as the rest of you; and, as for that seventh-day nonsense, I will have none of it.”
Elder Loughborough preached, and opened his sermon by reading the fourth commandment. “Six days shalt thou labor,” he read; “but the seventh day is the Sabbath.” It never sounded to me like that before. He showed us where the days began and how we knew the seventh day when it came, and God never had changed it. I was dumb. Truly there was no Sabbath but the seventh day, and I must keep it. I kept the next Sabbath. The arguments of my first-day friends kept me wavering for some time. First I kept one day, then the other, sometimes both days, or neither; until the sanctuary question was presented. That cleared away all the fog, and settled my mind completely; and it has stayed settled ever since. Praise the Lord.
