My only Comfort by H. A. St. John

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 8, 1871

“My only Comfort.”

By H. A. St. John

“THIS is my only comfort since my husband died.” So spake an intelligent lady, a professor of religion too, as she slowly, but nervously, unfolded a handkerchief, disclosing an old pipe, which was soon loaded with tobacco, and the fumes of the filthy, disgusting, and poisonous weed were floating in the air. Comfort, indeed! thought I. Where are we drifting? Was this weighing a husband, the soul of a human being, with a pipe of tobacco, so that when the one was gone, comfort for the loss could be found only in the other? Surely we have fallen upon strange times. The apostle Paul pointed his brethren to the true source of comfort when bereft of friends. It was not, Comfort one another with these pipes. No, no! Far different from this. Please read 1 Thess. 4:13, 18. The true comfort of the Christian in bereavement has been so far perverted by the apostasy that it has degenerated with some to the pipe, and other equally pernicious indulgences. “Lovers of pleasures,” foolish, disgusting, and simple, though they be, “more than lovers of God;” is a characteristic sign of the last days.

Reader, would it not be well for us to examine ourselves upon this point? Do we derive our greatest comfort and pleasure in the service of God, in doing his will, in cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit? or is it in the sinful indulgence of perverted appetites and passions? Guileless in every respect must be those who await the Lord’s return. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

H. A. ST. JOHN.