The Day of Fasting and Prayer.
By Uriah Smith
We call the especial attention of the readers of the REVIEW to the appointment, in another column, by the General Conference Committee, of New Year's day as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. We are happy to express our cordial sympathy with this appointment. We need not repeat the reasons given for this movement in the appointment itself, and in Bro. Waggoner's note in reference thereto. But we are glad to see it, 1. Because this is one of the appointed ways in which the Lord will be inquired of by his people. 2. Because such action is specially enjoined upon the church when the great day of the Lord is near, as it now is. Joel 2:1, 12–17. 3. Because in no better way can we heed our Lord's injunction to his people in view of his coming, to watch. 4. Because the year 1876 is undoubtedly destined to be an eventful one in the fulfillments of prophecy, in the history of our cause, of this nation, and of the world. How better can we enter upon it than by a special act of seeking the Lord. And we pray that this people may be enabled to attain to a greater degree of consecration than has ever hitherto been reached, and then not only maintain it, but build upon it and add to it during the coming year. Let this be a general movement. Will those who receive the paper take especial pains to bring the matter before those who do not take the paper, that all may act unitedly. In this thing let it be said that the whole body of S. D. Adventists moved together. “Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.”