[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.]
LIX.
About the year 1869 Elder R. F. Cottrell, now sleeping, came into the neighborhood where my parents lived, and began a series of Bible lectures upon the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. As a result of the meetings, my mother, a devout Baptist, my father, and several others, began the observance of the seventh day. Altho but four years of age at that time, the power of those meetings still lingers in my memory. There was something about them that touched my childish heart. To see my mother relate her experience, while the tears rolled down her dear face, impressed me that there was something to that message more than mere fancy. As I grew older and liked to be well thought of, the keeping of the Sabbath became irksome. I began to drift toward the world. One day the following attracted my special attention: “And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; . . . and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” I asked my mother what was meant by the “mark of the beast.” She said: “There is considerable to understand about it, but in a few words, it means to keep Sunday, after people have learned from the Bible that the first day of the week is not the true Sabbath.” I believed what she said. This dreadful announcement startled me. I thought the Lord would not threaten such severe punishment unless it was a terrible sin in His sight to do the things He here warned people not to do. From that time I saw a new meaning in keeping the Sabbath. I have since learned of the deeper meanings of Sabbath-keeping, the truth of which came to me in childhood through the faithful teaching of my mother. The path of God’s commandments I find a safe one, which grows brighter and brighter as it nears the perfect day.
T. E. BOWEN.
Rome, N. Y.
LX.
I had been a strict Sunday-keeper, and my wife and I were visiting her brother in New Hampshire. I picked up a little tract and read it. The question was asked, “Why do you keep the first day of the week instead of the seventh, which the Lord commanded thee to keep?” My wife’s brother was a minister; he made some remarks about it, and it passed off. I thought no more of it until the next day, when going home, the thought came into my mind, Why do you keep the first day instead of the seventh day? It stuck to me; I could not get rid of it. As every true Christian should, I went to my Bible to find proof for keeping the first day. I began to read the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew, and it told me that in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, those women came to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ. The Spirit said to me, The Sabbath ended when the first day began. Then I looked through the New Testament and found that the first day is spoken of only eight times, and always called the first day of the week. I then read the fifty-eighth and sixty-sixth chapters of Isaiah, and found that the Sabbath was to be restored and brought over into the new earth; and I chose to let the Lord lead me from that time to this, and He has blessed me with health, and caused me to discard all kinds of flesh, and I drink nothing with my meals when I eat, and have not for many years.
O my friends, the Lord is my strength; yea, He is my life, and I am His forevermore. Amen.
