An Aged Sabbath-Keeper.
By J. W. McWilliams
While lecturing in Crawford Co., Iowa, I was requested to visit an elderly lady, who keeps the seventh-day Sabbath. I called, and found her agreeable and entertaining, although she is eighty-five years of age. From her lips I received some facts in her history which were very interesting to me, and may prove the same to some of the readers of the REVIEW. She was born in Pennsylvania in the year 1790. Her mother, who was a believer in the Jewish religion, was a witness of the dark day, and considered it an omen of the approach of the Messiah, a fulfillment of Joel 2:30. Her father died when she was but ten years of age, at which time she was separated from her mother and thrown into the hands of strangers. She has no further recollections of her mother. She saw the stars fall in 1833, and was enabled to recognize in these things signs of the near approach of the second advent of our Lord, without having heard the third angel's message. Being brought up under the influence of the Christian faith, she embraced the same; but the impressions received from her mother's teaching in her early life resulted in the conviction that the seventh day was the Sabbath, which she has endeavored to keep for thirty years. She expressed her faith and confidence in God with simplicity, and is now patiently waiting the return of the Bridegroom, whom she thinks she may live to see. The words of our Saviour came forcibly to my mind, “Thou art not far from the kingdom.” Little Sioux, Harrison Co., Iowa.