TRUTH by Joseph Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 9, 1876

TRUTH

By Joseph Clarke

In a world like this, where error and sin abound, and where false systems of morals are endorsed by chief men, and where oppression and misrule are the common events of the ages, and where paganism and Romanism and Mahometanism and other vile systems of religion have ever deluded and held in subjection the greater part of our race, it seems reasonable to find that the truth has been generally kept in the background, or has been actually trampled under foot.

This indeed is a fact, which history asserts and experience proves, that Truth has been crushed to the earth, while Error has been applauded and honored. Tyrants have deluged the earth with blood, while Truth and Love have fled before the conqueror to deserts and the wilderness and solitary places; and there in the lonely mountain gorge, or the secluded valley, they have sat in sorrowful, subdued resignation, and contemplated their future high and joyous state, or planned some holy enterprise for the good of their friends.

Truth, ever patient and hopeful, has never submitted to Error; she has languished in dungeons and suffered the torments of the rack, and men and devils have ever racked their fertile brains to exterminate her in vain. Subdued she might be, but not conquered. In the fires, her countenance showed no pain nor anger, nor did she recant, but shouted aloud to her persecutors in a voice of warning, to her friends in a voice of encouragement, and to all, in tones of love.

Her most precious words have often been looked upon as sedition and heresy, because her hearers were wicked, and their plans were likely to fail if they listened to the warnings of the faithful monitor whose voice sounded like a trumpet through the earth reproving error and sin.

Politicians, moralists, statesmen and philosophers, poets and sages, warriors and men of peace, old and young,—all have heard her voice. Some applaud her teachings, but neglect to heed them; some deride and mock; some deem it a virtue to be deaf and insensible; others are angry and storm at the sweet messenger of Heaven; while a few, a very few, listen and joyfully obey.

From the time of Cain and Abel, it has been the same old story. Truth, calmly, lovingly, firmly, pleads for the right; Error

doubts, hesitates, opposes, objects, complains, murmurs, suggests compromise, then rebels, and swells with self-esteem and pride. Truth is unmovable and stern in herself; and then with a loving smile she asserts her high-born qualities; with humility she puts forth her reasons and arranges her strong arguments. Error now grows wrathful and declares war. Thus Abel fell before Cain; thus truth has often fallen; but the resurrection morning will restore both. Truth reserves her loudest thunder for the final day of doom. To-day she seems (as she is) a friend, a kind and loving friend, to warn and instruct and reprove; but when the summer is past, she will then condemn, and pass sentence upon, those she once entreated and warned of the coming evil.

Jeremiah warned the king of Israel of impending evils; but his reproofs seemed like the words of an enemy to him, he was so steeped in sin, so habituated to the practice of evil; and good Jeremiah was deemed a traitor, and his words were dreaded and feared, because they were not to the mind and taste of Zedekiah and his nobles.

The laws and statutes of our land are not dreaded or hated by good citizens; but to thieves and murderers nothing is more annoying than the sight of the ministers of the law, or the mention of those laws which condemn them in their ways of sin.

Truth speaks to mortals now in tones of love and pity. She sets forth the rewards of virtue, and the consequences of sin; she speaks with wisdom to all, to abstain from evil, and to practice virtue; she speaks of the errors of the times, and of the sins which we have been guilty of, and of the sins of which we have been participants.

At no time since Adam fell has Truth been more diligent to hunt up the sins of her votaries than now,—now that the judgment is set and the books are opened.

Let us be ready at all times to receive the words of Truth. We need to repent of all sin, whether our sins are civil or political, private or public, individual or social.

JOSEPH CLARKE.