[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.]
LXIII.
I was brought up a Methodist. I strongly opposed my people who had accepted the Sabbath, and I was honest in my opposition. I looked upon the new faith as a delusion of the devil, so I wanted nothing to do with it. In the summer of 1878 I was cutting wood in Alma, Gratiot County, Mich. One day in June I went to work on the Sabbath as usual. It was an ideal day; the birds were singing; everything seemed to be praising God. I was chopping a very large maple tree. As I struck into its trunk, a voice said, “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” I supposed some one had seen me chopping and thought to have a little sport. I looked around, but could find no one, so returned to work. But I had struck only a blow or two, when the same words were repeated, and with more earnestness. The voice was distinct, yet I could not tell where it came from. Returning to work, I had not struck a half dozen blows when the voice came again, but with very much more force. I searched more diligently, but without finding any one. I sat and began to study the matter. It was getting serious. I presume more Bible went through my head in the next five or ten minutes than had in years before, but that “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” would upset all I could bring in support of the first-day Sabbath.
Then I began to comprehend that it was more than man who was speaking to me. I desired to do right; I was living a good Methodist life; but when I understood that the Lord was speaking, I said, “Lord, if the seventh day is the Sabbath, and You want me to keep it, all right, I will do it.” Such a change came over everything. The birds struck a higher note, the sky took on a deeper blue, the trees a brighter green, and my heart was filled to overflowing. I hardly know how I got home, but when my wife saw me coming, she met me at the gate very much frightened. She was sure I was sick or hurt. After we got into the house, I put my ax and dinner-pail away, and taking a chair, I sat down by the side of my wife, and said, “You can go on as you always have; but as for me, from this time on I keep the seventh day for the Sabbath.” She replied, “I am very glad; for I have kept the last two, but did not dare say anything to you about it.” And this is the way the Sabbath came to FRED J. HALL.
Graysville, Tenn.
LXIV.
AT the age of thirteen I was converted, and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church. I was very happy in the Lord, and kept Sunday strictly, believing it to be the Bible Sabbath. When a young man, I became superintendent of three different Sunday-schools each Sunday. Soon after I was appointed Sunday-school missionary, and while traveling as such, I listened to the reading of the tract, “Who Changed the Sabbath?” I was displeased, but resolved, then and there, that if the tract truly represented the Roman Catholic doctrine on the Sabbath question, I would never keep Sunday again. Procuring a copy, I went to the office of the Catholic bishop of the diocese, where I was permitted to examine authorities quoted. As a result, briefly stated, I had entered that library a Sunday-keeper, but went out a Sabbath-keeper in purpose. I then asked counsel of the superintendent of Sunday-school missions, an aged minister, who said in response, “Let your convictions rest, and don’t act upon them, and in time they will wear off.” I was astonished at his answer, and his inability to prove Sunday sanctity. I then studied encyclopedias on the Sabbath and Sunday question, and finally the catechism of the M. E. Church. But at every effort Sunday sanctity sank lower and lower in the quicksands, while the seventh-day Sabbath appeared founded upon the eternal rock of Bible truth. A. SMITH.
