Count Your Mercies by A. S. Hutchins

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 31, 1871

Count Your Mercies.

By A. S. Hutchins

To MORE frequently count the mercies so graciously bestowed upon us by our kind heavenly Parent, would greatly soften, and often quite diminish, the trials, temptations, and afflictions, of life. It would do much to smooth the pathway of life, and to enable us to run with patience and greater success the Christian race. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith,” Temptations to repine under discouragements, would not so frequently intrude into our hearts.

Oh! that with the opening of each new morning, our hearts might awake with responsive songs of praise and gratitude, to the Giver of every good and perfect gift; that they may be tuned each day to his honor and glory; and that in words, and acts of love and kindness to all, we may in some measure reflect a Saviour’s love to the world, as the peaceful waters reflect the gentle beams of the sun.

Oh! that we may be suitably impressed with the “depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” and of his manifold mercies to the children of men.

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Rom. 8:32.

“Count the mercies which have been quietly falling in your history. Down they come, every morning and evening, as angel messengers from the Father of Heaven. Have you lived these years wasting mercies, renewing them every day, and never yet realized whence they came? If you have, Heaven pity you. You have murmured under afflictions; but who heard you rejoice over blessings? Ask the sunbeam, the raindrop, the star, or the queen of the night. What is life but mercy? What are health, strength, friendship, social life? Had each the power of speech, each would say, ‘I am a mercy.’ Perhaps you have never regarded them as such. If not, you have been a poor student of nature and revelation. What is the propriety of stopping to play with a thorn bush, when you may just as well pluck sweet flowers, and eat pleasant fruits?”

A. S. Hutchins.