Pilgrim Standfast

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1875

Pilgrim Standfast.

A STAUNCH old pilgrim he was as ever set out for the celestial city. No persecutions nor allurements of pleasure could turn him aside from the right way. Such a pilgrim was sturdy John Knox, who, when the lords of Queen Mary’s court bade him stop his preaching, giving him but one alternative—“silence or the gallows”—would make answer: “My lords, you are mistaken if you think you can intimidate me by threats to do what conscience and God tell me I never shall do. Be it known to you that it is a matter of no importance to me, when I have finished my work, whether my bones shall bleach in the winds of heaven or rot in the bosom of the earth.”

The same Standfast blood beat strong in the heart of the martyr. Hooper when he went with a firm step to the fatal stake. “I am come hither to end this life,” he said, “because I will not gainsay the truth I have formerly taught you.” And when a pardon from the queen was set before him, he cried out with a determined voice, “If you love my soul, take it away, take it away!” The price of that pardon, he well knew, must be a denial of the faith. So Bishop Latimer, when summoned before “the bloody Mary,” said, “I go willingly to London, to give an account of my faith, as ever I went to any place in my life.” As he rode through Smithfield—that spot which had such a baptism of martyr’s blood—he said: “Smithfield has groaned for me a long time.”

Perhaps it is quite as hard for Standfast to preserve his integrity amid the temptations and pleasures of the world as in the fires of persecution. Where persecution has slain its thousands, worldliness has slain its tens of thousands.

A poor woman in India, who had embraced Christianity, was offered back the jewels and money which had been taken from her, on condition that she would return to her old religion; but she replied: “Oh! no; I would rather be a poor Christian than a rich heathen.”

And still another, Mr. Judson tells us of, one who was very fond of her jewelry, yet desired to follow Christ. When he asked her if she was willing to sacrifice them for his sake, she was for a time disturbed; but at length, taking off the gay necklace, which was her special pride, said, with sweet and touching simplicity, “I love Christ more than this.”

Can we all, when the world holds out its glittering baits to us, lay them aside with the same steadfast spirit, and say with her, “I love Christ more than these”?—Bible Standard.